-30 is the new +20

I know I haven’t written in a while.  I feel like there isn’t much to write about, but then when I sit down I can type for hours.   I figure December 31^st was a good night to catch up.

I’m back for round two.  Arrived December 19^th and am here until January 31^st.  Right before I left, on December 5^th, the sun went below the horizon for the last time, not to be seen again until January 6^th.  It’s called “polar nights” What a sunset it was! I was at work but able to get outside for a bit to get a few photos.  Photos never do sunsets justice so from these colourful shots you can only imagine what it was like in real life, just breathtaking!

Check out this link, courtesy of Jay Millington, of a time lapse of the final sunset.  Keep an eye on the horizon and watch how low the sun sits:

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jZhkQrNmsHM&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DjZhkQrNmsHM

Look at the time of the sunrise/sunset!

I had 10 days at home before  Christmas.  It was silly of me to think I to go back to Vancouver to get a break from the darkness.  The day I arrived it was sunny and the day I left it was sunny but it rained the whole time between.  Sigh.  And of course there was an “arctic front” in Vancouver with record low temperatures.  Sorry folks!  You can’t really bring the weather with you right?!

On the flight back up we stopped in a small town of Norman Wells.  I saw them filming the show “Ice Pilots”.  My dad likes it.  It’s a reality show where they follow Buffalo Airlines.  They fly WWII propeller airplanes throughout the Canadian north.  In one shot you can see the camera man.  What a hellish job that would be, standing outside all day filming.  Egads.

Both the Yellowknife airport and the Inuvik airport have polar bears on display.  A little strange considering polar bears are not seen in either town, but I guess they are a symbol for the Northwest Territories.  In that one display you can see the bear chasing a stuffed seal into the ice.  Seal skin is popular up here, mainly used for gloves and boots.  Very durable.  There was a pair of polar bear mitts at the craft show in December.  I thought polar bears were endangered but that’s not the case, at least in the western Arctic.  They have actually increased the number of tags for hunters.  I’m not sure if it’s a bear you eat, it’s at least used for the fur.  They don’t waste anything in the hunted animals.  I heard they use caribou brains to tan the hides once they are stretched.  People still stretch and tan their own hides.   These little things make me appreciate where I am.  How cool.   I mentioned in a previous blog one of my patients was a trapper and sold to Hudson's Bay.  When I was back in Vancouver I went to the downtown store and there it was - sheared beaver blankets ($4,000), muskrat hats, sealskin gloves.  I guess you don't notice the continued sale of fur until you go look for it.

It is not totally dark up here.  We get about 4 hours of dusk from about 11-3pm each day.  Here is a photo of the nursing residence I am staying in this time, so you can get an idea of the light.  The nursing residence is much better than the hotel from round one.  It’s a fully furnished little apartment with a full kitchen and oven.  Yes!  And I can still see the northern lights from my window.  Nothing like finishing your day with a glass of wine, sitting in the dark watching these ribbons of green dance across the sky.

The darkness is difficult.  I knew it would be.  Add night shifts and -30 Celsius outside (-22F) and it’s damn near impossible to get anything done.  Even with fistfuls of Vitamin D (6-8000 units a day) my body wants to sleep/hibernate.  I say to myself “just one more hour of sleep” an awful lot. Now that my stretch of 4 night shifts are over I’m determined to get to the gym more and get out for those few hours of light more.  Once the sun comes up again in January it will be the never ending sunsets again.  The other locum nurses that are here are finding it hard too.  The dark just makes you inherently reclusive, a little depressed and want to carb load.  We have agreed to help each other get out, socialize, stop by for a drink or dinner.  Anything really – even minus 35 walks!

I have learned -25 degrees Celsius (-13F)  is about my threshold.  Anything below that and you get an outside in brainfreeze, the face hurts (mainly my forehead/bridge of my nose) and it really takes your breath away. It makes the short walk across the parking lot from the hospital to the residences fairly uncomfortable with just a thin cotton layer of scrubs protecting your thighs from the cold. I’m not sure where my brain is but it sure feels like the air is going in one ear and out the other and it aches terribly.  A hat with ear flaps has become mandatory. 

Although I don’t have a car up here, I am learning what NOT to do with your vehicle, such as don’t leave your emergency brake on.  It will freeze and you won’t be able to move your car and it will destroy your brake pads.  Always keep the engine >1/2 full.  Condensation will form in a tank that is more than half empty and freeze and you will get water in your tank.   Who knew!  I’ve never had to know any of this living in Vancouver.

It was my first Christmas away from home and it was harder than I thought.  I worked 4 night shifts straight through the holidays which was probably the best thing for me to do.  Stay distracted.  The hospital had the best Christmas tree I have ever seen.  Someone handmade a banner that said “acute care nurses, cute enough to stop your heart, skilled enough to restart it”.  The nursing hats were all handmade too and there were some creative syringes.  I can take no credit for this, but I thought it was awesome.  I’ve been saying to Logan that I live very close to the North Pole so I could personally pass on to Santa that he has been a great boy this year.  Santa/CEO of the hospital came by on Christmas Eve and I got a photo for Logan.  I guess he studied it pretty carefully.  This guy looks like this at the best of times (sans suit) and it gets kids pretty excited when they see him in the grocery store I guess.  How fun.

My secret santa got me a pretty fabulous gift.  A wine cover that matches my jacket.  Talk about a wine pairing.  So funny!

I’m still braving some new food.  Right before Christmas I had reindeer (that’s right) stew.  I think it was Prancer, not sure, but it was delicious.  Thanks Jay!   I’m a full fledged Arctic Explorer now! Or at least that’s what my certificate says….

The Legion is still a main go to.  I’ve asked to become a member, of the women’s auxillary, but by the time I get approved, it will be time for me to leave! You usually need a family member that has served in the Canadian Forces to become a member.  I listed my grandfathers, great uncles, uncles etc that have served in the US forces and that seemed adequate.  For Christmas they had a big raffle.  You had to be a member to enter so I couldn’t buy tickets but it was fun to watch.  There was 186 single draws of hams, turkeys and “perfume”.  It’s illegal to raffle booze (wink).  It took almost three hours. I just sat and watched people waste their money on pull tabs, they LOVE the pull tabs!

We have something pretty amazing planned for New Years eve that I will save to blog about, and January is going to be action packed starting with the Sunrise Festival Jan 9,10,11.  I’m trying to figure out where my next adventure takes me.  I really want BC but it doesn’t look like there is any opportunity there right now.  I am considering coming back but I have to pay $22/day in rent up here and for the same hourly wage I don’t have to pay rent if I work for the agencies.  The groceries up here are VERY expensive.  I spend about $100 per week which is a lot as a single person.  We’ll see.  Stay tuned. 

INUVIK "Place of Man"

 

Inuvik, meaning "place of man" is Canada's northernmost town.  It has a population of about 3,500 and is on the Mackenzie River, the longest river in Canada.  The Mackenzie flows into the Arctic Ocean 97 kilometers away and the town is 200 kilometers north of the Arctic Circle.  Surprisingly, I am 10 degrees west of Vancouver, although I am in the Alberta time zone. Inuvik was created by the Canadian government in the 1950's to replace a small town called Aklavik that was subject to flooding and offered little room for growth. 

 

 

 

Inuvik is the traditional land of the Inuvailuit, Gwich'in and Metis aboriginals.  The Inuvialuit live further north than any other aboriginal peoples in North America.  They are still firmly attached to living off the land eating and utilizing seals, beluga, caribou, fish, birds and berries.  Their craftwork and beading is remarkable (and expensive) as I discovered at the Christmas Craft Fair at the Community Center.  It's all hand done so worth the money but a pair of beaded mukluks would have cost me $500-700 and pretty useless in wet Vancouver.  Everything up here is remarkably dry.  The snow is light as air and fluffy and makes a distinctive crunching sound when you walk on it.  Inuvik is also home to several hundred Muslims.  The Midnight Sun Mosque made a 4,000 trip from Winnipeg, Manitoba to Inuvik and is known as the "little mosque on the tundra".  It is one of the northernmost mosques in the world.  My friend's partner Greg was the editor on a documentary called "Arctic Mosque" made on the Mosque's journey north.

A youtube trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30ERuUMhkao

 

There is also a distinctive landmark of a Catholic Church in town.  It shares something in common with Paris in that it bears the same official name as Notre Dame: Our Lady of Victory.  It is 75 feet in diameter and the cupula is 20 feet in diameter.  The inside is apparently beautiful and acoustics amazing.  I will check out the Christmas concerts.

 

We are at the end of the Dempster Highway, the only route into town from the south.  Although there are ice roads all around to the communities to the north, when people talk about if the "road is in", they are referring to the Dempster Highway.  It starts in the Yukon Territory and is 736kms to Inuvik.  The road is unique for several reasons.  For one, it sits on a gravel pad up to 8 feet deep to insulate against the permafrost in the soil underneath, otherwise the road would sink into the ground.  There are two main river crossings and in the summer months you use a ferry.  For a month or so in the winter and spring there is an impassible hiatus where it is too icy for the ferry but not icy enough to drive across.  Once it gets cold enough and the ice thick enough you can drive straight across the river and hence the "road is in".  Due to global warming this event is getting later and later.  Apparently typically "road is in" in October or November and here, at the beginning of December the river crossings are still not drivable.  In fact, rumour has it 14+ trucks of mail are stuck at the south end of a ferry crossing and the ferry is stuck in the ice and has been for several weeks now, but the ice is not thick enough to drive across.  No parcels (just letters) have come into town since early November.  I guess Canada Post has finally rerouted these 14+ mail trucks back to Edmonton and is chartering a plane to fly up the parcels.  The town post office is nervous as to where they are going to put all the parcels once they come in, but as it is Christmas time, many in town are getting antsy for their goods to arrive.  Mail is really the only way to get most things up here, including Christmas presents for your kids.  How would they explain about Santa missing them?  He's basically in the backyard!  And as the town is reliant on foods to get driven up from the south, you can't always rely on things like...dairy.  And when it is flown in milk goes up to $14/2L.

 

  

Inuvik has a distinct feature called "utilidors".  They are above ground insulated conduits that carry water and sewage.  There is a whole network of them around town.  They are necessary because the town (as is much of the Northwest Territories) is on permafrost.  Apparently Inuvik has some of the worst conditions for building infrastructure.  All of the buildings and homes are built on pilings drilled through the active layer of the permafrost and into the continuous layer of permafrost beneath.  During the summer when the permafrost thaws the ground can shift and the buildings sway and lean.  And during the winter in the wind, as the houses are built on stilts, you can feel them sway and move with the wind. 

 

Still so far so good with the weather.  The sun will go below the horizon for the last time on December 5th and not rise again until January 6th giving us the aprx 30 polar nights and the noon moon!  I'm back on December 18th so will experience about 3 weeks of total darkness.  The weekend the sun returns is a big party with lots of events and I'm scheduled off so pretty excited about that.  Right now the sun is only up for a few hours (*note the time on the forecast pic) and when it is rising and setting it is beyond beautiful.  The contrast and colour up here is so striking. 

 

 

I'm finally back to work after the eye infection and have done a few fun things.  I've bought a yoga matt and gone to yoga at the community center a few times.  I've spent a few nights at the Legion which is the big thing to do in town.  There is a lot of gambling and draws up here.  There was a $30,000 bingo pot a few weeks back and every Friday at the Legion they have a 50/50 draw where you can win $800 +/- and an ongoing draw called "chase the ace" that involves playing cards.  The pot will continue to go up until the person with the winning ticket draws the ace of spades.  The pot last week was almost $9,000.  Sounds like good enough odds to me that I should have a few beers and buy a few tickets.  I have learned you NEVER wear a hat in the legion.  Toque included.  I came close to having to buy a round for the entire bar.  Sheesh. 

 

I've seen my first case of frostbite.  I said to someone it was the worst case I've ever seen, but realized it was the only case I've ever seen.  It can happen pretty fast.  Apparently the person was only out for an hour or two.  I think the wind... and alcohol made it worse.  And one of my patients was a trapper!  He said he sold mainly to The Hudson's Bay Company.  I can not believe that still exists.  That is so 300 years ago!

 

I have a list of things to do when I come up for round 2, December 19-January 31st.  I need to do the drive on the ice road to Tuktoyaktuk and see a pingo (land formation), go dogsledding and experience the Return of the Sun Festival.  I'm working Christmas and New Years but off for the festival weekend so pretty excited about that.  Stay tuned!

 

Inuvik - A sight for sore eyes

 

My time in Inuvik, NWT hasn’t been without a few hiccups.  Maybe I should have taken it as a sign of things to come when our plane had to spend a few extra hours in Norman Wells, one of our stops on the way up, because the guy sitting in the emergency row saw “a piece of metal fly off the wing” and a “ball of fire” coming out of the right engine when we landed.  Sigh.  Not what you want to hear.  They spent a few hours checking the wing out from the ground and revving the engines up all while we were all still on board which I found curious.  We were finally deemed safe to fly and off we went to land safely in Inuvik.

Now, anyone coming to Inuvik make special note the airport has about a half dozen luggage carts and when the government who I’m working for and is paying for my flight and luggage tells me I can bring up to 200lbs of luggage, well, I brought up nearly 200lbs of luggage.  Once off the plane I stretched my legs, took a bathroom break and got ready to retrieve my 4 pieces of baggage, aprx 50 lbs each – and…no luggage cart.  Sigh.  Ok.  I make a pile and start dragging pieces, un-ergonomic 50 lb rubbermaids included, across the airport 20 feet at a time.  It was quite a feat, and honestly I’m surprised no one helped me.  I finally got outside and no taxis.  Sigh. My luggage orchestra was so time consuming the airport was nearly empty.  Ok, so I call a cab, thank god for cell service.  The airport is a good 20 mins from town so I get my first experience of the cold, not so bad.  I can do this.  I get to the hotel where I am staying for the next six weeks, haul my luggage up the stairs and into the lobby.  In this poorly designed hotel you need to bring your luggage up another flight of stairs to get to the elevator.  Off  I go.  Sweating, tired & cranky, finally I’m at the front desk and give them my reservation number.  “No sorry, we don’t have you on file, this isn’t our reservation number”.  Sigh.  Uh what?  I dropped the names of the people who had booked my travel arrangements at the hospital and got it sorted quickly but he said it was the last room they had with a kitchenette.  Oh thank god.  I got in my expectedly generic room, nested and felt a bit more organized. 

This plane is the coolest weather vane I've ever seen! My hotel is in the background

 

The hotel is 99% full of both hospital staff and patients from the hospital either awaiting care or have received care and are awaiting a flight back to their community.  The hotel is almost directly across the street from the hospital so someone made a wise choice with location.  They have a continental breakfast included and if you want a plain white bagel and/or fruit loops, the lobby at the Nova Inn is your place!  I think I’ll stick to my greek yogurt and gluten free granola, from said damn Rubbermaid.  The laundry is $10 a load (!!), but that includes wash and dry and soap! Lucky me!  The nurses residences  attached to the hospital has free laundry I just need to make friends who are staying there and who will let me in to use the communal laundry room.  These travels make you appreciate what we have at home.   I will never complain about my $1.25 wash load at home again. 

hospital (easy to find in a whiteout?!)

 

The hospital is nice, well organized.  They gave me a great orientation day and then a full set of shifts.  They also gave me a food card so I can eat in the hospital cafeteria for breakfast, lunch and dinner for my six weeks here.  Not that I want to but I could and it’s nice to have the option to have a hot meal on shift.  I’ve done only one delivery in my orientation but I was impressed with the skills and teamwork.  There are policies everywhere which help as new staff and the doctors are young and receptive.  It makes all the difference.

 

The town is about what I expected.  There is one main strip, it’s clean, appears safe.   The liquor store was my first stop and the wine selection is amazing and cheaper than Vancouver.  The guy at the store said there is no “luxury tax” like there is in the city that’s why it’s cheaper.  Don’t care why, I just know I can get a bottle of Burrowing Owl or Beaujolais  and at less than what I do at home and so far I LOVE Inuvik.  I’m on a strictly red diet as the space in my bar fridge is at a premium.   I walked into a convenience store with a gigantic picture of Che Guevara in the window.  The man behind the counter asked where I was from.  I said “Vancouver”, he asked “British Properties?”, I said ”uh no”.  So random.  

 

Northern most traffic light in North America and the only one in town

 

There are two main grocery stores – one is Costco like and the other,  Northmart (which they had in Goose Bay) sells everything from linens, to groceries, to clothes to cheese graters.  Some things are insanely inflated but some things are very reasonable.  There isn’t much rhyme or reason to it.  Meat: expensive.  Two boneless skinless chicken breasts are $18.  Good thing I packed tofu. And I really wish I didn’t like Perrier as much as I do as it’s $4 a bottle .  But you can really find anything here, I probably packed too much food but you never really know what to expect.

 

The coldest it has got so far is about -17 and if dressed right I’ve been ok.  There was one time I went on a long walk sans long johns and couldn’t feel my legs but won’t make that mistake again. And thong underwear, yah that’s pretty useless keeping the ‘ol cheeks warm.  Oops.  A toque (knitted hat to my American family) is a must, gloves and layers.  When it warms to zero it feels down right balmy and I walked today with my jacket open and only a sweater.  It really is a dry cold.  I didn’t want to believe this phenomenon yet  because the only people that said it was a dry cold are people that had never been this far north before.  But really, so far so good with the weather.  I haven’t brought out the big guns of a jacket yet, and have been surviving fine with my North Face puffy down one.  The sun rises about 10am and sets at 3:30 or so but it really doesn’t get dark until 8pm.  The sun looks like it’s about to set most of the day. The first few days I cancelled my plans to walk through the woods because I didn’t think I had enough daylight left.  I had about 5 hours.  The sun takes just forever to go down but it creates the most pretty, soft, low light and shadows you’ve ever seen.  Especially with the sun glowing red against the snow, it’s really breathtaking.  

 

notice the critter tracks across the frozen lake

what animal track is this? Elk?

 

And the latest hiccup.  Sigh.  Pink eye.  And this isn’t just any pink eye.  Firstly it’s eyeS and likely viral as the two antibiotics I’ve been on haven’t touched it.  I’ve had it for a week now, there is no end in sight (pun intended) and needless to say I’m off work.  I go into the ER every 48 hours or so to make sure I have no increased pressure, no ulcers on my cornea that would cause permanent damage, but other than that I just wait.  It’s horribly painful, I’m getting more sensitive to light and my eyes are just gooey in general.  So gross.  I’m on a self-imposed quarantine.  It’s apparently pretty highly contagious so I’ve really come to love my little hotel room.

I ’m trying to stay positive.   I’ve finally finished watching all five seasons of The Wire, I’ve re-dicovered some good music on my ipod because I can’t have my eyes open for more than an hour or two at a time without resting them and I’m finally finishing listening to the Keith Richards autobiography ibook read  by Johhny Depp.  Sometimes I pretend I’m part of the witness relocation program and come up with scenarios that got me here, sometimes I pretend I’m like the Into the Wild guy and wonder what Jon Krakauer would write about me.  It’s amazing what the mind comes up with! I get out for a walk around town or the lake for an hour or two a day to keep my sanity and just keep my eyes down.  I’m pretty sure I look scary.  Oh well.  No more hiccups please!  This sure makes me appreciate “health”.  And as I post this on Remembrance Day, I ‘m cognizant that this really is all just a hiccup and a humble check in and life, this life, is a gift to me.