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.