Yellowknife to Inuvik

  Inuvik, Northwest Territories, Canada
Saturday, August 23, 2008

Saturday morning I had a choice of McDonald's or Timmy's.  I went for the egg and cheese at McD's which was across the parking lot from a Superstore.  On the way back I stopped in and checked out prices.  The red peppers were the SAME price as at home.  Dang!  I bought a box of frozen veggie burgers, a humous and flatbread snack pack, a frozen entree, and a bag of baby carrots.  Once I shopped in Inuvik I was wishing I had bought more -- everything was at least twice the price.  I left the hotel and made it back to the airport with a little time to spare.  This time I only had to pay $50 for my extra bags (I paid $100 in Nanaimo).  I was told to choose two of my bags as the plane was full and the third might make it the next day.  I also had to repack the three hand pieces to make it look like two.

This was not a direct flight as there was a stop in Norman Wells.  The pilot announced that the temperature in Inuvik was 6 degrees.  What?!  Now I wished I had put the lining into my jacket.  We had a chance to get off the plane in Norman Wells and I took it.  It looked like most Northern villages.  The airport was nice and new and I walked about until I had seen everything twice.  I still had 10 minutes to kill.  I wasn't sure how to get back on the plane and approached a woman with a baby.  Her name was Tara and she is a teacher at the high school in Inuvik.  Go figure!  Her husband Chris was on the plane and he taught at the elementary school.  When we landed, Chris was helpful in organizing a cab.  I was thrilled that all three of my bags arrived together.  While waiting for the cab, Chris spotted a vehicle he recognized and went to check it out.  It turned out to be Gayle - the Assistant Superintendent of the Beaufort Delta Education Council (BDEC).  She was thinking some teachers might be arriving and there were two others on my flight.  Dan will be teaching Grade 5 and Neil is the new Alternate Ed. teacher.  Together we piled our earthly belongings into the truck and took the long ride into town.  I heard the trip is usually $28 so we all saved  a bit AND got a grand tour.  She showed us the river, the schools, where you can go cross-country skiing; we stopped at the Rec Centre and I ran in and got us each a schedule; she pointed out the three grocery stores, the Visitor's Centre, and the famous Iglu church.  She didn't know where Tununk Place was, but we drove around until she found my soon to be new home.  Back at the Capital Suites she helped us load more rolling luggage carts and we got ourselves settled into our respective rooms.  Dan is 26 and wiry and a good thing as I can't lift heavy stuff and Neil is 63.  I was surprised he was 63 and Dan told me he didn't think either of us was as old as we were.  I think that's a compliment!

I put my frozen stuff in the freezer and started unpacking as I will be here for 9 days.  We agreed to get together for a look around town and made our first stop the grocery store.  I was thrilled that I found a sale on spaghetti sauce.  It was regularly $15 on for $9 and that turned out to be supper.  I also picked up cheese, a cabbage, and day old bread for 99 cents a loaf!  We dumped off our purchases and headed for the Visitor's Centre.  Dan found a guy named William carving soapstone and found where he could buy some stone as he had brought all his carving tools with him.  You never know about people.  The Centre had historical info, a cool map taken from the perspective of the North, lots of brochures, and ads for boat trips down the Mackenzie and plane trips to Tuktoyaktuk.  There were lots of tourists in the Centre (and we keep running into new ones all over town) and one couple kept staring at Dan.  He's a friendly guy so he introduced himself and asked where they were from.  Get a load of this - they were from Haifa and Dan was born in Jerusalem. 

We came back "home" and I unpacked and put away the rest of my stuff.  I started making a spaghetti dinner and Dan made bread.  The guy makes his own bread!  It was delicious!  Neil brought fruit cups for dessert but we didn't have time as we had an appointment for a tour of the Iglu Church.

Iglu Church

1-Iglu Church

Baptismal Font

It is shaped like an igloo and was built in 1958 without any blueprints.  After the tour with Michelle (who gave great info on where to hike and to pick berries) we went for a walk around town.  We went down to the water, checked out my new apartment building, and then hit the liquor store.  The prices in the store are the same as down South!  However, Neil said the beer is marked up 50%.  We traipsed around and ended up getting muddy shoes so tomorrow I switch to my hiking boots.  Back at the hotel we ate the fruit cups and called it a night.

Iglu Church close up

Alter