Boots

  Inuvik, Northwest Territories, Canada
Sunday, September 21, 2008

I had to wear my boots to the school today.  Ugh.  It is the Fall Equinox and the snow is falling.  It is quite pretty, but I was hoping to get away with shoes for a few more weeks.  Who knows, though; it may stop yet and melt away. 

It is very white out my upper story window.

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Those are snowflakes.


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Is there anything you would like to know?  Someone asked what a "utilador" was - but I think that's been my only question.  So go ahead - add your questions in the "comments" section OR email them to me if you have that  OR send them via Facebook.

A "utilidor" is a utility corridor.  Because of the permafrost up here there are no underground systems for sewage or gas, etc.  When I lived in Tasiujaq, the houses were built on stilts and the "first floor" was the heating system and a set of tanks for water (both fresh and "other").  The fresh water came from the river and was pumped to a pump house and saved in a cistern.  It was then pumped into a truck and delivered to each house (where it was pumped into a tank).  The sewage was pumped out of your house into a truck and then emptied into a ................ well really just emptied onto the ground.  In Inuvik there is a sewage lagoon - barely a step up from onto the ground to run off.  The houses are raised up but there are no holding tanks.  Instead, there is the utilidor system that works the same as in the South except it is above the ground.  All along the system you can see structures that I believe are for heating -- i.e. so the system doesn't freeze up.  The various pipes are encased in what looks like corrugated aluminum.  They feed into one another and that is why the ones near a house are smaller and the ones in the middle of town are so large that the road has big bumps in it.  In some places the utilidors are high enough off the ground that you can walk under them, but most of the time they are are at shoulder level and they build stiles over them.

This is a utilidor

Utilidors are unique to Inuvik.  The town is only 50 years old.  I don't know if there are any newer villages that considered it and rejected it.  Hmmmm.  I smell a research topic for one of my classes.