Water torture

The water and sewage trucks were impressively still in service today despite the fact that it was Easter, and one of the water trucks duly paid a visit to my house. However, it didn't stop for long, which either means that my tank was already full and that consequently there must be a problem with the plumbing, or that it had no water on board and merely stopped to mock me. Either way I still had no running water, and I had to make another trip to the residence as a result. My sink was now full of washing up, so I transferred it all into a couple of bags and made my way into the frozen yonder.

There was a blizzard outside (best place for it if you ask me) but I had to go, and I must have cut a very absurd figure as I struggled through the snow and wind with my bags of dirty cups, plates and cutlery. Had I succumbed to the elements en route, goodness knows what people would have thought when they eventually discovered my body, but fortunately I made it there and back. Hopefully things will change tomorrow, but if not I might consider moving into the residence on a semi-permanent basis until my water supply is restored. I know that there are many worse problems in the world, but this is one aspect of life in a Northern town that I won't miss once I've left.

Oh, happy Easter by the way.

Busy doing nothing

We've been in the throes of a full-on blizzard today, with winds reaching the 100km/h mark at times, and as a result the students' trip to the crater has been postponed until some time after the Easter break. Consequently I didn't need to residence-sit after all, and I've been able to busy myself doing nothing, which to be honest is my favourite way to spend a weekend. I shall be endeavouring to stay up for the Australian Grand Prix later tonight (technically early tomorrow), and the caffeine drip will be hooked up nearer the time in an effort to avoid last night's fiasco when my attempt to watch the qualifying session ended up in an unplanned night's sleep on the sofa.

In the meantime I have the women's world curling championships to keep me occupied, and as I write Canada and Scotland are fighting for a place in tomorrow's final, which means that respective skips Jennifer Jones and Eve Muirhead will be onscreen for the next three hours or so. Not sure who's winning at the moment, but it's immaterial; whoever emerges victorious, all is suddenly right with the world.

Hurry hard!

Grounded

Big.

Huge.

Blizzard.

I'm still in Kangiqsujuaq. Full-on blizzard all day today so no flights anywhere. Had to go to the airport nonetheless as flights are rarely cancelled until the last minute up here, and the drive there was a very interesting experience. Roland was at the wheel and quite how he got us there I will never know; you literally could not see five feet in front of you for much of the journey.

I'm now booked on a flight for tomorrow which will get me to Kuujjuaq, but I'm then only on standby to Montreal and there are six people ahead of me on the waiting list, so I look like facing an overnight stop somewhere in Nunavik's capital-in-waiting. However, maybe the weather will mean that some other people won't make their connecting flights tomorrow, and this might sneak me on board; we shall have to wait and see.

Until then I remain hunkered down in Kangiqsujuaq, and with the wind still howling and my house still shaking I'm beginning to wonder if we'll actually fly tomorrow morning at all. But let's not go there, unless 'there' is actually home, in which case then we will go, thank you.

More news tomorrow (maybe)...

Snow day!

The week just keeps getting better!

We were forecast to have a blizzard both yesterday and today, and although it never really materialized we still got today off; the wind may not have arrived but the snow most certainly did! Never in my entire time in the North - or, for that matter, in my entire life - have I ever seen so much snow fall in a 24 hour period.

There's meant to be a phone tree in place in case the school is ever closed, but it didn't work this morning, which is understandable as trees don't grow this far north. Consequently I tried to get into school, but the snow at the back of my house was literally up to my waist! Having extricated myself I then saw a colleague of mine who had just found out that there was no school, so it was back home for an unexpected day off, which of course I filled with important work of a school-related nature.

Not.

Trick or treat?

Huge blizzard here this weekend (why do they always happen at weekends?), and as a result Halloween was moved to Friday night instead of Saturday. The whole Halloween experience is very well organised here, with the town's municipality deciding precisely when trick or treating will take place; it was going to be between the hours of 6 and 8 pm on Saturday, but the blizzard forecast meant that proceedings were moved to Friday instead.

Halloween was never that big a deal when I was growing up - we had Guy Fawkes instead - and trick or treating was always regarded as an American thing that we only ever saw in reruns of It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. However, as with all things American it slowly pervaded British society, and I think it's safe to say that trick or treating has long since replaced 'penny for the Guy' as the preferred form of institutionalised begging back in the UK.

My supplies of candy did not last long on Friday night, and consequently an empty-handed latecomer played the trick of disconnecting my cable TV by uncoupling the connection that feeds my house. Needless to say I was not best pleased but the problem was soon resolved, and if I am still here next year I will make sure that I am more prepared, either by having more candy or by hiring somebody to stand guard over my cable box.

Enjoy your November!

Walk out to winter

Well, I think it's safe to say that our winter is now well and truly here to stay. It snowed all day Friday, and we had a bit of a blizzard yesterday, making it virtually impossible to see the mountain/hill that I climbed only last weekend. To be honest, I don't really mind it once the snow is thick on the ground; what I don't like is the transition period when it snows one day and rains the next, turning the town into a slushy grey mess, but it looks like our transition period has been a short one this year.

I hosted a potluck evening at my house yesterday; despite the weather there was a good turnout, and thanks to everyone's efforts we had an obscene amount of wonderful food to enjoy. The only thing that didn't really get eaten was my Spaghetti Bolognese, but Tupperware and freezers are wonderful things and I now have plenty of leftovers to enjoy at my leisure. It's Thanksgiving Day tomorrow so I should be eating turkey, but I think that some of the Spag Bol could be getting an outing, unless I decide to defrost another slab of 'mystery meat' instead.

Choices, choices.

A sight for saw eyes

Whilst nowhere near 100% I'm still here, so you can call off the search parties. I stayed at home yesterday, but a few hours of daytime TV convinced me of the need to return to work today. In actual fact, the cable service went down for a few hours during the day, maybe due to the high winds that gave us a weather warning for a brief period; winds like that in the winter are going to give us some spectacular blizzard days!

As I said, I still don't feel too well, but being a typical guy I haven't yet paid a visit to the nursing station. Whether I have H1N1 I'm not sure - it could be R2D2 or C3P0 for all I know - but I guess I ought to get checked out if I don't feel better soon. We have a ped day on Friday and this, coupled with the Labour Day holiday on Monday, at least gives me a long weekend in which to recover; a story I heard today also made me realise that perhaps I should show a little more resolution.

The council are laying new water pipes in the street where our friends, the Beatties, live, and as they were leaving the house yesterday morning one of the workmen was attempting to cut a pipe with a circular saw. I say 'attempting,' because the saw proceeded to bounce off the pipe and cut into the poor man's face and neck, narrowly missing his jugular but leaving a huge gash from the nose down. A bag of frozen peas quickly appeared to act as a cold compress - I think this was actually the reason for their invention - and once the ambulance arrived the Beatties made their various ways to work. When the first of the Beatties got home at the end of the day there were still workmen attending to the pipes, and guess what? One of them was sporting an impressive display of stitches from his nose down to his neck.

They breed them tough in Canada.

Calming down

I now feel a little calmer following my vitriolic outburst yesterday - sometimes it's good to get things off your chest, such as hair if you're an Olympic swimmer - and I am currently content in the knowledge that today is the last working Friday of the school year. I shall just give you a moment to digest that fact....

Next Friday is a ped day, and the following Friday (May 8th) will see me catching my flight home, weather permitting. I add this meteorological proviso because, after our relatively tropical start to the week, we actually had a blizzard warning in place today, although nothing actually came of it in the end. Once we're into May there should be no such problems, but you never know.

In the meantime, I've been relaxing this afternoon by revisiting Grow Cube. This game was introduced to me some time ago (thanks, Sally), but there are plenty of variants once you've cracked the original. Try it here; in a couple of hours from now you'll wonder where the time went!

Live free or bliz-zard

Yet another blizzard swept its way through town today, shutting down the school in the afternoon and forcing the competitors in the Ivakkak to remain camped out some 65km into their 500km journey. Now, a blizzard day (or half-day) normally gives one the chance to kick back and relax at home without the need to go into work. However, one's ability to relax in said manner is severely compromised when the sewage tank is full.

Let me explain.

All the dwellings here have their water delivered by truck, and conversely the sewage tank is emptied and its contents taken away by another truck. Service is normally daily, but when the weather is bad such services either slow down or grind to a halt, and it can take days for everything to get back into sync again. In every house there is a panel of lights that indicates whether your tanks are full or empty, and my 'sewage full' light has now been on for the last two days. Now, this light acts a little like the fuel light on the dashboard of your car in that it serves as a warning, but it's warning me that my tank is almost full as opposed to the tank in my car being almost empty.

Once the sewage tank is actually full the water supply cuts of automatically, and then you are in real trouble. Until then you are playing a game of Russian roulette with your water, and each decision becomes critical. Dare I flush the toilet? Can I wash up the plates? Could I sneak a shower? Any one of these actions could tip the balance and cost you your water supply, and with the wind still blowing hard outside, what are normally everyday tasks become matters of great internal debate. Add into the mix that I share my water and sewage tanks with the apartment downstairs, where Pierre will probably be going through the same decision making processes, and life becomes very interesting.

So at the moment I sit with a toilet unflushed, a sink full of plates that remain unwashed and if I take a shower the water will have to remain in the tub until the light goes out.

It's times like these I'm glad I don't have a sense of smell.

Bliz-zard with a vengeance

As I write, Inukjuak is in semi-lockdown as a blizzard sweeps through town. The start of the Ivakkak was postponed and school was closed this afternoon, giving us the other half of the blizzard day that I mentioned in the last post. My house guest, Gail, managed to get her flight out of town, but I think she must have only just made it as I doubt there is anything able to fly now, other than the odd plastic bag, candy wrapper or old lady that I can see swirling past my window. Things are meant to subside during the night so we might be back to normal tomorrow, but there is always the chance that school might be closed in in the morning, so we can but pray.

Pray for school to be open of course; I'm nothing if not professional!

It's all happening!

Sorry for the lack of updates over the last week - pure laziness on my behalf, I'm afraid. Just as in Dog River, there's not been a lot going on of late, although that is all about to change, as I will explain shortly. Just to fill you in though, we sort of got the blizzard that I was writing about in the last post - we had the morning off, so I guess it was a 'half blizzard day' (or a 'bliz day', or a 'zard day', depending on your preference) - and, much to my surprise, my keys were found! The locks on my apartment building have now all been changed (they were going to be changed anyway - it's not my fault, officer!) so it's a bit of a moot point, but it's nice to have them back.

Now, as I was saying before I rudely interrupted myself, it's going to be a busy week in town. Firstly, my students sat their TOEFL exam today, which was a surprise to both them and myself as Gail, who comes up from Montreal to administer the test, wasn't meant to be coming until next week, or so we thought. Anyway, at least the exam is over and done with now, and the fact that Gail is staying with me tonight has made me do all the cleaning that I've been putting off for weeks. Oh, and whilst I was cleaning, I discovered that my apartment is so small that I can vacuum the entire place without having to unplug the vacuum cleaner (or hoover, to you Brits) even once. Remarkable.

Gail is having to stay with me tonight as the hotel in town is full (yes, we have a hotel here, and it'll only cost you $250 a night to stay there if you come and visit), and this fact brings me on to the second and third things that are happening in town this week. Firstly - or should that really be 'secondly' as we already had a 'firstly' in the previous paragraph - the Makivik Corporation has its annual general meeting in town this week, so there are many dignitaries and other persons of import in town at the moment. Makivik basically runs everything in the North, so to have its AGM here is quite prestigious for the town.

Finally, and probably most interestingly (is that a word?), tomorrow marks the start of the Ivakkak dog sled race, which this year leaves from Inukjuak. The Ivakkak is an annual (although there wasn't one in 2008) race for Inuit dogsledders, which follows a varying but always challenging route across Nunavik. There are thirteen teams entered this year, including two from Inukjuak, and the race can take anything from two to three weeks to complete, depending on the weather; you will be able to follow their progress on the Ivakkak website. We shall be going to see the teams off tomorrow morning, and I'll try to post some photos in the next day or two.

OK, that's all from me for today; I need to finish my house cleaning!

It's all about perspective

We had a first aid course at school today, and as a result I am now 100% confident in my ability to perform CPR on any limbless dummies that might be involved in accidents over the coming months. In all seriousness though, it was a very good course and a cruel irony that it was delivered on the day that Natasha Richardson died after a seemingly innocuous fall on a Canadian ski slope.

Her tragic demise is just the kind of episode that ought to put all of one's own troubles into some sort of perspective, but what actually happens is that deep down you end up thinking 'thank God that wasn't me' and then feel dreadfully guilty about having such thoughts, thus adding to those problems that should now be in that perspective we were just talking about.

Or is that just me?

On a lighter note, it looks like we might get another blizzard tomorrow, and I've spent much of the evening performing a ritual that will be very familiar to all those that work in the North. It's the one where you are constantly at the window checking on the elements, praying for snow to accompany the wind and hoping that the storm doesn't blow itself out before morning. The next few hours will be critical, but if the blizzard doesn't come then I suppose I shouldn't be complaining too much, especially after last week's five day weekend.

It's all about perspective.

Five day weekend

Towards the end of February I lamented about the unchanging weather and hoped that March would bring us our first blizzards of the year...

...they're here!

We've had worse in the past, but as I write I can just about make out the house across the street (and it's not a very wide street), whilst the (fool)hardy souls that are actually outside very soon fade from sight, as if devoured by some all-powerful white mist; imagine Field Of Dreams, but substitute snow for corn and you'll get the picture. I've still not located my keys, but I've had some spares made up, and if I lost the originals outside, well.....there's no hope of finding them now!

We also have a ped day tomorrow, and when you couple this with the fact that I was off sick yesterday, it's like having a snow and spew induced March break (OK, I didn't actually spew yesterday, but I like the alliteration back there so indulge me).

So how does one use such unexpected time off? Enroll in that online Masters course, possibly? Finish reading that book on the Zen of seal hunting perhaps? Finally get round to sorting out that mountain of unpaid bills? Maybe I could give the apartment a good clean? Or how about putting in some microwave popcorn and catching up with all those episodes of CSI New York, NCIS and Bones that I've recorded and haven't watched yet?

I'll let you decide...

Farewell to February

Today's been the coldest day of the year so far: -32°C, which comes to -49°C with windchill. I had to take my glove off to open the door of the school this afternoon as the latch was stuck, and my hand almost adhered itself to the door handle; door handles really shouldn't be made of metal up here.

Despite its deficiency in the days department, February felt like it would never end, and I shall not be mourning its passing this weekend. The weather has steadfastly refused to change, and whilst crisp, white tundra and bright blue skies make for great photo opportunities, the lack of variety does tend to make the days merge into each other after a while. We need a good blizzard to shake things up a little, and March is traditionally a month when the winds can pick up as the temperatures start to rise a little.

So, here's to the month of March: may it bring blizzards-a-plenty.

A week is a long time...

In the words of Gary Glitter - probably not the best role model for a teacher, I know - 'Hello, Hello, I'm Back Again!' I've been very neglectful of the blog this past week, and I promise to do better in future!

Well, what's been happening in the past week? We had Halloween and the prerequisite party last weekend, I invited friends over and actually cooked for them this weekend - I'll just give you a few moments to take that in - and in between times there was an historic, era-defining election that you may have heard about, the result of which installed a vibrant, 47 year old into power with the largest victory at the polls in nigh on a decade..

So, with that election in mind, I'd like to congratulate Mr John Key on becoming the new prime minister of New Zealand, and I wish him every success in guiding his country through the tough times ahead.

We are currently in the grips of a 'severe wind warning' here (fnarr, fnarr!), but with no snow at the moment there's no prospect of a blizzard, which is just as well considering we have the next two days off. Monday is a pedagogical day, or 'Ped Day' for short - our equivalent of a training day - so whilst it's not really a holiday we have no students in, and Tuesday is the holiday to mark the anniversary of the James Bay Agreement, an auspicious date in the history of Northern Canada.

Consequently, I should have plenty of time for new postings this week, assuming that there are no lawsuits filed following the digestion of the pizzas I made for my guests on Saturday, so tune in again soon to catch up on the wacky shenanigans that go on up here in Arctic Fun Land!

(S)no(w) day

Two of the most popular words for those who work in the North are "blizzard forecast", especially when they are followed by two even more popular words, "snow day." Well, we had the first two words yesterday, but unfortunately they weren't followed by the second two today, much to everyone's disappointment.

Winter has most certainly arrived though and, reluctantly, the Canada Goose has finally had to come out of its metaphorical mothballs; does anyone actually use mothballs any more? Other than male moths? Who knows? Who cares?

Happy Halloween.