Northern Legions, Northern Lights, and a $1500 cake

Weather update: clear skies, no moon, beautiful stars and northern lights!

Sunlight count: 6h 37min(Sunrise 11:18 Sunset 17:55)

Temperature: -8 C

Our first weekend in the north was nothing short of epic.

Friday night we kicked things off by paying a trip to the local Legion, what I am told is the most northern legion in the world (?don't quote me on this). Not the first place I thought we would get out to, apparently the curling club is more the place to be on a Friday, but the Legion was hosting a musical tribute to celebrate the life of a community member who recently passed away so we thought we'd check it out with a few locum docs. It was sort of an open mic format but included Leanne Goose, the physician recruiter in Inuvik who is also an amazing musician (http://www.leannegoose.com), and her dad Louie Goose who is a bit of a legend in the north for his >25 year performing music career. They were joined by some absolute characters on stage, as well as in the crowd. Adam was drooling over the Legion paraphernalia modelled by the regulars, which included hats, jackets, and most importantly an embossed leather vest. Oh yeah.

Saturday night was equally interesting, but entirely different. We, and most of the other docs in town, went to a 'Gala' hosted at the Community Recreation Centre, in their gym which doubles as a community hall for any large events. It was an annual fundraiser for the Inuvik daycare, with dinner, dancing, and a silent as well as live auction. We had been warned this was a big-spending event, but the amount they raised in a small town in just a few hours, at an event attended by less than 50 people, blew me away. Guess how much. $5000? $10 000? That would be pretty good right? No, $40 000!!! We were a bit out of our league to say the least. The live auction items were mostly local art, which sold for several hundred to upwards of a thousand dollars apiece, as well as a few random items like a TV, a bag of wood pellets, and a power tool set. Adam and I were almost tempted to bid on a helicopter tour ... except there was no guarantee we could both get time off to make use of the voucher during daylight hours while we are here!

The strangest part of the night was after the buffet dinner, when they auctioned off dessert. This is apparently a tradition where various people in town bake fancy cakes (although a few looked store-bought, albeit delicious), and each table bids on the right to choose first/second/third and so-on. The 'bids' are recognized as a charitable donation, for those interested in tax receipts, and the bidding starts at $100. The first 2 cakes went for $1500 EACH. Our table sat on our hands for a while, aghast, and finally bid at $300 for one of the last choices. Apparently all this is nothing compared to last year, when the first cake went for $6500. Yup there is definitely some money floating around Inuvik.

Overall, it was a bit of an odd scene. People attending were almost exclusively Caucasian, which pretty much guarantees an awkward dance party, and definitely highlighted the income gap in the north. It was great that the event was raising money for a service that benefits the whole town (the daycare), but it felt very 'have' vs 'have-not'-ish. Talking about this with one of the nurses afterwards she described the town as having 3 groups of people (obviously there are some people in between, but in general): 1) the incredibly wealthy established people with stable government jobs (including all the admin jobs at the hospital) or those who own the few successful businesses here; 2) the young and unattached 20-somethings fresh out of school (teachers, nurses, some MDs) who move to the north and immediately make twice what we have any business making at our age in the south, with the intent of paying off loans or saving up for a down-payment on a first house; and 3) the incredibly poor or those on social assistance. There's even a homeless shelter here. An interesting mix in a very small place.

BUT the best part of Saturday night came on the walk home, when we got our first glimpse of the Northern Lights! The Aurora Borealis has an 11 year cycle associated with solar activity, and apparently this winter is supposed to be the peak activity so we were hoping to get some action at SOME point in our 4 months here. I didn't really see much more than a faint green streak in the sky last time I was up here in med school - Inuvik is actually too far north much of the time to get maximal activity (it would be better in Whitehorse or Yellowknife). But when we walked home from the Gala, there was a pretty good green glow going on, so we went in to grab our camera and tripod (carted up in Adam's suitcase for just this reason!) and headed back out to the dark field between the hospital and the residence we are staying in. By the time we made it outside, the lights were incredible! Even some of the permanent docs here said they were the best they had seen. Adam took a ton of incredible photos, but in the cold the camera battery died before the lights got to their best... so we will have to try again to capture the pink in the sky :)