Week 9: Ice Road Truckers

Weather update: -30C, with windchill to -40C according to Environment Canada. (The thermometer on our truck yesterday read -38C at one point!)

Still no sun. Daylight from about 11:30am to 4:30pm.

This week's story: Driving the Ice Road from Inuvik to Tuktoyaktuk!

Yesterday we rented a white beast of a Chevvy Suburban from a local car rental agency, and took it for a spin out on the Ice Road on the Mackenzie River. (Not literally, we were very safe drivers!)  It's a 187km drive from Inuvik to Tuktoyaktuk, and takes about 3 hours each way.  Which may sound a bit tedious for a day-trip, but I'd like to point out that Frommer's, the travel blog, does actually recommend this trip as one of the "Best things to do in Canada!"  http://www.frommers.com/micro/2011/the-very-best-of-canada/drive-the-ice-road-from-inuvik-to-tuktoyaktuk.html

They list 12 activities by month: this is the 'March' recommended activity, when there is considerably more light and less negatives on the thermometer than the dying end of December. And this blog entry does have an interesting way of selling the trip, telling you to "enjoy the bleak surroundings that seem to go on forever."  (That's usually not a good thing?!)

Regardless, we somehow decided this was a good idea.  And given the time of year, we were lucky to have a clear day with no blowing snow, allowing us to make it up and back safely. The temperature was only a mild deterrent to getting out of the truck - we came back with over 100 photos on our camera, proving we did brave the fresh outdoor air! Don't worry, I won't post them all. But here are a select few to help tell the story:

We left just before 'dawn', and headed up-river.

As the sun 'rose' towards the horizon, the sky turned amazingly orange in the south, and stayed that way for the next 4 hours!

The sky is still orange, but now we've left the trees behind.

Facing north, the sky was more purple and pink.

The ice had frozen quite clear at some points on the road, and we got out to take a closer look. It was a little like walking on the glass floor of the CN tower. Not the most comforting feeling!

After 3 hours of driving, we finally reached the town of Tuktoyaktuk, or 'Tuk' - those tiny specs of houses on the horizon there. To the right is tundra, (very flat treeless snow-covered land), and to the left is the Beaufort Sea, part of the Arctic Ocean (very flat treeless snow-covered ice).  You couldn't see the sea ice edge in the ocean, it was white far into the horizon.

Tuk is a town of just under a thousand people, the largest community north of Inuvik. It is traditionally an Inuvialuit whaling camp, although the people also hunt land animals such as Caribou. The name 'Tuktoyaktuk' means "looks like a caribou" in Inuvialuktun.  It is known for having a unique community freezer dug over 30 feet into the Permafrost, and we managed to find someone with a key for it to let us down to take a look!

The entrance was essentially a little outhouse-style shed, with a trap door in the floor. A ladder reached down the 3x3ft shaft of the Community Freezer. This photo is actually from the bottom looking back up.

Descending the ladder! It was dark and smelled like we were heading into a fish market with no ventilation. Which, I guess in a way we were. People traditionally used the freezer to store their fish and game harvest when times were good, and it would be shared with the other families or stored for times of hunger. Being below the permafrost, things stay frozen all year round, preserving the meat even in the summer.

Reaching the bottom, 30 feet underground, we found a network of three hallways, each about 5 feet high and 4 feet wide, with 19 little rooms with wooden doors carved into the sides of the tunnel walls. It was dark, but our headlamps provided more than enough light to look around. And it was actually much warmer down below the ground than outside!

The walls of the tunnels were fascinating - you can see the beautiful horizontal striations formed by the mud and ice of the permafrost. I was surprised - it all seemed to be made of frozen water more than actual dirt! The upper walls and ceiling were covered in crystals, which just shimmered in the light. It was incredible. Well worth the drive for that alone.

Before heading back on the road, we stopped at the local Northern store (such a staple in these Northern communities) to get a hot chocolate, use the bathroom, and fill up on gas - at $1.75/L.

The only other thing to do in Tuk was to stop by the health centre of course! Neither of us have done a doctors clinic there yet, although we have a loose promise that we may both get to go up for the clinic later in January. We got a tour from the friendly nurse on call there, who is from New Zealand! We had spoken to her about patients on the phone many times, and it was nice to finally meet her and see the centre.

One more 'tourist' landmark of Tuktoyaktuk is to go see the Pingos.  Pingos are large hills rising out of the flat tundra, formed by water flowing below the permafrost in old lake beds, freezing and thereby lifting the land up each winter. Apparently the largest Pingo is 16 stories high, and growing at a rate of 2cm a year. We decided it was a little to cold to hike a Pingo, but took photos from afar.

And of course, our friend Sarah (a med student here) and I had to take the obligatory 'jumping-in-the-sunset' photo!

As the sun set, we headed back to our beautiful beast of a Suburban, and down the Ice road, this time in the dark!  I couldn't help thinking - if you spun around on the ice road in the dark, you would have no idea which way to start driving again. Things look the same on both sides of the road! Thank God, there was no spinning, and we arrived safely back to Inuvik before 7pm. The only damage was a tiny speck of red peeling frostbite I discovered on the tip of my nose this morning!

Back to work tomorrow...

Fun Fact: Season 2 of "Ice Road Truckers", the History Channel reality show about truck drivers in Northern Canada and Alaska, took place on this Ice Road between Inuvik and Tuktoyaktuk. 

Holiday Update

In follow-up from last week's story about Christmas Tree hunting, I had to share this photo of a sign I saw in Northmart on Christmas eve:

Glad we cut down our own. It's "Real" too! And not shipped up 2000km from the south on a truck...

Aren't you impressed by the cases of tangerine oranges behind the sign though? Didn't quite catch the price on those.

We've had a very relaxing couple of days off of work this week, taking full advantage of the time to sleep in, read, watch movies and World Junior hockey, have dinner with friends, and most of all, leave the pager at home!  But today we planned a little adventure, and drove the ice road up to Tuktoyaktuk, on the Arctic Ocean, and back.  Photos and full story to come... stay tuned!

Lastly, it's time to share some exciting news we received on December 18th - a little early Christmas gift for us both! Adam and I both matched to the Emergency Medicine (CCFP-EM) one year program in Thunder Bay, through the Northern Ontario School of Medicine. We are excited to be continuing our education (Grade 23?) and to be moving back to Ontario at the end of June, 2014. Although the recruiters here in Inuvik are a little disappointed :)

Happy Holidays from Inuvik - note the temperature.... 

Christmas Celebrations

I love Christmas.

This whole month has felt very festive here in Inuvik, something about the snow and the Christmas lights up around town getting 20hrs of display time a day....

And there's been lots to keep us busy.

There was a community Christmas concert at the Igloo church last weekend that was a mix of a school concert and a small-town church choir performance - the expected varying quality of voices but good fun had by all! It went on for about 2 hours... also reminiscent of school Christmas concerts in days gone by, but it was really amazing to see so many people from all parts of the community (and surrounding communities even) gather in one place. My favourite part was that the middle-aged lady who was emceeing the night broke up the performances by telling stories of her past as the next group set up.  She told of her earliest Christmas memories, growing up on the land outside of the fishing village of Tsiigehtchic, her mother working all fall to sew new mitts and parkas for the family for Christmas, and all the families in the area coming to the town for the Christmas Eve mass at the church, where all the women would parade their new parkas in like a fashion show. She also talked of a Christmas a few years later, by which time all the families were settled in the town, when the Salvation Army air-dropped a box of toys from a plane flying overhead, to give to the children of the village for Christmas.  It was like a peek back into the not-too-distant history of our land. Can you even call it history when people are still living out the consequences, good and bad, of those times?

The Christmas Concert at the Igloo Church

It's also been feeling a lot like Christmas having packages and cards arrive in our mailboxes every few days from amazing family and friends! One day we had three packages all arrive at once ... full of food and decorations, enough to cover our kitchen table with a festive spread! Also, Adam had ordered moccasins from a lady at the craft fair but had to have them specially made as she didn't have his size. So she mailed them up to him, and they arrived on the same day as the care packages! Amazing belated birthday treat for him. They are incredibly soft beaver fur with moosehide bottoms - you can see them in the top left of the photo:

Table full of Christmas gifts, all arrived on the same day!

But it's not really Christmas without a Christmas tree, and this being our first Christmas away from home, we were so excited when a few of the docs here offered to take us out Christmas tree hunting! We headed out in their car on a -35C Saturday afternoon, down the highway away from town.  Eventually we pulled off to the side of the road, got out of the car and tramped through the snow into the bush.  Apparently as long as you go more than 50m from the road, cutting down trees is fair game.  All the trees here are black spuce, which are pretty spindly at the best of times, and we are pretty close to the northern limit of their habitat, so the pickings were fairly slim if you wanted a tall tree.  But we found a perfect little baby tree that looked much more proportional, and could be safely smuggled into our little residence apartment.  (I'm betting this little four-footer is still over 50 years old - we will count the rings when we take it down!)

Adam and Robin cutting down our tree

Three saw-strokes later... got it!

Christmas tree!

Putting it on the car

Feeling festive, and very frosty

Our little Christmas tree in our living room - thank you for all the gifts and cards!!!

We are lucky to have the next 5 days off of work, and will be trying to stay out of the hospital as much as possible. Our next adventure, we hope, will be taking the Ice Road (which has just opened) on the Mackenzie River up to Tuktoyaktuk... stay tuned!

Afternoon on the Ice Road on the Mackenzie River

(Cars actually do drive on this - it's an official NWT highway!)

Merry Christmas!

May Peace, Love, Joy, and Hope be yours this season and always.

Week 8: Happy Solstice!

Saturday December 21st was the 'shortest day' of the year. 

But it felt like the longest.

Friday evening, I was at home alone after work while Adam finished a shift in the Emergency room (ER shifts here are 12 hours - 8am to 8pm and 8pm to 8am). Just before 8pm, as I was debating heading to the gym, my pager went off. I was on OB call again last week - 7 straight days of being on-call for any pregnant women in labour or needing an assessment. It had been a quiet week, so I was due for some excitement.  

I called over to the ward, where I was told that there was a women coming in from the airport, and "delivering in the ambulance!"  I raced out the door, full-on sprint mode across the parking lot to the hospital. Where the ambulance was waiting, but no patient. We figured out that there had been a miscommunication - a pregnant patient was flying in from one of the communities, and the pilot had radioed in that she was "delivering" - the ambulance was to meet her at the airport. They would be arriving in 10 minutes.  The paramedics figured that it would be a good idea to have a doc ride with them, and by then my staff had arrived as well, so we grabbed a delivery tray, a neonatal resuscitation bag, and both jumped in the ambulance as well, having no idea what we'd find when we arrived - one patient? two?   After an amazingly bumpy 15 minute ride flying down the dirt highway to the airport, we drove out onto the tarmac where the plane was just opening its doors. Our patient walked out, holding her still-pregnant belly, thank goodness. Sure enough, she was in labour, but not exactly imminently delivering.  The pilot could have probably had a better choice of words! She was a young multiparous lady (not her first baby) and was at term (past 37 weeks), who had gone to the community health centre in the morning with some tightenings. She didn't seem to be too far along yet, so it was decided she could manage the 30minute scheduled flight out to Inuvik that afternoon.  Unfortunately, her contractions picked up about half way here while in the air, making the flight crew a bit uncomfortable and prompting the panicked ambulance call!

We brought her back to hospital, and she had a lovely easy delivery of a healthy (9lb!) boy at about 1:30am.  By the time I finished my paperwork, it was 3am. I headed home, only to discover that in my panicked race to the hospital earlier, I had forgotten my keys to the residence! Adam was fast asleep by that point and couldn't hear his phone vibrate (why does he always keep it on silent?!)... So I spent a few hours attempting to sleep on the couch in the doctors lounge of the hospital. Around 6am, another lady in labour came into hospital, and I had my second delivery in 12 hours around 1pm. 

It was a long day. But as I walked home from the hospital at 2pm, after almost 30 consecutive hours of work, this is the beautiful solstice sky that I was treated to!  

Solstice sky over the Western Arctic Visitors Centre

Looking northeast over frosty trees

Solstice sun, just below the southern horizon.

So the story has a happy ending. Two healthy babies, a beautiful sky, and I got to sleep from 2:30-7:30pm...  before I had to go back to the hospital for my 8pm night shift in the ER! 

I am looking forward to a vacation....

Weeks 6 & 7: Long Winter Nights and Mad Dog Bites

This is a bit of a late post this week, but I do have a few stories I've been saving up to share.

First, a weather update:

Sunlight count: There is none. Well, no official Sunrise or Sunset since December 4th. But we do get some dusky light and occasional amazing pinks and oranges across the clouds from about noon to 4pm.  The sun will rise again January 5th 2014 at 13:50h!

Temperature: All over the place. As I write this, it is -32C with the windchill making it feel like -43C. Only 5 days ago it was -1C, but with winds gusting up to 77km/hr!

Braving the 77km/hr winds on the way home from the Northern Store.

Last week I went on my second community visit, this time to Aklavik for two days. Aklavik is a community of about 600 people located about a 20 minute flight south west of Inuvik. In the winter, it is connected by an Ice Road - which just officially opened for traffic this morning!

The Cessna C-208 Grand Caravan - a single turboprop engine plane that seats 10. This is a real Limo compared to the little 4-seater plane Adam flew in last month to Aklavik.

Located on the Peel Channel, a major waterway in the Mackenzie Delta, and on good trapping routes, Aklavik became a centre for trading and transportation in the area early in the 20th century. A Hudson's Bay trading post opened in 1912, and it was the home base for government operations in the northwestern arctic until the 1950s, when the town flooded one too many times - apparently there is a bad flood about once every 10 years, but even on a good year everything gets a little soggy when the Peel overflows its banks in the spring. The government decided to move its operations, including the residential school, to Inuvik, and expected the community to in essence, "shut down" - people would either follow the government jobs to Inuvik, or fade back out onto the land. That didn't happen. Although the community shrank considerably, it persisted. The official motto of the town is "Never Say Die." Seriously.

The Aklavik Health Centre

We ran a busy clinic at the health centre, but had a chance to unwind and swap stories with the nurses over hot coffee, homemade soups and bannock for lunch.

A last peak at the sun out the window of the health centre at lunch on December 3rd. There were boys out playing road hockey behind this shed all afternoon, in -25C temperatures. So very Canadian. 

As we chatted over lunch, one of the nurses mentioned that there had been two dog bites in the community the previous week.  The physician I was travelling with is the public health officer for the region, whose responsibility it is to track infectious diseases and public health risks, one of which, of particular concern here, is Rabies.  She asked whether they had identified and tied up the dog to observe. The nurse admitted that she just found out this morning that the dog had been shot by its owner.

"Oh no," she said, all distraught. "Oh I hope they didn't shoot it in the head! I bet they shot it in the head. Oh no."

Now to me, shooting a dog that has just bitten two children doesn't sound like the craziest of things to have taken place in the north. Why would she care just where exactly the dog was shot?

Apparently, the standard procedure after a dog bite is to tie the dog up, watch it for 10 days, and if it doesn't exhibit any abnormal behaviours then the person can avoid taking the rabies shots. However, if the dog has been shot, then the head needs to be cut off, sent to Yellowknife, where the brain will be examined, intact, and tested for rabies.  Otherwise, if the rabies status of the dog is unknown, the bite victim needs to take a series of four rabies vaccinations over 2 weeks, not the nicest of interventions to receive.

So, this story gets better. Warning: gruesome details ahead. It turns out that the body of this dog has been taken to the town dump. Someone needs to go retrieve the body, cut off the head (which it turns out, thankfully hasn't been blown to bits), put it in a bucket, and send it to Yellowknife on the plane. This doesn't really fit into anyone's job description, but one of the nurses gets voluntold for the task.  That evening we find out that the dog's head was too large to fit in the bucket, so she had to wrap it in a garbage bag. When she called down to the lab in Yellowknife, she was told it had to be transported in the bucket, and so she should go ahead and "cut off the face of the dog to make it fit."  Which (good for her), she refused to do. They sent up a bigger bucket the next day. How incredibly disgusting.

Farewell to Aklavik

I've really enjoyed getting to see the surrounding communities on these clinic visits. As residents, we only get to accompany the docs on the shorter flights to the close communities, but there are several settlements north of here on the arctic ocean that I would love to visit some day. I took care of a patient from Sachs Harbour, which is a tiny Inuvialuit (Inuit) hamlet of about 100 people on the southwest coast of Banks Island. It is the most northerly community in the Northwest Territories. My patient was an elderly lady in her 80s, admitted with a pneumonia, and was accompanied to Inuvik by her great-grandson, who was an incredibly inspiring young man. The night I met them, he was wearing a Western sweatshirt! It had been given to him by a friend, he had never actually been to Ontario, but when I asked him about it we began chatting about his life. 

He was in his early twenties, and had been raised by his great-grandmother almost from birth - he called her 'Mom'. He proudly showed me the beautiful sealskin gloves and kamiks (boots) that she had sewn for him, and described how her own wolf-skin kamiks were made from the first wolf he ever 'harvested' (such a nice term for hunting they use here!).  She had obviously passed on her love of the land and traditional knowledge to this boy and he was passionate about it. He couldn't wait to get her out of hospital so they could share a meal of "real food" - they were having caribou for dinner the night I discharged her. Try telling an Inuvialuit elder who you think might be aspirating (not swallowing well i.e. choking on her solid foods) that she should stay on a "thickened fluids and pureed" diet... not a chance!  

When they left, the boy gave me a hat with a polar bear print and "Sachs Harbour" written on it, as a thank you for caring for his Mom. It was really touching. And inspiring to see a young man staying not only out of trouble with alcohol but remaining in touch with the traditional way of life, trapping, hunting, and eating mostly off the land - the only things they buy at the store in the winter are sugar, flour, tea and salt! Hopefully someday I might be lucky enough to get the chance to see his community.

Circumpolar map - with the North Pole in the centre. This is on the floor at the Inuvik Airport. Circumpolar map - with the North Pole in the centre. This is on the floor at the Inuvik Airport.

Week 5: Dogsledding!

Sunlight Count: 1h 58min (Sunrise 12:45  Sunset 14:43)

Temperature:  -18 C

This week's highlight was all about Dogsledding!  We splurged and treated ourselves to an early Christmas present with a dogsledding tour through Arctic Chalet, a well-established tourist company here in Inuvik (http://www.whitehuskies.com/).  It was an awesome afternoon. We had a beautiful clear day to show off the 2 hour sunrise/sunset, and it wasn't even that cold... only 18 below!

Words can't describe this classic northern experience, so I'll take you through the day in photos:

Arriving at Arctic Chalet

Adam, getting his groove on with the Mukluks we borrowed.
Notice the bear skin on the wall behind him...

Setting out with the dogs. We each had our own sled and dog team, and learned to 'Mush'!

Adam 'mushing' his team. This was before he tipped over his sled. Don't worry, he only injured his pride.

Sledding together! We could switch back and forth between the two trails by telling the dogs "CHEE" for right and "CHAW" for left. Sometimes they listened.

On the bush trails

Adam on the lake. With sweet sweet wolf-skin gloves (borrowed).

No words for this. It was beautiful.

After the run we got to meet the puppies! They have 2 litters of new husky pups, 5 and 6 weeks old.

They were the absolute cutest.

Even Adam looks like a dog lover here. 

Awwwww....

Best sign ever. And speaking of peeing, the funniest part of the day was when the dogs would try to pee while running, hopping along on 3 legs and spraying all the other dogs as it went. Amazing.  

The all-white huskies were beautiful. In a four-dog team the two lead dogs are typically smaller, often female, and smarter, and then the two rear dogs (called "wheel" dogs) are the big dumb males who just like to run. My dogs were named Nanuk, Maki, Gumboot, and Duke.

When we got back after about an hour and a half on the run, the dogs weren't even a little bit tired. And we had them running at a good speed! (Guessing up to 30km/hr? I didn't think to have my 'ski tracks' app on.... haha) You can tell they are built to do this all day, and it's not hard to imagine how this became such an important mode of transportation for the people traditionally. Really neat to experience it ourselves! Maybe next time I have $3000 and a week's vacation, I'll sign up for the 6-day camping/dogsled tour this company runs between Inuvik and Tuktoyaktuk.... :)