Week 13: Goodbye for now

48 hours and 8 airports ago, we said goodbye to Inuvik.  And net +45 degrees Celsius later we are in Hawaii, kicking back to enjoy the elusive sun and 2 weeks of vacation.

Our last week in Inuvik was full of mixed emotions.  We have been looking forward to planning a vacation in Hawaii since moving west to BC. At the same time, we have really grown to feel at home in Inuvik over the past 3 months, and will miss the amazing people we have met there.

Did Inuvik meet all our expectations? I would say: absolutely.  I can admit I had built up the experience in my head after my short month there as a medical student, and I was worried it wouldn't live up to the way I remembered it. I was also worried Adam wouldn't like it! But to have my best friend and partner here with me this time around was incredible. We worked hard, but also made friends, got out in the community, acted and felt both like tourists and locals at times, and gained an infinitely more complex understanding of the north and it's people. We went dogsledding, stood in awe under the Aurora, drove on a frozen river, walked on the arctic ocean, ate reindeer for Christmas dinner, felt the softness of a shorn beaver pelt and the wiry hair of a polar bear, purchased beautiful local crafts, became acclimatized to -30degree weather and wore snow pants to the bar.

Is there anything we left undone? Well, the one thing I missed out on was getting out 'sledding', or snowmobiling. I've never yet been on a snow machine! But this week did give us the gift of one more incredible night of northern lights, the best we'd seen since that first weekend back in November! And this time our camera battery was charged. As we walked back from a late dinner of wings at Shivers on Wednesday night, we noticed the start of some green in the sky above us. We borrowed the keys to the hospital van, rallied the troops (the other residents and a young locum doc here), and drove down the Dempster until the lights of town were behind us. And we were rewarded with this:

Our co-resident and his partner

Moral of the story? It's always a good idea to get wings on a wednesday night at 10pm.

We have been asked a lot this week whether we would consider coming back to work in Inuvik. Would I locum there? Absolutely. I think a few months locuming in Inuvik after our PGY-3 year would help remind us how to practice good generalist medicine, and would be a well-supported environment in which to get back into running family practice clinics. Hopefully our acquired experience with Ultrasound and emergency medicine would also add something to the team in Inuvik as well.

Would we ever sign a longer-term contract there? That's a more difficult question.  On one hand, the medicine in Inuvik is fascinating. The collegiality is unrivalled and the hospital environment is friendly. There is the opportunity to practice, and really become proficient at a much broader scope of medicine than almost anywhere else. There is a sense of adventure to it, and we actually enjoy the town. We have already proven we need very little in our lives to be happy - a few good friends, a fulfilling job, an activity or two to distract from work, maybe a coffee shop and a pub, and each other.  Finally, the salary and benefits the hospital offers it's physicians on a 3-year contract is very, very appealing. 

But there are a few things that I think would be difficult for me to come to terms with about truly living in Inuvik.  For one, it is hard to truly integrate into the community. Southerners always are viewed as outsiders, and for good reason. There is such a transient population in town, the local people must get incredibly tired of the revolving door of people landing in, making their cash, and leaving again.  One longer-term physician here says it took at least 5 years, and having kids involved in the schools and community activities, before she felt like people opened up to her. There is almost an 'ex-pat' feel to the community of southerners we befriended, almost all of whom were working in the hospital and has been living in Inuvik for under 5 years. 

The other thing that has been increasingly bothering me about life in the north is the absolutely enormous carbon footprint of each person living here.  Everything sold here - food, clothing, building materials, household items, really everything except for the odd caribou or fish harvested by the minority of locals who still go out on the land - has been driven or flown thousands of km for our consumption. And then is discarded on the land. Garbage never makes the return trip out, and I can't imagine there is much time for decomposition of the trash during the short summers. Composting is out of the question, and recycling facilities are unavailable. Furthermore, there is no possibility of a real landfill with the permafrost. Years worth of waste is simply piled on the land outside town. I imagine the town dump would be an interesting place to pick through, and would tell the story of the commodification of northern life over the past 50 years. 'Sustainable' living is an oxymoron here. The fact there is a community greenhouse, with small plots available to be planted by families in the summertime, is a nice gesture, but we are long past the days of living off the land.  Even if anyone was interested in giving up today's standard of living and returning to the old way of life, most of the knowledge seems to have been lost. 

Heating homes also takes a ridiculous amount of energy, the production of which is currently reliant on natural gas and propane driven up the Dempster highway.  Everyone in town seems to drive a big truck, which makes some sense in this environment, considering the roads and ice they must navigate, but these gas guzzling machines will be left running in town for hours on end.  Vehicles obviously have block heaters here, because below -20 there is a real risk the car will not start.  But it seems to be the norm to leave the truck idling, keys in the ignition, while the driver runs any kind of errand, or even if the car is parked at home for any length of time between outings.  I had one patient I saw in the emergency room for a minor illness, and after she had been there for over an hour already, between waiting to be seen and waiting on bloodwork to return, she came to ask me how much longer it would be and if she should go turn her car off.  It had been running in the parking lot the whole time. With the price of fuel at $1.75/L you would think the cost would be a deterrent to this wastefulness. But I guess getting into a nice warm car is attractive too?

The whole issue of the sustainability and energy consumption of northern living seems to be a bit of a taboo subject.  The implicit message being: am I suggesting that communities such as Inuvik should cease to exist? That the population should just choose to move south to where it makes more 'sense' to live?  This would be ignoring the fact that while some of us (southerners) can choose to pick up and leave any time we want, for people with roots in the north, this is their home.  Culturally, a strong sense of wellbeing is tied to both the land of their ancestors and to the value placed on family and community.  This is what keeps the soul healthy. But will this always be the case?  The nature of the land is changing, and is expected to do so with disproportionate speed as the globe warms, the permafrost melts and the seas rise.  What will be the impact of this transformation?

Southern living is not necessarily any less environmentally harmful, and on a macro scale it is the industry of the south, which we are all complicit at driving, which is contributing most to the global carbon footprint. And on a personal level, I admit to not always making environmentally conscious decisions. Case in point being the 7 hour flight to Hawaii for pure pleasure that we just took.  But in my day to day, I like to have the choice to try to minimize my impact by buying local, cycling, reducing my consumption and waste, and envisioning a world where someday we do not rely on fossil fuels. And I do have the luxury of choosing where I live.  For the sake of adventure and a good salary, can I justify ignoring these realities?

As for any of the challenges that face the north, there are no easy answers. 

But I will admit that the north has captured our imaginations, and at some point, for however long, I'll bet we will be back. 

Thanks for following along with us! Quyanainni. 

The UNpolar Vortex

Well, this is just all backwards:

More Videos from the Sunrise Festival

Since the video in the last post seemed to work, I thought I would upload the others - it's pretty neat to see and hear the drum dancing!

Audience participation time: who is that awkward white guy?

Here is a peek at the square dance that occurred after the drum dancing - it looked fun but we definitely did not have the skills to take part!  The music is being played by a live band on stage.

And finally, a clip from the Barr and Benjamin concert: 

check out Boyd Benjamin fiddling ...backwards!

Weeks 11 & 12: The Return of the Sun

Weather update: -24 C (-36 C with windchill) with a snowfall warning in effect! They are calling for 5-10 cm... not exactly comparable to the dump the Georgian Bay area has had lately.

And... it's back! The Sunlight count today: 3h 25min (Sunrise 12:23 Sunset 15:48)

The sun rose again in Inuvik January 5th, showing its face for 21 minutes. But due to a couple of cloudy days, and working over lunch, I didn't actually see it until January 13th, when day length was already up to 2h41min! It was nice....

Welcome back Mr. Sun!

To welcome the return of the sun, last weekend was the annual Sunrise Festival in Inuvik. It was apparently being heavily promoted down south this year as a tourist event, with packages for discount airfares for sale through Air North, and there were journalists and news cameras here from all over to cover the story of the festival. Including a young girl from RadioCanada in Montreal! What a cool assignment to get.

Friday night there was a "Taste of Inuvik" dinner in the town gym, with food supplied from restaurants around town including muskox meatballs and char chowder, as well as the classic mayonnaise-laden macaroni salad. After dinner was a performance by the Inuvialuit Drummers and Dancers, a tradition of drumdancing and story telling kept alive by men and women, elders and even one little boy all dressed in traditional outfits.

The Inuvialuit Drummers and Dancers

The amazing little boy dancer

At the end, they got visitors up to dance too - we still counted as visitors, and miraculously, Adam was actually convinced to get up to dance.  The gloves he is wearing are made of moosehide with long tassels on the ends of the fingers to make dramatic waving motions as the men dance.

Adam dancing. This is a keeper.

A peek at how cool the dancers were: (if the video works)

After the drum dancing, there was a good old-time square dance, as well as a jigging contest. Which we were happy to watch from the sidelines. It was awesome to see so many people from the community up and active and proud of their traditions!

Saturday was a full day of activities to welcome the sun. It started with a pancake breakfast at the Legion, free with a donation to the food bank. Then there was a snowmobile parade, with snowmobiles decorated and judged for prizes. There was a small craft fair in the community centre, which I didn't make it to, and a big igloo built on Boot Lake that was serving bannock and hot drinks - an Igloo Cafe!

The Igloo Cafe was at least 8 feet tall - they didn't quite get the snow blocks up to the roof, so the top was covered in a piece of plywood. Still impressive none-the-less since the snow here by the river isn't really the right consistency to build igloo blocks.

The place I spent the most time was at the snow sculpture carving contest in the park out front of the school.  The large bank of snow that had been ploughed from the parking lot had been turned into a makeshift toboggan hill, complete with steps carved into the sides, and kids were having a blast sledding down.

The toboggon hill at Jim Koe park

Scattered around the big christmas tree in the middle of the park, there were 8 big blocks of snow that artists from the community (as well as a few ambitious southerners) signed up to carve. They had about 3 hours on Saturday afternoon to craft their vision, and it was awesome to watch them work! I took a lot of photos... although trying to catch the contrast between carved blocks of white snow on a background of white snow and white cloudy sky was challenging. Unfortunately the sun hid behind the clouds for us again that day!

A southerner, crafting an inukshuk. (It fell over later that night!) He was using a cheese grater to smooth the sides of the blocks. Genius.

A polar bear sculpture

An owl, or "ookpik"

This guy has obviously done this before. 

I spent a long time admiring this sculpture. Joe Nasogaluak is a renowned carver from Tuk. He was apparently asked to make a carving for the recent Prime Minister's visit (more on this later!) but declined because he was too busy. 

The detail of this sculpture was incredible.

An impressive replica of the Igloo Church

You could come by to warm up, or toast marshmallows or S'mores wrapped in tin foil over the fire. It was the hardest I've ever worked for a S'more - took 10 minutes to get it warm enough to melt, and by the time I'd unwrapped it and taken my first bite, the chocolate had frozen solid again. Ha.

Later that evening, we were invited over to one of the physician's houses for chili and fresh baked bread. At 6pm we all walked down the road together for the big community bonfire - a tradition of making the largest fire possible down beside the town dump. It was HUGE. I think all the wood pallets they could find in town were piled in there.

The fire had melted a little lake of snow around it. 

The fire gave off enough heat to stand around for a half hour in the cold and watch the fireworks!

Fireworks in the snow. Kind of a cool effect for the photo!

To top off the night, there was a CBC-sponsored (and recorded!) concert in the Igloo Church - headlined by Barney Bentall (from the 1980s-90s band Barney Bentall and the Legendary Hearts). The opening band I thought was even better - Kevin Barr and Boyd Benjamin, who played the good ol' guitar and fiddle.

Notice anything about the way he is holding his fiddle?!!! I was blown away.

At work, it's been a busy two weeks.  Jan 7th-8th I went on a community clinic visit back to Aklavik again, this time driving there on the Ice Road as opposed to taking the 20 minute flight like I did in December. At the same time, Adam left for a two day visit to Fort McPherson.

This past week, Adam and I both had the opportunity to go back up the ice road to Tuktoyaktuk for three days to do a doctors clinic together. We stayed in a quaint B&B that looked out over the ocean - well, at this time of year, the never-ending white that makes up land and sea on the tundra, but I can imagine it would be really nice in the summer. I guess they do get a few adventurous tourists coming through to check out the 'end of the earth'. It's nice to get paid to go to a place that people spend $2500 (and $200 per person per night) to visit!

Driving on the Arctic Ocean:
The GPS locator on my phone while driving the Ice Road to Tuk

While we were away the first week, someone important dropped into town in Inuvik for a few hours.  Literally, a few hours. Rumour has it he didn't even stay over night, so he must have flown his own plane up since there is only one flight in and out of here a day! Does this guy look familiar?

Our good old friend Stephen Harper paid a last minute visit (i.e. photo-op) to Inuvik

Mr. Harper is all excited about the construction of a gravel road that will run between Inuvik and Tuktoyaktuk and achieve the dream of connecting Canada "sea to sea to sea".  It's a bit of a controversial project here. The 140km road will cost an estimated $300 million dollars, with the federal government contributing $200 million of this and the territory contributing $100 million plus any over-budget costs. The benefits are (according to the government webpage): Increase in tourism (equivalent to creating 22 new jobs); Decreasing costs of living in Tuk (by $1.5 million); creating new jobs to construct and maintain the road (1000 temporary, 70 permanent); and... how is this adding up to the $300 million price tag? Oh right, because of the estimated $385 million in savings for the exploration and development of the Mackenzie Delta rich natural gas reserves and eventual hopeful creation of a pipeline out of here. So it's really all about the gas. A number of people I've met from Tuk are quite excited about the road, hoping it will bring down food prices and create some much-needed jobs. However there is some quieter concern about the environmental and cultural impacts a large scale gas exploration project will have on the community. Just yesterday there was an interesting article in the Globe about the potential energy industry in the north. (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/fracking-and-climate-change-canadas-far-north-gets-an-energy-boost/article16396953/) The first 'fracking' operation has been approved to begin operations in the Mackenzie Delta south of Inuvik in February. I have lots to say about fracking and deep water arctic drilling but I'll leave it at this: it will be a hot issue to watch over the coming years.


We are down to our final week in Inuvik, hard to believe our time is coming to an end! We fly out next Saturday and are looking forward to a 10 day vacation in Hawaii before our next placement in Grand Forks, BC.  Weather in Lihue, Kauai today? 25 C, feels like 33 C. Pretty much the same as here, except, you know, no negatives  :)

Week 10: Ten reasons to get your flu shot

On December 30th, after 5 amazing days when I did not set foot in the hospital, it was time to head back to work. And land ourselves right in the middle of a flu outbreak. Yes, H1N1 is back, and taking over the Inuvik Hospital.

I worked two shifts in the ER last week and both were the busiest 12 hour shifts I have ever had, taking care of really sick people.

I admitted a little 7 month old baby who had a cough and some increased work of breathing. He did fine overnight, but the second night suddenly his O2 sats dropped, his fever went up, and he hadn't had a wet diaper all day. It took us an hour to get an IV into his chubby little hand but finally we (i.e. the anaesthetist I called in) succeeded, and after a chest xray showed bilateral pneumonia we started him on IV fluids and antibiotics. He still got worse, and ended up being flown to Yellowknife the next morning. 2 days later his nasopharyngeal swab came back: positive for Influenza A.

I had another gentleman in his 60s with diabetes, another high risk person for complications from the flu. He had a fever and trouble breathing and was admitted with what looked like a bad pneumonia. On my night shift in the emergency room, he suddenly got much worse and we had to put him on 15L non-rebreather mask (i.e. a LOT of oxygen) to keep his sats in the 90% range. His chest xray showed a near complete left lung whiteout - there was no air going into his left lung. He was puffing like a fish out of water, and I thought I was going to have to intubate him at 4am, by myself in the emerg. I'd even pulled up the RSI drug dosing on my phone while I was waiting for my staff to arrive. He ended up getting a chest tube to drain the fluid that was collecting around his lung from the pneumonia.  His breathing got a bit better, but the fluid never totally drained, and he ended up needing a flight to Edmonton for a CT and possible surgery to crack the chest and clean out the pus from his lung (i.e. VATS decortication for empyema). His swab also returned positive for Influenza A.

So if those two stories aren't enough reason to get your flu shot each year, here are 10 others:
(for those who want to actually see a discussion of the evidence, look here: http://www.bccdc.ca/NR/rdonlyres/C5263063-8A30-4866-A6D7-AF1381C1469A/0/Influenza_prevention_policy_evidence_discussionFINAL.pdf)

#10. It's free. Who doesn't like something that's free?
#9. How cool is it that we can prevent disease? We don't have anything to cure influenza, so you can't just wait to see if you get sick. But it can prevent influenza, in 60-90% of cases. And it takes 2 weeks for your immune system to boost a full response, so for everyone who is scrambling now to get it because you waited to see if there would be an outbreak... better cross your fingers. You should have got it in November when it was first offered! Get it every year, and get it early.
#8. Influenza isn't "the flu" that you thought you had when you stayed home from school puking as your mom fed you jello and flat gingerale.  That was probably enterovirus or some other unpleasant virus but not one that gives you pneumonia and respiratory failure and death. Which is what influenza can do. It's nasty. You don't want to get it.
#7. You especially don't want to get it if you are a kiddie or old or sick. Like my two patients. So if you don't care to protect yourself from the flu, get the vaccine so you don't pass it along to others.
#6. There are people who cannot get the vaccine, like babies under the age of 6 months. But if the 9 people living in the household of the baby I admitted had gotten their flu shots in the fall, maybe he wouldn't have got so sick. (The fact there are 9 people living in the same house is a different matter all together)
#5. Between 3 and 30% of healthy unvaccinated adults get influenza each year, so the risk is real. Your chance of getting into a car crash is about 25% each year, and you will still wear your seatbelt, just in case, right?
#4. An estimated 2000-4000 people die from Influenza and complications annually in Canada. Your lifetime risk is about 1 in 63. Your risk of dying in that car accident is only 1 in 84.  (Just FYI, your risk of dying in a bicycle accident is only 1 in 4919).
#3. This year already, there have been 10 deaths from H1N1 in Alberta, over 300 people admitted to hospital, and 40 requiring ICU care.
#2. It just makes sense. And I can promise the government is not out to kill you with it.
#1. The best reason to get your flu shot? Because Rick Mercer says so.

I also had a brief scare last week with another infectious disease. I admitted a young guy with florid bacterial meningitis. I did the lumbar puncture, and I've never seen fluid flow so fast up the manometer, spilling over the top. It was cloudy and had too many white cells to count.  For about 24hours there was some question of whether it might be Neisseria Meningitidis (meningococcus), since the lab tech thought he saw diplococci on the smear.  I thought I was going to have to take Rifampin as post exposure prophylaxis. We rushed the sample to the airport, to be looked at by the lab in Edmonton. But somehow along the way it got lost in transit, was left at the airport overnight, and only discovered to be missing the next morning.  Luckily, it finally arrived safely at the lab, and when we got the official report back, it was gram negative coccobacilli, confirmed later as Haemophilus influenza. The flu again (but not the viral kind, this is the bacterial kind you get immunized against as a baby - the HiB vaccine).

Between all the craziness at the hospital, we also had some time for some fun last week, including celebrating New Years Eve out at the Legion (where else?) ...

Happy New Years!

We also fit in a potluck dinner with some friends.  To which we brought the much anticipated "Char Tartare" - a recipe Adam dreamed up weeks ago and has been waiting for the right moment to break out.

We bought an arctic char from the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation shop that sells goods on behalf of people in the communities. This fish was apparently from Paulatuk, up on the coast east of Tuk. We bought it whole, and frozen, so we had to gut it and fillet it ourselves. Adam got creative and made half the fish into a 'tartare', kind of a sushi topping for crackers with small chopped up pieces of raw fish along with green apple, ginger, red onion, and a delicious sauce. It was amazing. The other half of the fish we filleted and baked. Also delicious. Kind of like salmon, but better.

The fish

Master Chef at work

Beautiful fillet job

The finished product: "Char Tartare"

For those of you paying attention to dates, yes we do have sun again in Inuvik! The sun rose again January 6th. But it was cloudy, and we couldn't see it. Anticlimactic. I'll snap a photo at the Sunrise Festival here this weekend though!

And lastly,

For everyone in Toronto complaining about the -20 weather. Suck it up. Unless you don't have power, then I'll feel sorry for you.

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....