Brain Freeze

So I've had my first 'wind brain freeze'! As I'm sure most people have experienced, when you drink an icy cold drink too quickly you get a sudden 'brain freeze'. Well, this is the exact same feeling but from simply walking in the wind. You're walking along and the wind hitting your forehead causes a sudden painful 'brain freeze'! Now I guess this is what would be expected when the temperature outside is -39C and with the wind it feels like -54C!!! The arctic wind brain freeze..lol.

My colleague from work all bundled up on her way home for lunch

I had another first today, as well. I get into the office and start to warm up and then I receive a phone call. It is my colleague from work and she is trapped inside her house! Very similar to the phrase 'I've fallen and I can't get up.." well this is the arctic "I'm stuck and I can't get out.."!! So I reassure her and tell her I'm on my way and start to run through some of the possibilities of why her door might be blocked (e.g., snow blown up against the door, ice in the doorframe, lock frozen, etc) and I start collecting shovel, ice scraper, lock deicer to see which item will do the trick. I get to her house and I can see her from the window trying to push the door open from the inside with no luck. The door doesn't have snow blown up against it keeping it from opening, so must be frozen shut. Yes- doors here can FREEZE shut so that you're unable to open them! Apparently a hair dryer serves the double purpose of thawing your door frame so you can get out of your house!! Good thing I finally decided to invest in a hair dryer after 30 years (figured natural hair drying wasn't such a good thing in the frozen arctic..lol). So, knowing that the door was likely frozen shut the only option was to try and push it in from outside and I proceed to throw myself against the door and with a sudden bang, the door jerks open and I see a very greatful colleague. The doorframe was covered in ice and the door had simply frozen over. To the point that we were unable to close the door again as there was too much ice in the doorframe, so we had to leave her house with the door slightly ajar!  Randall became quite the master at manually 'de-icing' the doorframe with his 'ice machete' (i.e., a long flat kitchen knife) when we were having problems with the door freezing over. 

Ice that built up in the doorframe overnight

Randall chipping away the ice in the doorframe

Home Sweet Home

Seeing as Google came into the community last year with a special bicycle to capture the street view in Cambridge Bay, I have been able to find a picture of our house here to show everyone.

As you can see it is a one-level home and the bottom of the house has a skirt covering the "stilts" the house sits on as houses here are not built directly on the land as the heat from the house would melt the permafrost.  You can also see the bay behind the house as we have a quick walk to the shore (hopefully this will be nice in summer). Right now we see people that drive their snowmobiles & cars out onto the frozen bay to go ice fishing or even the occasional kite skier (will post photo shortly). Still waiting to see those elusive northern lights over the bay!

The Sun Returns!

After waiting over a month to see the actual sun again, I was thrilled to see the beautiful sunrise this morning around 11:30am. I ran out of the house and down to the bay to capture the sunrise and right at the same moment I saw a woman taking her three huskies out for a run on the frozen bay. Everybody is very excited to see the sun again this week!

Water and Sewage Tanks

We had an interesting learning experience today that involved the water and sewage tanks at the house. All the houses in the community have fuel, water and sewage tanks attached to the houses and there are municipal service trucks that come around and fill/vacuum out the tanks.

Water truck delivery

Now, how exactly one knows they are getting close to emptying these tanks, I don't know but I ended up learning the hard way today. I noticed that when I turned the tap on or flushed the toilet there was a strange noise the water was making as it was coming out and I thought to myself, god I hope this doesn't mean we're getting low on water. Sure enough, not 20 minutes later I see the warning light on the water tank turn on- NO!!!! Suddenly all the things I still needed to do with water over the weekend started flashing through my head: this is not good! I saw all the trucks making their rounds in the neighbourhood and I prayed they'd stop at my house, but I think maybe because I am new in town they didn't remember to fill up my tank. Thankfully, though, I called the dispatch number and I was able to get the truck to come back and I tell you I've never been so happy to see a water truck in my life- now I can go and have a shower!

Typical house 

The other interesting thing about water and sewage tanks is that there seems to be some connection that when the sewage truck comes by and takes away your sewage, the house suddenly becomes permeated with the smell of sewage! Not a pleasant odour! The trick I've been told to handle this issue is that as soon as you hear the sewage truck coming through you run to turn on your taps and flush your toilet and this helps to alleviate the smell of sewage in the house.

Oh and then add to this the fact that the water itself at a given time of year smells like fish! Apparently the lake where they draw the water from isn't always aerated, so the water can take on a fishy smell. This happened the other day when having finished a load of laundry I went to put it into the dryer and noticed that all my clothes smelled like fish! You just have to laugh!

Christmas in Cambridge Bay

We spent our first Christmas in Cambridge Bay this year and while we didn't have many presents (most were in the moving boxes that haven't yet arrived), we still managed to get in the Christmas spirit and we had a nice dinner (although not on Christmas Day as I hadn't realized that a turkey needed to thaw for a few days BEFORE cooking)! lol..

Christmas dinner- Nicolas waiting for his turkey!

Carving of the turkey

We spent the next few days walking around town and visiting friends that had stayed in town over the break. Nicolas especially had fun visiting and making a gigantic mess of lego in our friend's house. We then went to watch the fireworks on New Year's Eve on the frozen bay- they were impressive!

Walking with Daddy

All bundled up

New Years Eve Fireworks on the Bay

Iqaluit, Nunavut

I went out to Iqaluit for work and it was quite an enjoyable trip as it was more like a small city (they even had a Tim Hortons in Inuktitut)! The landscape has more hills than Cambridge Bay and there was an excellent view of the community from the top of the hill. Just as in Cambridge Bay, people get around in cars and on snowmobiles, although here they seem to take great pleasure in trying to run down people on the icy streets (pedestrians don't seem to have the right of way).

Iqaluit

Coffee!!

No snowmobile & ATV parking allowed…

I also managed to visit St. Jude's Church which is in the shape of an igloo and the museum in town which has a number of gorgeous carvings. 

St Jude's Church, Iqaluit

Iqaluit Museum

Iqaluit Carving (Fisherwoman)

The view from the plane between Yellowknife and Iqaluit was really quite impressive as we saw the different types of land we were crossing. We even got a good glimpse of the sun!

Community

As we began to settle in we started to explore the community a bit more and enjoyed seeing the different types of houses and especially the 'arctic twilight' view over the bay.

As we got closer to Christmas there were several houses that were even decorated with Christmas lights. One particular house was decked out from top to bottom with even the dog houses and car decorated.

We even saw a bunch of kids playing hockey outside on the street one day when it was well below -40 with the windchill and we couldn't even understand how they managed to keep playing in such cold weather (but I guess when you're running around it helps to keep you warm).  Even Tetue has adapted to the weather and doesn't mind going out for short walks now. I suppose we too will begin to adapt and won't mind the cold so much anymore (although I do have to admit that touching cold metal doorknobs with bare hands is still extremely painful)!

Boiling Water in Freezing Air

Of course we had to try the experiment of throwing boiling water into the cold air (this particular day was around -35C) to see if the water would freeze. As you can see in the video below it did indeed freeze into ice particles and came down in showers of thin ice..lol..

First Week

New family portrait

The first few days in the community were full of discovering new things and finding out how to break out of our frozen door! The temperature has been quite cold (-30C and with the windchill more like -40s) and so we have been becoming accustomed to wearing all our winter clothes, even ski masks & goggles. Nicolas of course has a fit every time we bring out his boots, snowpants and jacket. It was only after about the first week that we felt comfortable taking Nicolas out without his bundled up stroller which was so warm that he fell asleep in it each time we went out.

Nicolas all snug & cosy for a walk

It was during the first week that we also found out that a nice smooth knife was the best manner to break the ice that creeps THROUGH the door overnight! It took a lot of chipping away at this ice frozen into the doorframe to get the door open each morning..lol.

Ice coming through the door

We also found out really how expensive fruits & veggies are: $21 for asparagus and $10 for one Costa Rican pineapple!! After we made that find Randall said he wasn't the only Costa Rican in town, but probably the cheapest! lol.. The community is pretty small with only 2 main stores (mostly selling food), one bank, an elementary & high school and health centre being some of the main attractions. Good thing is that it is fairly easy to walk from one end of the town to the other; however, walking in -40C+ temperatures makes a short 15 minute walk into an almost unbearable feat when your hands and feet start to freeze while you're walking with all your groceries. One valuable solution we've discovered to carrying groceries is to use sleds! Instead of trying to carry everything with awkward gloves, you just pile everything up on a sled and drag the sled behind you.

Omingmak St, Cambridge Bay

Flight to the Arctic

Boarding the plane to Cambridge Bay we were ready to expect the unexpected. We'd been warned that the small plane to the community would not be heated while on the ground and so we piled into the plane wearing all our 'arctic' gear. Fitting into a plane seat with a massive Canada Goose jacket on is quite a complicated task! Thankfully, we didn't have too long a wait until the plane took off and the heat started flowing and we started peeling off layers of clothes. The most interesting moment of the flight was when a door in the front of the enclosed passenger cabin suddenly swung open and a pilot almost fell out into the lap of the first line of passengers in the plane! The pilot quickly scooped up some coffee and made his way back through the short tunnel to the cockpit. Our second surprise on the flight to the North was when we had made it to our final destination (after 3 plane trips) and were warming up in the terminal waiting for our luggage to arrive and I see our dog who has also made the trip with us sitting in her kennel and we greet her excitedly and she seems to have enjoyed the ride and isn't too cold and after about a good 10 minutes of chatting with some of the locals I go to pick up her kennel and then I hear a loud crack and with a big bang the kennel falls to the ground and there looking up at me from a great big hole in the top of the kennel is Tetue. The cold arctic temperatures had weakened the plastic kennel and the handle and a great big chunk of the top of the kennel had completely broken off!!! Welcome to the North! lol..