Well, it has been quite some time since my last post. Lots has happened! We left off with me finishing off my pilots licence and getting ready to move up to Iqaluit. Well, things changed.
The job up in Iqaluit ended up falling through after a long.. long wait.. but in the end things turned out great! I am now on the other side of Canada at a town in the Northwest Territories called Inuvik. It’s even further north than Iqaluit, and about 2 degrees west of Vancouver, right next to the Yukon. Some of you might have heard of the northern town called Tuktoyaktuk, which people commonly use as a reference point to ‘the middle of nowhere’. Well, Inuvik is only an hour and a half south of there and is definitely somewhere! The town has a population of somewhere around 3500 people, a few hotels, three major grocery stores, even a Pizza Hut and KFC!
Anyways, enough of the background story. My move started Sunday night at around 9am. My wife and family drove me to the airport to give me a royal send off before I hopped on the plane. Before I ended up on the plane I got to hang out in the Air Canada lounge (thanks dad!) which was a treat (Guinness beer on tap!), then I boarded the flight heading to Calgary at 10:45. Actually, we didn’t leave till around 11:30 due to someone over fueling the center tank on the plane… how do you screw up the easiest job in the world? Seriously.. I used to do that job and you’d pretty much have to fall asleep to screw it up… So off I went and ended up in Calgary at around 1:30, grabbed all my bags/rubbermaid containers- all 6 of them including my bike. I sure was an odd sight carting my life around Calgary airport on a tiny baggage cart.
I ended up trying to sleep on the benches in Calgary because I didn’t want to pay a fortune for a hotel room, besides my layover before the Inuvik flight was only 4 hours. Needless to say, the excitement and the airport buzz didn’t agree with my eyelids and I think I managed to only grab 20 mins of shut eye at intervals of 5 mins at a time. Boy was I tired when I checked into my Canadian North flight at 5am. A zombie with a cart full of luggage is a scary sight.
The flight up to Inuvik was quite uneventful. We flew up on a Fokker 100, a large commuter jet which holds, coincidently, 100 passengers. First we stopped in Edmonton, then hit up Norman Wells (small northern community) then continued on to our final destination, Inuvik. We arrived at about 12am, which also marked my 27th hour of awakeness with only about 2 or so hours sleep. After that I hopped over to my future employer, Aklak Air/Kenn Borek Air, to meet my future fellow employees.
I will start off with saying that everyone at Aklak was so helpful. Everyone was super nice, and even helped move my stuff around. It’s going to be great working with the crew!
After hanging out in the hanger/office for a while I called the real estate lady and she picked me up to show me the apartment she had waiting. We ended up checking out two places, one really big 2 bedroom and one cruddy small one. So I took the big one! And big it is- I’d have to say it’s probably the same size as the place Beck and I had in Dundas. It’s also furnished with two couches, TV in a cabinet, coffee table, end tables, lamps, dishes, bedroom furnature, some dishes, some pots…. the works! No dishwasher though… sadface! I probably could have shopped around more, but I was dead tired and wanted to sleep, so I signed a 6 month lease and that was that. Besides, its a nice place, nice building, and the realestate company drove me around to help me hook up my cable, hydro and P.O. box. Super helpful people, and nice to boot.
Well, if you are still with me I will explain the picture. It was taken on final approach as we broke out of the clouds on final descent into Inuvik Airport. So it was my first view of Inuvik’s surrounding landscape. The trees are pretty sparse, and they are quite tiny. Someone told me that they are very old.. they sure don’t look it. They look pretty dead! I will take pictures of them and post soon.
Anyways, I hope you enjoyed reading about my journey as much as I enjoyed embarking on it. It’s 12:30am right now.. Still sunny out.. but I need to hit the sack. Stay tuned, I have lots to show and say about our new home!
geez, getting to the other side of canada shouldn’t take 20+ hours. traveling is like a time warp.
i’m looking forward to what you’ll post from up north.
Iqaluit or Inuvik - I’m still looking forward to seeing your photos from the Canadian Arctic. Love this one.
fantastic shot to start off a great new adventure!
Fabulous pic! I can hardly wait to see what you post and live your experiences through your camera! Glad you are safe and happy!
I’m so excited to be there with you! I’m impressed with the quality of this one, considering it’s through a plane window going at a high speed…man that’s a quick camera. Not that I’m blaming all the talent on the camera… :0)
Great start! I thought the picture was a photo of a black and white scetch - not the real thing. Where do the bears and cariboo hide? Keep taking pictures, most of us have no idea what it is like up there. PS: Send my card back asap as I will need it next week.