Category: Snow

March Madness: Spring Mood Swings in Inuvik

3/20/2013

As is the case across the rest of Canada (and parts of the U.S.), it is a COLD first day of "Spring" here. Right now in Inuvik we are at minus 20 Celsius (minus 4F). Although that is not much colder than usual, it feels like the snow will never disappear. This long winter is starting to make people a bit... shall we say... touchy? Over-sensitive? Moody? Cranky? Bad tempered?

A colleague of mine warned me last year about "March madness", which has nothing to do with basketball. Around this time of year people start to go a little crazy and grumpy. They are sick of the winter and get a bad case of cabin fever. They want to go outside without fear of frostbite.

Unfortunately, I am no exception. Although I am doing much better this week, the previous two weeks were rough. Little things would bother me and I couldn't let them go. I'm usually a positive person, but nothing would shake me out of my bad mood. I did not enjoy my own company, and I'm sure no one else did either! Luckily I have come back into happy territory without permanent damage or the need for meds.

On the bright side of March (and it is very bright!), the sun is shining and we know that warm weather will follow in due course. Soon we will have more than enough sunshine. In some future post I will discuss the effects of 24-hour darkness vs. 24-hour light ... some like the light, while others (including myself) actually prefer the dark of winter. Sounds crazy, I know, but I'm sure you'll hear me out.

As I don't have any photos that really go well with this post, below are some pictures of a dog-sledding trip I took on Sunday (my third time!) because these beautiful Siberian huskies are guaranteed to get you in a good mood.

And a picture of the sun on the snow-covered trees in my backyard for good measure.

Sunrise in my backyard.

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Driving on Square Tires in Inuvik

5/10/2012

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One effect of the extremely cold temperatures in the Arctic is that occasionally you find yourself driving on square tires. If you get in a vehicle, and the ride feels like you're bumping along in a Flintstones car, it's because the tires got so cold that they froze flat on one edge and stayed that way!

I should have written this post back when we had -40 temperatures, as it would have been more relevant then. Now we're hovering around freezing, so this effect doesn't happen, but I thought it was interesting enough to share anyway.

On the subject of weather and temperatures, we now get almost complete daylight. Sunset is technically at around 1 am, and sunrise is 5 am, but even in the middle of the "night" it's not completely dark.

We will experience our last sunset in a couple of weeks. Then it's 24-hour sun through the summer... what an adjustment that will take.

At least the temperatures are warming up slightly, although we are still experiencing snow!

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Skiing in Inuvik - "Chix on Stix"

2/12/2012

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To take advantage of the beautiful warm weather this weekend (just below 0C), I joined a free cross-country skiing clinic for women at the Inuvik Ski Club. The event was called "Chix on Stix".

With a catchy name like that, how could I pass it up?

And on a clear day like we had Saturday, being outdoors was just what I needed.

I had never been cross-country skiing before, and I was relieved to find that the boots are MUCH lighter and more comfortable than downhill ski boots!

The boots and poles...

Our skis waiting for us in the snow outside...

(if it looks like I used a special blurring effect on the edges of this photo, you'd be mistaken. What I did was drop my camera in the snow! Oops. I think it dried out OK in the end, but the condensation created this neat blurred effect!)

I was surprised at how skinny the skis are compared to downhill skis.

I was also surprised that there were hills on the trail... I had always thought cross-country skiing was easy because it was all flat. I was wrong! It was hard!

After practicing snow-plowing down a gradual hill for a while...

...we went out and hit one of the trails.

We saw bunny rabbit tracks but no wild animals!

There wasn't a cloud in the sky.

A few of us were trying it for the first time ever. There was some falling down, and some crossed skis, but we had fun anyway!

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The Ice Highway

2/5/2012

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Today is one of those days it's good to be alive. Inuvik is sunny and clear, with the bright sun painting shadows on the snow, and the warm temperatures luring you outside. We're having the equivalent of a heat wave, with temperatures as high as -10C (14F). With six and a half hours of sunlight, this is just the kind of Sunday I like.

The warm weather meant I could walk around and take pictures without fear of my camera freezing up (or my fingers freezing off). My camera always gets cranky and sluggish when I force it to take pictures in -40C weather. I'm waiting for it to go on strike completely before the winter is over.

I saw these tracks in the snow - I wish I could tell you it was something exciting like a fox or a coyote, but more likely it was a dog, of which there are many around town!

I decided to walk down to the river, which freezes up in the winter to become an ice highway that runs along the south side of town and out to some remote communities.

If you want to feel small and insignificant, but oh-so-lucky, stand in the middle of the river channel and look up and down the ice highway in both directions. That was something I've wanted to do for a while. Ever since I came up here in October for the job interview, I have been obsessed with the ice highway. The fact that you can drive on the ice, and that they have road and direction signs along the river is an endless source of fascination for me.

My next step is to take a road trip and actually drive on it properly, to either Aklavik (farther south - about 120 km or 2 hours) or Tuktoyaktuk (farther north - about 150 km or 3 hours).

In the 20 minutes that I walked along the river, I saw at least 10 cars and one snowmobile, although I heard many other snowmobiles through the woods. It's a busy place!

Below is a picture of the "on-ramp" for the highway - one of several places you can get on and off the highway in Inuvik. They even have stop signs - very official!

These boats are patiently waiting for the spring melt.

This poor guy is completely buried.

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Sparks are Flying

1/19/2012

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Sorry to disappoint, but this is not a post about any Northern romantic endeavours. This post is about static electricity... which has caused me to virtually electrocute myself every time I turn on a light.

It is dry this far north. Very dry. Fortunately I have managed not to suffer from dry skin, by keeping a bottle of lotion nearby at all times. But I'm still getting used to the static shocks. When I get up in the night and don't turn the lights on, I can still light my way by the electric sparks coming off my socks -- my very own fireworks display. And it hurts like the dickens, especially on your fingertips (which is, after all, what you usually touch things with). [If I could take a picture of those sparks, I would insert a photo here...for now, use your imagination.]

I have learned to do what people here do... constantly "de-charge" by touching metal objects every time you move. I was walking behind a girl down a hall last week and I wondered why she kept reaching out to the wall and touching metal door handles, light switches, etc. It's because the more frequently you zap yourself, the less it hurts in the end, because the charge doesn't have a chance to build up into one frazzling shock (I think I just made up a word).

Fortunately, there are other ways of reducing static. One is by avoiding fabrics that give off a charge -- I've found natural fabrics are better than synthetic (yet another reason to avoid polyester!). Sadly, one of my favourite fleece sweaters, which I wear all the time because it's so cozy, is a forcefield in itself ... when I pull it off, my hair sticks up like a science experiment.

The other way is to use a humidifier regularly. Last weekend I finally set up my humidifiers -- one downstairs in the living room, and one upstairs in my bedroom. I'm really happy that I found some at Sears that actually look kind of nice, with wood panelling (albeit fake wood)... not too industrial.

You know you need one when you approach the machine for the first time and touch the "on" button and your finger spark actually lights up the display with "88". That was alarming.

I still need to learn what % to set it at. The instructions say that the colder it is, the lower the % needs to be, but up here, I feel I should keep it around 30%, so we'll see how that goes. I'll need to fill up the water bottles every couple of days if I run it regularly.

I'm sure you've been wanting an update on my runaway cardboard boxes, even though it's not related to static. Today I tried to retrieve the biggest of the boxes that were jammed against the utilidor. After wading through snow up to my waist, it turns out that this one was filled with snow... consequently it was VERY heavy. So I spent about 20 minutes with my snow shovel emptying some of the snow out before I could drag it back under the stairs, hopefully not to blow away again.

Sadly, I couldn't get to this box, so it's going to be stuck there until some of the snow disappears... around May possibly! The third big box that I thought I saw in my neighbour's backyard was actually a small shed or dog kennel, so I didn't touch it.

One more thing I will say about the dryness and cold is that it makes for awesome snow! It's clean and white and fluffy, and squeaks when you walk. It stays soft virtually all winter. Such an improvement over the wet, slushy, dirty, hard, crusty, icy snow that we got in Ottawa. (I'm a glass-half-full kind of person -- looking on the positive side!).

I will leave you with a couple of pictures of our backyard. My stairs are on the right side of the house, my neighbours' on the left. Our picnic table has disappeared -- all you can see is the top of the umbrella. While our front yard is clear of snow, because it was all blown away in the wind, it looks like our backyard was the dumping ground! Before the blizzard I had shoveled off half of my back steps (too lazy to do all) and looks like I'll have to shovel again...

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Blizzard in Inuvik!

1/18/2012

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Mackenzie Street on Monday evening, before the worst of the blizzard hit.

The worst is over, but it's been a dramatic few days. On Monday a blizzard blew in to the Beaufort-Delta region (the northern part of the Northwest Territories), and got worse and worse during the evening and overnight. Apparently the winds got up to 90 km/hr.

Everyone says this is not a normal occurrence, and this is the worst weather they've seen... I'm not sure if I should take comfort in that or not!

In the middle of the night on Monday I was woken by the house shaking from the gusting wind, and couldn't fall back to sleep because it felt like a 5-hour earthquake -- I thought I was going to be tossed out of bed... not to mention the howling wind and the fear that my roof was going to blow off! As a friend said, he was afraid his house was going to land on the wicked witch of the west...

Schools and most offices were closed on Tuesday (yesterday) so I got to watch the drama unfold from the comfort of my living room -- luckily I have a cozy fireplace and lots of DVDs to watch (as the only TV channel I get is a very grainy CBC!)

Today it's a lot calmer, and we're back to work.

Below are some pictures of the action.

Photo credit - Canadian North airline

The roof at Inuvik airport suffered some damage. It's unclear when flights will be able to take off again, and also unclear if the roof damage will have any impact. A lot of people are on the waiting list!

One of the more bizarre twists in the blizzard story came courtesy of a hot tub... which was seen being pushed along the main road of Inuvik yesterday! It is now resting upside-down on the side of the road.

This poor guy has some digging to do before getting into his car again...

At lunchtime I wandered downtown and took some pictures of the aftermath.

A snowplow clearing the main street - in front of the Catholic "igloo" church

The view out my living room window of the street yesterday -- daytime view on the left, nighttime view on the right!

At some points I could barely see the houses across the street.

Some brave souls ventured outside!

In a rather embarrassing turn of events, at some point in the middle of the night I remembered that I had left some empty packing boxes under my front porch ready to be taken away -- giant boxes that my couches and tables had arrived in and which were filled with packing material. I looked out my window at around 3 am and saw some of them tumble-weeding around the neighbourhood. The next morning I saw a couple of them resting against the utilidor in my neighbour's backyard -- see photo. Needless to say, I will be sneaking around under cover of darkness tonight to retrieve them, as I'm afraid some of them have my name on! Luckily for me, I know my neighbour at the back (he's one of the security guys at the office) and he was really understanding, so I feel less embarrassed now.

It was kind of neat to see Inuvik on the CBC news -- first in the local language, then in English.

Luckily there was no damage to the house, as far as we can tell (although my neighbour to the back said that he thought some of our roof tiles blew off - I'm glad I rent, not own!). The only excitement was when our garbage box lid blew open. I have no idea if our garbage also swirled around the neighbourhood...

I did discover that my front screen door is not very well insulated, as the force of the wind pushed snow through into the mudroom. On the plus side, the snow is so dry and powdery, I can just sweep it out!

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In Inuvik!

1/5/2012

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I've been in Inuvik just over 24 hours and I love it unreservedly. The internet at the hotel wasn't working yesterday, so I couldn't post anything, and the power went out for about an hour last night, but now I'm connected again, and the world is as it should be. Fortunately, a colleague invited me over for dinner with a small group of friends, so I wasn't alone during the blackout. I got to have a dinner by candlelight with some great people, and hear a lot of stories about life in Inuvik. They assure me that power outages are quite rare -- it was just a unique way of welcoming me to my new home!

Back to the beginning of the day... the last thing I did before boarding the plane in Edmonton was to visit Tim Hortons for a coffee -- oh how I will miss you, Timmies... (for the non-Canadians among you, Tim Hortons is a Canadian institution. Kind of like Starbucks, but less pretentious).

Then this is what I saw on the window of the plane while we were stopped in Norman Wells -- cute little snowflakes winking at me. The perfect image to get me excited for the north.

As we got closer to Inuvik, I saw the moon rise - so beautiful and eerie. Photos cannot capture it properly.

On the way into town from the airport (about a 10-minute drive), you see the sign welcoming you to Inuvik -- the end of the Dempster highway. This picture was taken around 1:30 pm. I was surprised there was this much light during the day. It didn't get really dark until after 5 pm.

This is a picture from my hotel room at around 5 pm. The sky has a really neat blue haze when there is light available.

And the evening ended with an unintentional candlelit dinner! Overall, a great first impression.

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March Madness: Spring Mood Swings in Inuvik

Driving on Square Tires in Inuvik

Skiing in Inuvik - "Chix on Stix"

The Ice Highway

Sparks are Flying

Blizzard in Inuvik!

In Inuvik!

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