Date: December 3, 2005 - Weather: - 32 and cloudy
Sunrise – 1:01 PM
Sunset – 2:29 PM

You will notice that I have changed the header information of these Blog entries to reflect the weather, and sunrise and sunset. Since we are not traveling anymore, there’s no need for me to report our progress in kilometeres.

Although we are here and our physical journey is over, our journey of discovery continues. Stay with us, won’t you, and share in our impressions of Inuvik, and our adventures of the North.

We will start this episode with a tour around Inuvik. Sort of....

First of all, yes, read that right – the sun is to come up at 1PM and set again by 2:30PM – yes in the same day! The hour and a half of sunlight should be a real treat!!

As I write this we are sitting in the hotel room and it is 11:30AM – although the sun is not yet up, it is reasonably light out. That sort of thing really doesn’t matter to me anyway, but Lorie is a little put off. I think she thought that the transition would be a little more gradual that what it had been - baptism by fire as it were!

We got into town late last night and we were tired so we didn’t get a change to look around much. We figured we’d have plenty of time for that anyway.

First of all, a word on the hotel. We are staying at the Nova. We have stayed at a lot of hotels across Canada – some nice and some not so nice. This room definitely fits in the former category. It’s a new hotel, so it was bound to be nice anyway. But it’s more than just that. The room is clean (which is most important of all), bright, well decorated, smells great, and is very well appointed. It has its own gas fireplace. The furniture is all executive-style. There are plenty of towels, there’s a coffee maker and a small fridge. And, yes, they allow the dog in here – in fact more than that – they have their own dog. It’s a husky, of course, named Sadie. She’s a stray that they found and she lives at the hotel. She’s a very well mannered and quiet husky pup. Lorie has instantly fallen in love!

The fact that the hotel allows us to have the dog in the room and the room is non-smoking is very important to us. Many of the hotel rooms we stayed in insisted that we stay a smoking room if we were to have the dog with us. This is a problem since cigarette smoke give Lorie migraine headaches, and makes me sick to my stomach.

Honestly though, folks, if you are thinking of opening a hotel and want to know what constitutes a good one – visit Inuvik and stay at the Nova. They got it right!

It is obvious to us that the locals are comprised of a variety of cultural backgrounds. Although I have done some research, I do not feel like I have the right to comment on the native cultures of this area at this time. I hope to have the opportunity get to know some people from each of the cultural heritages of this area, to learn more about them and their culture. Physically speaking, the differences are subtle, they exist mainly in colour and facial structure. I’m sure there are many more substantive differences, and I look forward to discovering them. It’s a breath of fresh air for me really. If change is the spice of life, then so must be diversity. I hope to learn more than a little about these folks and their way of life.

This is a small town and insofar as it is different to us, then we are different to it, too. A short walk around the “Northmart” told us that. We got some funny looks, and I got the impression that more than a few folks wanted to walk up to us and ask us why we, as tourists, wanted to visit here this time of year. We are not tourists, of course and I assume that once people begin to see our faces around town a few times, they will get that idea too.

Well, we knew it to begin with, and now we do for sure - this is not a cheap place to live! Everything costs more. But, when you take into account that there are no Territorial taxes (only the GST – which was actually described on the bill at a local restaurant as “Paul Martin’s Share”, actually printed like that mind you), and the cost of the transportation to this place – then the cost is probably reasonable. All that said, hopefully Lorie gets a job fairly quickly!

So all that writing and nothing about the town itself yet? What’s up with that, right? Well, there’s an explanation. I mentioned that the hotel was new. In fact, it’s so new that they do not yet have their plug-ins in place. Consequently the jeep was not plugged in last night. I knew it wouldn’t be pretty, but I tried to start it anyway. That didn’t go so well! The thing would not even come close to starting. I had to borrow a couple of extension cords and string them in through the hotel and plug the jeep in. I left it for an hour or so and tried it again. With a little coaxing, it started, but it did not sound good. The engine clunked and clanged to life, and something or other ground and screeched – but it started. It took about a half an hour before the transmission would work though, it simply would not go into drive. Like I said, it’s cold! By the time I got the jeep ready to go, it was almost dark again.

That’s it for tonight…more to come tomorrow.

Cheers!