Date: December 7, 2005 - Weather: - 21 and cloudy
Sunrise – It didn’t!
Sunset – Can’t set if it doesn’t rise!

Well, we reached it folks! If you check the weather for Inuvik on Environment Canada’s web site, you will see “N/A” next to sunrise and sunset. That means that they don’t happen. I am told that there is a pretty big celebration when the sun first breaches the horizon sometime in the first week in January. Things are pretty dark and dreary though. It’s not as hard to handle as I thought, and it’s only for a month or so. We’ll live!

As for the temperature, they tell me that it unseasonably cold for the time of year. Yesterday the Environment Canada web site said we reached down to 38 below zero. Someone said that it actually got down to 43 below zero in one part of the town that has a higher elevation. Tomorrow it is supposed to get up to eight below. People are talking about it and there is even a bit of a buzz around town with the warm temps that are coming. The weather is an important fact of life here – much the same as it is in Newfoundland – everywhere I suppose.

We are starting to settle in now, well as much a you can settle in to a hotel room. Lorie cooked tacos for supper. We had them “Northern Style” though, substituting ground Muskox meat for ground beef. They were delicious!

A number of people have asked for our new address, and someone suggested I post it here so that it would be available to everyone. Here it is – P.O. Box 2504, Inuvik, NT, X0E 0T0. All cash and cheques will be gladly accepted…keep the bills!

When snow comes down, and it’s as cold as it has been, it very quickly gets frozen. The surface becomes a very hard packed, frozen snow-surface. Curiously, it really isn’t that slippery. Some basic physics can be used to explain that; I’ll spare you the details. They use gravel on that surface to give cars a little more traction. Not sand mind you – gravel, almost as big as crushed stone. Consequently, virtually every car and truck here has broken windshields.

When people are making small talk, and they get to discussing vehicles, they ask you what kind of truck you have. They assume you don’t have a car at all, but a truck. Virtually everyone here has huge trucks, many of them diesels. Every day you smell and hear the tell tail signs of diesel trucks. Most people leave their vehicles running while they run into the store or the post, or even work. It is not at all strange to see dozens of parked vehicles idling away with no one in them.

That’s it for tonight’s update. If you have any questions, feel free to post them in the comments section. I have set up that section so that you do not have to register to post comments. Simply click on the word “comments” in the lower right of any daily entry to read the comments of others, or to write your own. I will do my best to answer any questions you care to ask.

Cheers!