Mirror Mirror.


Ok, I'm still not an expert photographer, but I think you can grasp what I was going for here. Just beyond the bumpy ice in front is a mirror like surface of ice, the mountains were reflecting in it. It was an amazing site. Hard to get a good photo of it. I really needed to get higher and climb a hill, but wasn't ambitious enough to do that this time.

When I first arrived in Iqaluit and people found out I was going to Pang they would say, "Oh, I hear Pang is the most beautiful spot in Nunavut." Well, I agree Pang certainly is beautiful. But,I can only compare it to Iqaluit at the moment. I can't wait to see the scenery in the Spring/Summer and I really hope I get to visit some of the other communities over the next few months....years.

This is my attempt at an artistic shot.

Just some bones I saw down by the waterfront. Again, taken on Monday when the weather was sooooooooooooo warm. Did I mention that the temperatures have been great? I know, I know...don't worry, by the weekend we will be below zero again and all will be right with the world!

Picture of the scenery in town on Monday morning...storm day!

This is what Pang normally looks like in a few months, when Spring arrives. Lucky me I am getting a sneak pre-view. The weather continues to be nice and warm with above zero temperatures. I just can't believe my luck. I also can't help but laugh when I see that home is getting temperatures in the -teens and below with the wind chill. You will all want to buy Canada Goose Coats like mine for next winter. May I recommend the Resolute jacket.

There really isn't much snow.

I keep telling people there isn't much snow around, but I don't think most of you believe me. Especially when you see the pictures of the ice. But this is definitely grass and you can see it and I took a picture of it February 26, 2006. Remember I said that they actually get very little snow around here.



Airport.

Obviously. This is the Pang Airport Terminal. It's cute, quaint and has a really nice woven tapestry inside. I would have taken a picture, but the airport was closed today due to the winds.

Ariel view.

Pang is the yellow square. The community is situated on Baffin Island, and in the Pangnirtung Fiord. The Pangnirtung Fiord lconnects to Cumberland Sound. (For those of you from Newfoundland and PEI, I belive at home we would call this a Bay!) I'm sure there are scientific reasons behind the name Sound. If you are really interested to know why...google it!



View out of the fiord towards Cumberland Sound.

This photo was taken from the airport and looking left.


View looking farther into the fiord.

This photo was taken from the airport and looking right. Most of the town would be below the airstrip or farther to the right of the photo.

These photos were taken before the wind really picked up and knocked me on my butt. Yes, I said on my butt and I have the bruise to prove it...pictures will not be forth coming. The wind was really strong. For those of you who know me, you know I am not a little girl, I'm pretty solid and to be knocked over by the wind...well, it really surprised me....didn't stop me from continuing my walk, but it did make me consider how stupid I may have been to be walking along the edge of the cliff.

Go fly a kite.

I was obviously not the only one out Sunday afternoon taking advantage of the unusual heat wave. It really was a great afternoon for walking, skiing, flying kites or just being out. My tulips must have agreed because a couple of them have popped their heads above ground this afternoon...maybe in a few weeks I will have a window sill full of tulips.

Make the picture big...in the distance is Pang

This was the view I had on my walk Sunday morning. I'm not sure how far it is, defintely a few km away from town to the end of the road. I don't think this is the Road to Nowhere, I think that is at the other end of town, but I could be wrong. Either way it is a road the goes...no where. You get to the end of the road and wham...mountain. It is hard to make out the town, but if you look really close you can see off to the far right the tops of buildings, this is downtown. To the left of that is a flat empty looking spot, that is the airstrip, and to the left of that is uptown. From this angle my unit on the outskirts of town blends into uptown, but it is really closer to the yellow building that you can see at the front. Well, maybe none of that makes sense if you don't know Pang.


Inukshuk

I'm not sure who put this inukshuk here, probably someone after a photo op. Either way I thought it worthy of a picture. I climbed a big rocky hill to get this shot, it was worth it. Tried sliding down the hill, there was one spot that was all snow, unfortunately my coat is not slippery and all I ended up doing was laying on my back, head pointed down the hill and pushing myself with my feet. I stopped half way down, laughed at myself and got up. I figure if anyone saw me pushing myself down the hill they would turn me into the mental health nurse. I was having a good time though.

I received a compliment today. We were talking about the wind storm over the weekend and at one point in the conversation this person says to me, yeah, wasn't worried about you, seems like you've been here forever. So, I must be fitting into life up North.

Friday night in Pang



Taken about 30 seconds later....


And a few seconds after that....

So, I noticed earlier in the week that we were to get some unusually warm weather over the weekend...everyone at work said that was bad news. It meant that we would get a wind storm. And did we ever. I'm not entirely sure what the winds were Friday night, I heard around 109km/hr which is pretty windy. All I know is that the house was rocking. The whole house. I watched the water in my glass moving. I also viewed the pictures on the walls shake and even my bed was rocking...(Please no comments on my love life, my parents read this...and I was alone!) If the house is a rocking, don't come a knocking.

Frankly, I couldn't imagine who would be stupid enough to be out in that kind of weather, until today. So, Friday night was pretty windy. I won't say scary, cause I wasn't scared. I laughed most of the night, my sister will vouch that. Saturday was still windy, but not bad. Just typical PEI weather if you ask me. I didn't venture out, but that had nothing to do with the weather. Then Sunday came along. WOW! I woke up and at 8am the temperature was +2 degrees and no wind. I had to advantage of that. I was out for about two hours walking, taking pictures, and trying to slide down the mountain. It was great to be out. It was so quiet. I felt like the only person out and about and I was until I headed back into town. Spent the rest of the day organizing the house, then at 3ish, decided to check the temperature again...+5 degrees...yep, FIVE! Ok, definitely couldn't pass that up...I mean three days ago it was -26, talk about a change in temperature.

I headed down towards the airport this time. It was a great walk, until the wind picked up. The wind pushed me off the trail, onto some ice where I was literally pushed over and fell. The wind did it. Amazing. I slid to the bottom of the hill, got up, brushed myself off and continued my walk. On the way home it really started to get windy and more than once I felt myself being pushed backwards and would have fallen over had I not managed to ground myself. Scary. When I finally made it home I checked the Environment Canada website and discovered that it was now +7 degrees (seriously...heat wave), we were also experiencing winds of 76 km/hr with gusts of 128 km/hr. Yep, 128! That's windy. And that's how I know that people are stupid enough to be out in the kind of weather we had Friday night, cause I was doing it.

So, it is Sunday night and I am listening to the wind howl and the house move and creak and I'm not scared, just concerned that my pictures may fall off the wall or I will lose my front window to flying debree. Flying debree is a real problem during wind storms. I would also like to say that a quick look at the EC website showed that only Vancouver was warmer than here today.

Warm weather = wind. Cold weather = no wind. Frankly, I can handle the cold weather. Spring is after all just around the corner....right?

My crawl space....this is the septic tank.

You must think I'm desperate for something to put on the blog....septic tank. But really the finding of my crawl space will lead to great things. I can now see how much water I have so I won't run out again....provided I remember to check on a semi-regular basis.

This was the high point of my day, checking out the new 'room' in my unit.

I made some changes in my office today. Had cubicle type desk set up moved into my office. The girls all think I'm nuts, but I feel less claustrophobic now. Two big heavy wooden desks in that tiny space was too much. I like this better already. I will bring my pictures and desk do-dads in this weekend to make it officially mine! Payday tomorrow...and more importantly Food Mail day! I wonder what I will end up with in my boxes? And better yet, how much will it cost me?

Today is February 23, which offically marks one month living North of 60! And one month without take-out food. I purchased chinese food for the weekend (frozen chinese in quasi take out boxes), so that and a movie will be my big treat this weekend.

I'm told one way to determine if people are going to stay North for a while is by seeing what they brought with them. If they brought basics only they are not likely to stay. If they packed knic-knacs and stuff like that they are more likely to stay...cause they feel like they are living here and are part of the community. Their unit becomes home. One of the guys who delivered my 'stuff' last week was also the guy who came and moved office furniture today, when he delivered my stuff he gave me 6 months before I pack up and move home. Anyone else care to place a wager?

This is the water tank. Notice chair almost touches ceiling...I guess that is why they call it a crawl space.

Finally made the journey into my crawl space tonight. Very scary....the drop down is not quite 5 feet...so not a lot, but when you might not be rescued if you get stuck down there....I took a chair and my flashlight. Didn't need either one. I can step on the water tank and then to the floor and there is a light switch and one bulb so it's all good.

My neighbours told me they had collapsed most of their boxes and were storing them in the crawl space. Brilliant idea. Out of site and mind until moving time. There is a ton of space, but I wouldn't want to put much in there...the temperature is unreal. At least 25 degrees according to the thermometer. If it is that hot in the basement, why is my living room floor so cold?

I simply love this photo.

For all of you who have received copies of this during the past few days...ignore. But this is my fav pic of me...ever. EVER!

For anyone who checks the blog in the next couple of days, please visit this link http://www.weatheroffice.ec.gc.ca/city/pages/nu-7_metric_e.html and check out the temperature for Saturday. You will notice a drastic difference from today. Only problem is that with temperatures that warm this time of year it means we are in for a storm...first one this winter. Waste of a good storm day if it happens on Saturday.


Ok, blog has been updated....again. Twice in one week. Enjoy. Don't forget to write comments or email me.

As my good friend Al would say lip gloss is important no matter where you are.

I'm trying to make sure I don't dehydrate my skin or chap my lips so am constantly applying stuff. Well, it was -30ish and after an hour or so I figure I need more lipstuff, but it was frozen solid. Note to self, next time put lipstuff in inside pocket. Luckily I had a back up one, from Cover Girl and it wasn't frozen. I almost didn't want to put it on my lips...I mean if there is that much 'stuff' in it that it doesn't freeze at -30....but I did.

Me making a snow angel.


If you didn't know it was a snow angel....

Not much actual snow on the ice to make a decent snow angel and the technical difficulties I had getting up...well...you know you read the other post about this.

Recognize this girl?


Just another pic of me....cause that's what this blog is all about right??? Me!

Me on the land.

Well, kinda. This is at the waters edge and I think technically to qualify as being on the land you can't see houses. This picture was taken at the beginning of Saturday's adventure. Aren't the mountains in the background amazing. If you focus on the mountains centre back, that is where I will be headed for my visit to the Arctic Circle. The skidoo goes in on the river as far as possible and then by land. Late March/early April is a good time to go. Lots of sun, the temperature is warmer and the ice is still in really good shape.

It's about $165 for the day. That is a guided tour and you don't have to bring anything. They give you tea and bannock at the post marker and apparently it is a great day.

moving in.


I know this was last week, but this is the mess the house was/still is in. Boxes everywhere. Thanks to my neighbours though I found out I can store stuff downstairs in my basement where the water and sewar tanks are. This is great news. I didn't want to throw away all the boxes and packing material. Maybe there is room for my bike down there. The only problem is that right now all the empty boxes and packing material are sitting on top of the hatch....this will require some work on my part to rectify.

Giant bird feet...raven prints. That is my glove beside it to give you a little perspective. Honestly these birds are huge.

The only wildlife I've seen so far is ravens. The only other safe choices would be caribou and Arctic hares. I'm sure there are a few others, but I don't really want to see a polar bear up close. The last one in the Hamlet was about two years ago. They announce it on the radio and recommend people be careful until it leaves the area...unfortunately they only make the announcement in Inuktituit. Great reason to learn a second language!

There is a herd of caribou about 4km from town. I'd love to go see, but don't have the wheels to get myself there.

Beautiful government housing...she says sarcastically.

It isn't that bad, pretty well everyone in town lives in government housing. Some are better than others. I like my unit, wish the living room was bigger, but hey I'm from the maritimes if I ever had a party it would center around the kitchen anyway.

There are no one bedroom units in Pangnirtung....does that tell you anything about the single scene here? LOL.

I think I like my new set up...exercise/office/spare and smaller master bedroom...but someday when cabin fever sets in I may need to re-arrange the furniture again. I could move the living room upstairs? Hmmm.

Isn't that gorgeous. This is looking into the Pangnirtung Fiord. The mountains in the middle are at the outskirts of the National Park. Pang is only 40km away from the Arctic Circle. I will be heading there late April with one of the Outfitters in town. I can't wait.

I had photo lessons the past couple of weeks and finally some of it clicked in, which is why the colours in this photo seem correct, at least to me. All of my other snow/ice photos have a lot of blue in them. I now know how to correct that and my photos will be better because of those lessons. Thanks J.

The size of everything is kinda mind blowing...

Wow...two degrees and all I can manage to come up with is...kinda mind blowing...yikes. Seriously, the size of the hills, the width of the fiord are all bigger than they seem. I figured you could walk across the fiord in a matter of minutes....nope. It's over 3km wide. It sure doesn't seem that big. I asked how big Mt Duval is..that's the mountain outside my living room window and it is about 1200 feet. No, not huge, but bigger than I would have thought.

My attempts at a snow angel. Had major difficulties getting myself up again...snow pants and a big coat hindered the process. Thanks to J. for helping pull me up.

J and I coming on the end of our photo session. Hard to believe that after two hours out on the ice in -30 temperatures I wasn't cold. We even had our mitts/gloves off most of the time.

For those of you who don't know me, I am the girl in the red coat. I have a couple of photos of me that will be posted later this week. This is full gear in this picture. The snow boots, the insulated snow pants, the Canada Goose coat, the face mask (around my neck in the picture), my hat, gloves and mitts. No wonder I feel like a snow monster walking around in my coat. Another thought for my things I learned up North....Up North, no one gets nervous when you walk into a bank (if your town has one) or convience store wearing a ski mask....think about it.

A piece of seaweed caught in an ice chunk.

This was an attempt by me to take an artistic type photo. I have a few others of ice that looked good at the time but now...well, lets say they will probably end up in the virtual trash bin.

Steam escaping through the ice. I swear in the bigger copy of this picture you can see steam escaping...it looks really neat.

Wow. What a week. The time certainly moves quickly up here. Of course it might be moving just as fast for my friends down south, but who can really compare.

So, Tuesday my stuff arrived and I started off very calmly opening one box at a time, taking everything out folding the paper and putting it away. Everything had to find a room before I would look in the next box. Well, that was all well and good for the first couple of days. Now every box is open and there is stuff everywhere! I'm embarassed to have people see inside my house. I decided to make some changes and re-arranged the upstairs so everything that did have a home now has a new home. Confused? Me too. I made the master bedroom into my computer/office/exercise/spare room...where you will stay when you come to visit. And the smaller spare room is now the master bedroom. It is cramped, but cozy...and really I only go in there to sleep and get socks so I don't need a big room for that.

I went through every box and realized that I didn't bring my favourite shoes...panic ensued. And no, it is not a happy ending, I did not find my shoes in any of my boxes...but they may be at my grandmothers...I'll keep you posted. If the shoes are not found within the next month I will be learning how to shop for shoes on line....and we all know that could become a dangerous habit.

Thanks to everyone who takes the time to read my posts. I appreciate getting your comments and your emails. Keep them coming. If I don't answer right away, it doesn't mean I don't love you...it means I am keeping it to answer when I need a pick me up...and emails from home are a great pick me up.

Ice formations at the water front.

It is hard to explain how the water and the tides work to creat these massive piles of ice...but basically the tide comes in, ice forms, the tide goes out, the ice is left behind. Tide comes in again, makes more ice and freezes to the other chunks. Eventually the ice is think and the tide is no longer visably coming in and out anymore. The ice is probably between 7 and 10 feet thick. Imagine ice fishing through that?!

The ice formations are very beautiful and eeire. It is so quiet that you can hear the snow crunching under your boots and the ice cracking beneath you. I laid down and put my ear to the ice just to hear it...pretty neat. It is surprising that the kids are not out playing in the ice. If I had this when I was young I sure would have been playing in/around it. You could easily play hide and seek, create forts...have a secret rendevous with a special someone...and no one would ever see you. Maybe I will go down and make a fort next weekend for myself.

I know, I know you are saying "Of course the kids aren't outside playing in the ice it's -30. But truly people it isn't that cold...and you dress for it...see above picture of me in my full winter gear. I've only been North for a month and already I feel accustomed to it. That's not to say I don't feel the cold, but dressing properly really does make a difference. Go figure....mom was right on that one.

Stuff...lots and lots of stuff...all of it mine. Ok, so the moving company was wrong, my belongings didn't arrived on Sunday, or even Monday. But Valentine's Day was great as I received 22 boxes of my things. I have been opening and unwrapping frantically ever since. It's like Christmas Day every day in my house this week.

I'll update you on my week this weekend, right now I'm surrounded by boxes and can only think of watching TV. Ahhh. TV.

I know, I know, pathetic. But hey, I'm enjoying myself.

j.

KATUJJIQATIGIITTIARNIRLU

SIMPLICITY

Maybe that's easy for you to say....I'm still trying to get Good Morning down. I don't have the spelling here with me, but if you were to sound it out it is OOO-DLA-KUUT. Everyone has offered to teach me a few basic words in Inuktitut, but as I said this morning--I am on a slow learning curve when it comes to languages.

Another work week has come to an end and I am happy to say I survived. I can't say much more than that at this point. I will definitely be in over the weekend to catch up.

On a happy note, my food mail order arrived today!! Happy times at work. One of the girls who has a truck went and picked it up for me...thank goodness as it is at the airport at the other end of town and I wasn't sure how I was going to get it home. (Taxi is broken...awaiting a part.) I ordered milk, eggs, chicken and water. If you know me that is pretty typical. The water cost me a lot of money...but I am not used to the water here yet...so it is a necessary evil for the next little while. The white milk has an odd taste (but it is from Quebec...not sure what they feed those cows), but chocolate milk seems to taste ok. I bought Quick last week to make all my milk chocolate. Yummy. You need to be careful about Vitamin D up here in the winter. One little boy in town has rickets...a vitamin D deficiency that we cured years ago.

I want to order food mail every week...it is like Christmas. Running home to open my packages was sooo much fun. Ok, I know, it doesn't seem like much, but trust me, it was exciting.

Other good news today, my stuff has arrived in Iqaluit. I called this morning to check on the shipment and was told it was in either Edmonton or Yellowknife. Why they shipped it out west before going North I don't know. But this afternoon we finally officially tracked it down to Iqaluit. The movers there...get this...pick it up at the airport cargo, take it across town to their warehouse and then call the airline and bring it back to the airport. Make sense? Anyway, weather and space permitting I could have my stuff on Sunday. So, guess who will be going to the Co-Op first thing Monday morning to get her cable hooked up...yep, me!

So, cross your fingers and your remotes that the weather holds and I get my belongings sometime over the weekend.

j.

So everyone wants to know how the first full week of work went. It's done. My poor brain is trying to absorb so many new facts, figures and names that I slept very soundly every single night...from exhaustion. By 2pm on Friday my brain offically shut down and I was just there walking around chatting with folks. Job is a little different than I thought, but still great.

I am in charge of RN's (well, the HR side of it) for the Baffin region, which means 11 health centres. The health centres have 1,2,3 or 5 nurses at them. I do scheduling, hiring, processing, relocation in and out, interviewing, referencing...etc. So what you say...there can't be that many nurses...and there wouldn't be, if they were all full time. But they aren't. At the moment there are a lot of agency nurses who come for a couple weeks at a time, so scheduling them is a nightmare. And I'm not sure if you are aware, but there is a global shortage of RN's and for some reason Nunavut is not at the top of everyones list of places to live. Though from the view I'm sure you can't imagine why not.

So, I survived the first week. Met a lot of really great people. I also found a place only 10 minutes worth of clumping from my unit that sells burger, fries and drink for only $11 and they rent dvd's 2 for $7. Friday night I rented two movies, cooked a pizza and had a great time. Is that so different from what you did Friday night? I didn't think so.

What might be different is that I ran out of water tonight. And can't get more until the morning. The big tank under the house..empty. Sigh. No biggie. I have lots of drinking water, I just can't shower in the am. Luckily I can go home at lunch and shower. This is a great excuse not to wash dishes! Apparently if I had of called by 8pm tonight I could have had it delivered tonight, but I didn't ask until after 8pm...so there you go.

I learned that Pang and 007 have a connection. One of the mountains in the National Park just outside Pang is where the filmed one of the ski scenes in The Spy Who Loved Me. It is in the first five minutes of the film....run now to your local video store. The top photo is a picture of Mount Asgard where the filming occured.

This obviously is a picture of Pang as the sun is setting...notice the 'fog' that is my breath...makes taking photos difficult. The temperature last night when I took this was about -32. (For those of you in the US it would be -26 farenheit) Did you know at -40 farenheit and celsius are equal???

Had supper tonight at the RN residence..what a great group of people and learned a trick for taking photos in the North...if breath is a problem, put some snow in your mouth, it cools down your breath so there is no condensation!! What a great tip.

Storm day in PEI....

Ok, thank you to all my 'friends' who emailed me today to let me know you were enjoying a day off....much appreciated. Apparently Boomer was on the news here at lunch today....I wouldn't know I don't have a tv yet...but anyway, one of the other PEI people (though not a true Islander, she was born in NS and just married an Islander--three people from PEI in Pang...imagine), mentioned having seen him on the news at lunchtime. There's one thing I don't miss from home--Boomer.

We will get our share of wind days and snow days I'm told. Not that we get a lot of snow, but it blows around and even the 180ish clumps to work can be dicey and it is easy to become disoriented. No wonder they put all the new people in buildings that are within visual site of the building. And apparently, we will get our share of black out coffee breaks, like yesterday. Now and then the power just goes off for no reason...so it is a good excuse to gather in the upstairs lobby for a break. Sometimes the power goes off for hours, in which case everyone is sent home until it comes back on. The entire town lives on the same grid so you know when to come back to work cause your lights come on.

I'd like to add a couple of items to my list of things I've learned since moving North...
1. George Bush would not be happy with airport security up here...there isn't any on flights going out of Iqaluit (unless the flight is headed south) I suppose this makes sense. Who is going to hijack a plane headed to Resolute?

2. When people go down South for a vacation...it means below the tree line. Not necessarily to the Dominican. People up here are very well travelled.

3. Nunavut has three time zones, which can make decentralized offices interesting. But I think people also work on their own time, which seems ok, but takes some getting used too. Relationships move quickly here. You become instant friends and know life stories long before you would dare ask someone on PEI where they work.

4. When something odd or unusual happens people just say...that's life up North for ya.

5. I rely on TV waaaaayyyyy too much as a way to keep myself occupied. This is a good test for me...living without television and only myself for company. I'm really boring.

Hope everyone enjoyed the snow day.