It's Toonik Tyme. A week long celebration held every April in Iqaluit. There are lots of outdoor winter activities to watch or participate in and lots of indoor things to warm up the night. It is unfortunate that most of the activities take place during the day, but fortunately the territorial government gives employees the afternoon of Friday off to participate and in turn so did I.

Thursday afternoon there was an ice sculptre contest on and while I didn't get down to watch, I did rope L into coming with me Friday afternoon, blanket in tow to help me take pictures. Why a blanket? Well, ice is either clear or white and the sculptures were outside. So a white on white on white picture doesn't really work out so well. The wind unfortunately picked up around lunch on Friday and the whole blanket idea worked...but not as well as hoped.

Friday afternoon we watched an igloo making contest, a hockey game, snow golf, and an uphill snowmobile race. Then I came home and took a nap.

Here's some pictures from yesterday...

Ice Sculptures
Shadow bears (two identical bears facing each other)

giant face

person making an inukshuk

goose (the details were fantastic)

goose without blanket


Igloos