All is well for me here. A little boring, but I am well. I don’t want to give Inuvik a bad reputation, so I should clarify that my time here has been boring mostly because I have spent longer here than necessary. I am anxious to head up to Tuktoyaktuk (usually referred to as Tuk) to get the ball rolling with the main part of my research. It doesn’t help that I am somewhat shy in new settings and haven’t put myself out there too much to meet more people in Inuvik. I will be putting out much more effort to be social while in Tuk.
I need to admit something: I have watched way too much tv in the last 2 weeks. It’s shameful. I have started telling myself that I have been watching tv to supplement my lack of social interaction. Have I posted since my housemates moved out? I don’t think so… When I arrived here there were two guys living in this house that have been doing research on grizzly bears. They were nice and ok to live with but they have been gone since last Monday. There are 6 beds in this house and for the last week I have been the only one living here. The house that I am living in is actually part of a row house (4 small houses stuck together) where researchers stay. The other 3 units in the research housing have been very quiet as well – a few people have come and gone but there aren’t many people hanging around lately.
Since the house has been quiet I decided to switch rooms. My first room left a lot to be desired. I swear it used to be a closet. I took some pictures so that I can demonstrate this when I return to Ontario. Imagine… the room was so narrow that the door couldn’t fully open on account of hitting the single bed. Lengthwise, there was less than a foot from the bottom of the bed to the wall. Are the imagination wheels in your head turning? Pretty small, huh? There were a few shelves on the wall where I could put some clothes. Needless to say, when the other single room in the house came open, I took the opportunity to upgrade and it has been very nice. It’s the little details that have a made the bigger difference, though – a bedside lamp and no springs in the mattress to stick into my ribs. I could have easily lived in the closet/room for my two weeks here but it would have felt really silly with nicer (empty) rooms in the same house. In the new room I decided to not put up foil on the window and I have got along fine. Now that I am used to the 24 hour light I can sleep fine.
I have some updates on things that I said in earlier posts (for those following along). The utilidors only carry water and sewage, not natural gas. The natural gas pipes run underground. In the newer parts of town the utilidors look slightly different than the ones in the picture I posted but it’s the same idea.
I looked it up and found out that Inuvik has 56 days per year with 24 hour sunlight – plus a few more where the night sky is not really Dark. We are in the midst of 24 hours of daylight now. Tuk is slightly further north so it will be roughly the same.
The Igloo Church is called Our Lady of Victory and it is Roman Catholic, built by francophone masons. Here is a picture of the inside of the Igloo Church that I found on someone else's blog. I haven't actually gone in the church myself but I think that this picture will be of interest to some of you reading this.
Not too far to the south of Inuvik the Mackenzie River splits up and becomes the Mackenzie Delta. Inuvik is located on what is known as the East Channel of the Delta. As of last weekend, the East Channel has been completely ice-free. Apparently it happened over night this year because no ice from upstream ended up coming down the East Channel. Aside from this being an interesting geography lesson, there is another reason for me writing about this. The Dempster Highway comes up to Inuvik from the south (most directly from Dawson City in the Yukon but it is possible to connect down to Whitehorse). The Dempster is open year-round but it crosses the Mackenzie River two times along its way. In the winter there is an ice bridge and in the summer they have ferries so that vehicles can continue on their way, but during ice break-up and freeze-up the river is impassable. The ferries have started running for the season now and trucks are able to bring supplies up again. Prices for food are supposed to go down but I haven’t seen much change yet. The produce seems to be a bit fresher and the dairy prices have gone down a bit but I think that they will go down a bit more from some of the crazy prices I paid last week.
The 
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