Melting Muddy Meanderings & Med School

The time has certainly flown by and I keep finding myself less and less behind a computer. Funny how since the nice weather has come, I spend less time cooped up inside. Well here's a whirlwind update of the last few weeks in my life. I had a fantastic trip to Whitehorse, a great city that everyone should see. It felt a little like a metropolis after holing up in Inuvik for the winter what with sushi, a microbrewery and shopping. The drive up and down the Dempster highway might have even been the best part. I captured some good pictures, but they don't do it justice. The remoteness of the highway with only a hotel/gas bar breaking up about 500km of absolute emptiness, is pretty astounding. I got an apprecitation for how far north I am by driving 15hrs south and still being north of 60. Ah Canada.

While in Whitehorse I received an invitation to interview for the physician assistant program at McMaster. So after spending a few weeks in the mud and torrents of flooding creeks in Inuvik, I flew back south to Ontario for a whirlwind visit with friends and family and even some bananas, had a good experience interviewing and then flew back north with my Parents so they could experience the northern life for a week. Boy did they see the north. Gone were the days of rushing meltwater, only to be replaced with wind and snow for another week. They seemed to enjoy themselves despite having to wear hats and mitts again in May. Taking a helicopter ride and having lunch with an Olympian can help smooth over bad weather though. Surprise, surprise as soon as they left the nice weather returned to stay and some good news for me. The University of Calgary offered me a spot in the class of 2012 medical program, so I guess 3rd times the charm.

Thank you to everyone who has sent well wishes, it's great to know that so many people were rooting for me. Maybe that's all it took. I just needed to win a bit more people power onto my side. Now I'm trying to pack as much enjoyment into my time in the Arctic before I have to buckle down and head back to school for a condensed 3 year medical degree. Nobody said it was going to be easy though. Fortunately the weather is gorgeous up here now, the river has just broken up, the sun won't set until July and I'm heading out to Ivvavik National Park with a biology class, which should be spectacular. I could do with a week in the mountains of northern Yukon under the midnight sun. Couldn't you?

Well March has brought a few new exciting adventures to report. Namely rising temperatures, more light than I know what to do with and some celebrations. Gone are the -40C days thankfully and while we're not as warm as the rest of you southerly folks, the "spring" up here is really enjoyable. When the sun is shining, there isn't much wind and the temperature is only in the minus teens/twenties, it's really great to be outside. It helps that the sun comes up at 7:30am these days and doesn't go down until after 10pm with a long twilight after. It's already light for pretty much my whole day and it's having an effect on the town in general. Just like southerly spring, people are in great moods wherever you go and kids find it that much harder to be in school. For a school of 400 kids at the start of the semester, we're at an average attendance of about 250 right now and it won't get any better as summer comes and we move even further into 24hrs of day light. Can you blame them though?

St. Paddy's Day in Inuvik was quite an event, not the manic craziness of downtown Montreal, where every bar is rammed from opening until close, but it's the one day of the year where you can buy draft beer! No it wasn't great beer and yes it was just kegs in the back of the Legion, but damn that green beer tasted good. I stopped by the Legion at about 4 to see when things were starting and low and behold they already were. So a night of green beer, east coast tunes and lamb stew it was. St. Patrick would have been proud (that's why we have this day right?).

This past weekend, true spring came to the Beaufort Delta with the start of the annual Jamboree season. The first one is always in Inuvik and tis none other than the Muskrat Jamboree. Four long days of indoor and outdoor events where there's a ton of activities, eating and chatting. Heavy on the socializing. The idea stems from the time when people would gather in the spring to meet with family from all across the region and boy does that still hold true. So many people from all over renewing their family ties and people of all ages out and about participating in dog sled and skidoo races, traditional events like harpoon throwing and tea boiling as well as some newer things like dances and talent shows. It's a lot of milling around and waiting for the next activity to start at least an hour "late", but since eveybody knows it's going to be this way, it doesn't really matter. When it's over, the show packs up and moves to another town the next weekend. I was denied my one goal for the weekend, which was to taste muktuk (the skin and fat layer of belugas dried and served up with HP sauce), since under the many layers of land claim agreements, traditional foods are pretty tough to sell to white people. C'est dommage, but I settled for chili and eskimo donuts.

I helped organize the annual loppet (cross country ski race for you non skiiers) at the Inuvik Ski Club. We held it on Jamboree weekend to catch the festive spirit and it worked out really well. I skiied the 5 km race, which was definitely enough for my novice ski legs, but we had races from 250 m for the littluns to 15 km for the skiiers wearing the fancy race pants. In the end, there were so many race categories that nearly all the 50 some racers got a medal of some sort at the Legion steak dinner following the loppet (even me). I'm keeping the ski motif going, as I'm travelling "south" to Whitehorse for the spring break starting at Easter to do some cross country skiing, eat some sushi & pho and hopefully drink some more draft beer. Bring on the Yukon.

Confident Calgarian Conibears

Wow, what happened to February?! I feel like Jack Frost dropped a roofie in my drink during those heady days in January and now face March bleary eyed and a little wiser. Okay so it hasn't been that bad, but certainly busy times. The first week of February brought in the new semester here at the high school and along with it a visit from Turtle Concepts, a confidence boosting group aimed at convincing Aboriginal youth that it's okay to be confident in who you are and succeed at life. It sounds like it's been dusted with le fromage, but kids were really receptive and caught on to the message that you have a choice in your life's direction. You have to realize eventually that it's okay to be who you are, otherwise you'll never be comfortable.

I spent the next week prepping for my med school interview at the University of Calgary and then found myself being whisked away to the balmy temperatures of the Rockies. It was great to stretch my city legs for a bit, eat some delicious food, walk on pavement and most importantly taste a delicious pint of beer for the first time in 6 months. Can you believe you can't get draft beer anywhere in Inuvik? I got to tour around Canmore with Nikki, who played a fantastic host and who's friend Lucy managed to secure us a fantastic dog sled ride in the moutains of Spray Lakes Provincial Park. Oh yeah I had an interview somewhere in there too. I guess I wasn't thinking too much about that possibility when I packed to come to Inuvik, but quickly realized that I had nothing suitable to wear. Plaid shirts and holey pants are not the norm at those sorts of things, despite supreme comfort. So after some hunting around my outfit consisted of 2$ pants from the Inuvik thrift store, shoes 50% off in Calgary, belt 50% off in Canmore, shirt and tie from prep school teacher Dan and suit jacket from Scottish Murray. Somehow it all came together into a pretty professional looking outfit. Thanks to all who contributed, including the recession that enabled me to buy clothing on sale.

The interview itself went really well I thought, but it seemed like everyone had the same thoughts, so maybe the entire process is geared to lull you into a false sense of security. Hopefully I presented my burning desire to practice medicine somewhere in answering ridiculous scenarios that seemingly had little to do with the actual job and more to do with tip-toeing around dicey ethical problems. It was a really positive experience though and a much bigger feel than the Northern Ontario campus. Something about being nestled in a newly built medical complex with soaring skylit atriums, that makes you feel important. Definitely wouldn't be a bad place to spend 3 years.


No sooner did I get back from Calgary than I was whisked out on a skidoo-fueled adventure in the Mackenzie delta where we took 6 outdoor ed students on a trapper training program sponsored by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources. While not exactly a serene picture of nature, snowmobiles certainly made traveling 70 km out to the cabin and roaming around setting traps and collecting firewood a hell of alot easier, plus who knew careening around portage trails and blasting over frozen lakes could be so much fun. Two Gwich'in elders accompanied the trip and brought their knowledge of trapping practices and stories along with them. We managed to catch 3 snowshoe hares (enough to make rabbit stew) and learn the different techniques for skinning both marten and rabbit. Our muskrat trap didn't yield any animals alas. I'll be posting some pictures soon and I'll try to keep them tasteful, but it's tough to make a skinless animal look anything but alien like. It was great to get out on the land though and work with a small group of interested kids. Once the apocalypse comes, I'll be snaring rabbits left, right and centre.

Seasoned Skier & Sassy Saxing

We're coming to the end of January and turning a corner here at the high school. Exams are all done and the new semester starts next week. It seems like I've been pretty lucky weather wise in January. It started off real cold with ice foggy -40 days when some friends and I decided to hit the ice road and try our luck bringing a picnic to Tuktoyaktuk. A picnic in Tuk will henceforth be known as a Tuknic. The scenery was gorgeous and we were lucky enough to try it on a full moon night. It's a little bizzare driving down the frozen surface of the wide sweeping Mackenzie River with road signs popping up here and there (left to Aklavik, straight to Tuk). It's a lawless kind of driving, with no posted speed limits along 4 lanes wide of snow patchy ice and very little traffic (maybe a dozen cars during the 2.5 hr noe way trip). So if there are no rules, why not bring some skates along and try the ice road version of water skiing behind the truck. I wasn't brave enough to trust my skating skills, but I tied a mean bow line and took some pictures.

Then it got warmer and we had a weekend of ridiculously balmy temperatures (it reached +5 at one point). So what do you do when you're quite possibly the warmest spot in the country? You set up a movie theater in the front yard and project all the video you want on the side of your garage. Lots of passing skidooers slowed down to check it out and even stopped to figure out what the hell was going on. I've been getting my cross country skiing legs under me too. I joined the Inuvik Ski Club and went through the rigorous learn-to-ski workshop. It seemed to work, since I made it around the trails without falling for the first time.

Then the temperature settled somewhere in between, which is a good compromise. Last weekend the Inuvik Community Band was invited to come and play along with the local jazz band Razzamajazz at their CD release at the Lion's Den Robbie Burns Day dinner. Swanky stuff I know. Pretty fun though and my sax chops are gettnig a lot better. I even honked out a bluesy solo along to Flip Flop Fly. Yesterday I finally managed to get the rest of my mail that has been lurking at the post office since before Christmas. Thanks again to everyone that has sent postage love my way. the only casualty was a bottle of hot sauce, but it managed to stay contained and not taint anything else.

So what does February bring you ask? Well a ton more books for the library that's for sure. I finally got crackin on the tedious ordering process and we'll be getting about $10,000 worth of new books and another $2,500 in magazine subscriptions. I made sure we're stacked with Snow Goer and American Snowmobiler cause you can never have too many skidoos. Hopefully I can get a book club started at the school too, so the booky kids will have something to do other than wish they were better at soccer. The least I can do is provide for kindred spirits.

Cold Christmassy Calmness

The Christmas break has come and gone and I'm looking bleary-eyed at the end of the first day of school. I missed seeing everyone in Ontario and toasting the new year with old friends, but I managed to find other "homeless" people during the holidays so we kept each other entertained. There definitely is a calm that descends over Inuvik during the holidays with a lot of government workers and teachers taking holidays and people visiting family in general. A nice break from southern shopping mayhem. There was many a movie watched and I made it all the way through the complete Degrassi Senior High series (lots of Pape Ave cameos). The mega movie watching was necessitated by the frigid temperatures that swooped in; I finally got to experience -42. *#$!n' cold is all I've got to say. I found a family to hang out with on Christmas morning so at least I got to share in the kidness of playing with cars, trains and small Barbie accessories you're trying not to lose on the first day. Long ago a friend of mine was tricked into thinking Mexicans actually celebrate Christmas a day late (I don't think she researched it much), thus for her, Boxing Day has become a celebration of all things Mexican. We celebrated in style like the best Mexicans we know how to be, with fajitas, sangria, chilis relenos and tequila jello shots. I rang in the New Year with playing a lot of Rock Band, a pretty fun way to live out your wildest rock n roll fantasies. All round not a bad holiday in the least.

I received the news today that my great aunt Lois passed away on the weekend after a long battle with Alzheimer's. My thoughts go out to all my family, but especially the Barrie cousins and my grandmother. She had been ill for a long time, so in a lot of ways it will be better, but it's always hard to lose someone you love. At least I have fun memories of visiting Barrie and will remember her as a kind and generous woman.

Asides from that sadness I hope everyone had the merriest of Christmases even without my bearded face. So far my new year's resolutions are to place a mega book order for the school library, kick start a breakfast smoothie program at the school and to think of more new year's resolutions.

Resolutely yours...