Iqaluit is melting

Last night our friend Norman Qavvik from Kugaaruk taught us a new word: "snowmo".

Boy am I glad that we got lots of snowmo-ing in during then last weekend of April because spring came upon us in a flash and the snow is receding daily. Fueled by the awesomeness of the trip described in my last post, John led another boys only trip on Saturday. Matt took my skidoo and I took the dogs skiing. The boys were out from 8:30 am to 4:30 pm! Blaine struggled to stay awake through Linda and Craig's Wii party, no reflection on the quality of the party nor the company, he was just bagged. We were all jealous of his goggle tan.


On Sunday we took the dogs and a picnic up to the cabin for a few hours. Sections of the river were pretty slushy. I loathe riding throu slush so asked Blaine to ride my sled over while I walked the dogs around, except I didn't walk far enough around and Blaine had to come dig my foot out of the slush. After dozing in the sunshine we headed home, sticking to the high ground this time!

All week it was around -2 to 0 so the melt started early and shows no sign of abaiting. Last week I wore my headphones at work to drown out the torrential rain like sound of the snow meltin off my office roof. At the beginning of the week I climed four steps to the front door, now I climb the full six and the parking lot is sand not snow.

We are moving house at the end of June. The rapid retreat of the snow prompted us to move our snowmos and qamutiq over to our new house while we still could. I declined Blaine's invitation to join him on the relocation ride, preferring my happy memory of skidooing to be my last of the season. Instead I drove the truck to shuttle him back and forth. This decision proved wise as Blaine said the trail was either slush, pavement, or gravel. Our sleds are now safely locked up by our new house and I have my quad ready to roll when the mood takes me.

The forecast is for continuing warm (+2) weather so we expect the snow around town to be gone in a couple of weeks. I suspect that the sea ice won't last much into June this year.