Special Charter

During our evening dog walk I noticed a plane coming in to land. At first I didn't pay much attention, then I wondered why it seemed to be coming in so slow. Eventally it got close enough for me to realize that it wasn't slow, rather it was so enormous that I had been watching it come in from miles away.

The plane is as tall as our airport building!

I was so impressed and intrigued that I drove down to the airport to get a closer look.

It is so dry

I have been in Iqaluit for 8 weeks, in which time my body has absorbed the contents of a huge vat of Cocoa Butter that would have lasted me 6 months in the damp costal climate of BC. I exfoliate and moisturize my body and apply various concoctions from Skoah to my face but still I feel all dried up... like a middle-aged lady who spends too much time in the Palm Springs sun.

On my return to Vancouver I will be checking into Miraj for a Hammam & Gommage with Orientale Massage & Nettoyage de Peau. Essentially this involves sitting in a steam room for 20 minutes drinking lots of water and trying not to pass out, you are then laid on a marble slab and scrubbed all over with a pumice soap before being rinsed off. Head swimming and skin tingling, you stumble to the treatment room and collapse on the massage table. After a gentle facial you are anointed with scented oils and massaged back to life. The treatment complete, you are given a robe and led to the lounge for sweet mint tea and cake. Try it, you won't regret it.

Really?

Easter Sunday we headed out on the ice again to watch the last of the Toonik Tyme events; the snowcross. As this is a snowmachine event we decided to travel on the snowmachine, makes sense to us. A row of vehicles and spectators lined the side of the course, we parked at the end of the row and watched the practice runs, enjoying the sunshine on our faces. A couple with their baby arrived and parked about 20foot to our right, they got off their machine and started chatting to some other people behind us. Blaine was sitting on our sled, I stood beside him chatting while I photographed the action.

After 30 minutes or so of practice runs, the starter dropped the flags and the race began. Apparently this was the signal for the aforementioned group to come and stand right infront of us! There are miles and miles of open ice and they have their own machine parked off to the right but no they just walk right past me as I am taking photos and then stand there. Blaine and I were too amazed to say anything. the four of them stood there for the whole time chatting away smack bang in front of us blocking our view and my pictures!!!

Do you know these people? Do you have any idea why they would be so freakin' rude?

As you can see there is PLENTY of space but they took the effort to walk from behind us, around us and regroup again infront of us. I have tried to think of a plausible explanation but am drawing a blank. To top it off when we started the engine to leave, the chick in the Maple Leafs toque turned around to look at the sound of the engine, but only moved aside when her man pulled the stoopid beatch out of the way.

Rant over, happy Easter everyone!

My! What a big qamutiq you have...

On our way home from wings tonight we drove to the end of the breakwater to enjoy the sunset. We noticed a couple of snowmachines towing qamutiqs heading towards us on the ice, it was not until they got closer that we realised the first guy had a boat strapped to his qamutiq. 

My guess is that this wooden boat is about 25' long, combined with the wooden sled itself that must make for a pretty hefty load to be towing.

Dog watching

On Sunday morning I took the dogs out for their usual walk on the bay. This morning's walk featured entertainment, the Toonik Tyme sled dog race was scheduled to start at 10am. We had a bit of a run around (which means me driving them following) then drove over to the start line where I stalled, in the middle of the path! Happily Fred from city works was on hand to turn the ATV's fuel onto the reserve tank and I sheepishly moved out of the way. With the puppies safely seated on the quad, and tied to it for good measure, I pulled out the camera to photograph the start of the race. Johnny and Sage are really good dogs and they didn't try to hop off but I was a little dubious so didn't get the pictures that I would have liked as I didn't want to walk too far away from them.

My Toonik Tyme album can be viewed in all its splendour here.

FYI, I went to the Baffin Gas station and filled up then turned off the reserve. Approximately 70km of driving costs $14. To fill up the tank from dead empty (last week's experiment) costs $18. The snowmobile has a fuel guage, the quad doesn't.

Iqaluit's second country market

The market was advertised to start at noon on Saturday, we got there at 11:30 and it was almost over. We were a little disapointed to see prices hiked considerably from last month so didn't buy any fish. From what we hear caribou is pretty scarce this season, I don't know if the heads were all that was left by the time they arrived but I was rather amused by these ladies strolling around the square casually brandishing their grocery shopping.

Toonik Tyme hill climb

First celebrated in 1965, Toonik Tyme is Iqaluit's spring festival. It is such a big deal that most of the city gets Friday afternoon off. Municipal and territorial governments, schools, banks, mechanics, lawyers, accountants, pretty much every employer shut their doors allowing staff head out for some fun in the mild spring afternoon.

Blaine and I jumped on the sled and quad respectively and headed out onto the bay with the puppies for a run around. After a brief lesson I took the sled for a burn and boy does it run smooth. We messed around in our usual area then loaded up the dogs and took the new ice road over to sealift beach. The road is a temporary clearing of the snow of the bay to mark out the dog sled route for the big race on Sunday. When I say big race we are talking 3 hours, not the Ititarod by any means but it should make for good entertainment.

We got back to the house at 4pm, put the dogs in their bedroom (with the T bones from last night's steak) and headed out to the hill beside the Arctic Winter Games Arena to watch the hill climb. When I first saw the event listing I had assumed it was some sort of running event - duh we are in the arctic! It is of course a snowmobile race. Probably the most impressive thing for me was the abundance of snowmachines, not competing, but driven to the event by spectators. Spectators sitting astride their machines lined the hillside surrounding the bowl where the climb course was set out, Blaine counted 80. Given that the city has a population of less than 8,000 this is a high ratio of sleds, certainly when seen through an English girls eyes!

There are a huge number of events lined up over the weekend and I plan to visit as many as possible, and of course to blog about them for your reading pleasure!