Clyde River NU

Clyde River Sept 27^th to Oct 1^st 2011

My experience in Clyde River had a strange start. Turns out a vehicle was left for me at the airport, but no one told me. So I got out my credit card, swiped it through the payphone and called the taxi number posted on the wall. A man answered. I “said taxi to the airport”. The person on the other end seemed to only speak Inuktitut. He rambled on. I said “is this the taxi”, only to listen to him ramble on again as if he was angry. I said “I guess I called the wrong number” and proceeded to hang up as he continued to talk. I took out my credit card again and literally swiped it over 20 times to get it to work and again called the number on the wall. This time a lady answered and said “taxi”. I said “taxi to the airport” to which she replied, “It’s already on its way”. Strange I thought, but sure enough this angry looking man came walking in a few minutes later and said “who needs a taxi”. I replied “I do” along with 2 other ladies. By the time I got my luggage in and sat down the 2 ladies where in the back seat.

I looked at the driver and said “the cultural center” to which he loudly replied “HUH?”. He started driving. Unbeknownst to me, the Cultural center is ¾ the way to town. As he is about to speed past I overhear one of the ladies say to the other, “that’s the cultural center, I stayed there before”. I told this to the driver who was obviously pissed that he had to stop, reverse 30 feet and go up the ramp. I think he grumbled the word “Piqqusilirivvik”, which is the official name of the place, though this building has no official sign on it. I guess I, being the person who has never been to this hamlet in my life, should have known that this was the cultural center. Why on earth would the local cab driver in a town that you could drive through literally in 5 or 6 minutes, know the English name of the building?

As a side note I found the name on the sign that was likely installed by the government, perhaps at its dedication. It says Piqqusilirivvik cultural center. The Nunavut Government committed $8,053,000 and the Canadian Government $24,161,000.

Sad that in my first 10 minutes in Clyde River I had to meet that guy. If only I had been told that there was a truck waiting, the biggest memory of this town for me wouldn’t be that.

The Piqqusilirivvik cultural center is an awesome building. I guess it should be for over 32 million dollars. I had a room to myself, which was great and access to a kitchen where I could cook real food. A lot of thought went into putting this place together. It has a huge open concept hall with huge laminated beams. Nice.

On day two I met another person who also soured my “Clyde” experience. I won’t go into the boring details but I was told “we never get any help when we go south” when I mentioned possibly taking the staff up on a promised drive. Damn that mystery truck. Between that and the crappy weather that started on day two, I decided to keep to myself for the most part.

On Friday it cleared up so go to take a few more pics. The hamlet is a small place, so other than driving through it, to get the work site (which I had trouble finding) or Northern store, I never bothered walking in town. The whole place is surrounded by mountains. Once it cleared up so you can see them, it is very lovely.

On the bright side, the ladies at the work site, one other Government worker and the school principal were nice enough to almost make up for the first 2 “people”.

Anyway, here are some pics. If I have a choice would I go back to Clyde River…umm, you figure it out.