Chesterfield Inlet NU

Chesterfield Inlet NU, Oct 26^th to 28^th 2011.

As I arrive in town and await a ride, I watch the plane get unloaded. Hey…Cisco boxes. I may need one of those switches. I these little airports they put your baggage etc. in a truck and drive it around the front of the building (no conveyors here) and put them on the ground if you’re not around to take them off yourselves. So I ask the guy where all the Cisco gear is going? I don’t know was the response. I guess wherever he drives is where it goes.

The Inns north hotel web site said, free shuttle to and from the airport. Does anyone ever update these things? So I grab the taxi that was waiting there and for $5 bucks for a 3 minute ride and I’m at the hotel. Like most Inns North they are run by the Co-op. This one has the co-op store at the front of the hotel. That’s convenient. I ask if I’m going to share a room. Not until Dan arrives (same guy as Coral) on Friday. If all goes to plan I’ll be out on Friday so that’s “awesome”.

I get right to work. The contact is a young (he’s been teaching in Chester for 10 years so he is only young to people my age I guess) guy named Glenn. He’s taught at the local school for 9 years and moved over to the local Arctic college just this year, to help some former students further their education. Both he and his wife teach in town. He’s a friendly nice guy and noble. There have to be a few left on earth.

He found out where the parts ended up, put me on the back of his 4 wheeler and off we went to get the gear I needed. Mission accomplished. I love it when a plan comes together. By the second day I install, I train, I cut . Man he loved the page button. He acted like it was Christmas day and I gave him a shiny bullhorn as a toy. Announcement’s galore. I hope for his student’s sake he tires of it. lol

Day 2 and I’m all done and wanna go back to the school and take pics and check their existing system. Glenn is busy but will drive me anyway. Crap, while he’s at it, he gives me a mini tour of the town. It the oldest community in Nunavut, just turned 100 this year. You can tell if I came in the summer and he wasn’t busy I would get the full tour. There is a “walking tour” web site and he gave me a brochure they town made as well. Anyway as we take the quick version of the “Glenn” tour he tells me his friend just killed 1 of 3 polar bears (of 5 seen) and took me to see it. That was cool. Nothing goes to waste in the North when it comes to animal hunts so I have no objections to such things.

So off to the school…but wait, I have to see this. They are becoming famous for making canoes in their school. They made one, and the students loved it so they made it into a school project. In the summer they take it to the Hudson Bay and up north and with some portaging it turns into a 3 week trip. Evidently because of his acceptance of his new position this year he missed it.

The weather wasn’t that great the second day. Overcast (surprise) but a real cold wind off the bay as well. Brrr. I did take some pics including the old Hospital built by the Catholics in the 1930. Neat to see old artifacts (and buildings) like that.

The hotel room was uncharacteristically cool the first night. Great for sleeping. Everywhere you go in the north they seem to have the heat cranked. The second night, it was actually getting cold. I looked inside the room and in the hall for a thermostat, to no avail. So on went a hoody and I slept with a shirt and socks on. By morning it was worse. I was leaving but I didn’t want poor Dan to freeze. So I looked down at the rad itself and sure enough, a knob. It’s set to what appears to be a sun. I take that to mean summer, as in “off for the summer”. So a quick twist to 2 and tadda…heat. Not too much though. 20 Celsius is the most I need. Enjoy your heat Dan.

You know what, Glenn made Chesterfield Inlet an okay place and if I return I hope we can meet up again. Maybe this time I’ll get the full tour.

Coral Harbour NU

Coral Harbour NU Oct 19^th to 26^th 2011

Before I left Repulse I emailed the Hotel in Coral to see if I was getting a lift as the airport is 10 miles from town. I was told they don’t provide this service and they gave me the number for the taxi. Good to know in advance. I got in and found the only payphone in the airport was dead. Nice going NWT. The lady in the “control tower” called a cab for me and I set about to read my book. Soon the place empties out except for me and this lady. Once the daily flight is over, no need to hang around.

After about a half hour wait I ask if she can call again. Evidently he hasn’t come home from his other job and until he does, I must wait. He eventually shows and up proceeds to drive close to 100k on a winding gravel road to the lovely “Leonies place” hotel. $20 for a 10 minute drive. I’ll be expensing that one for sure.

Work is literally 240 feet away. I paced it out. I get over to site and find my equipment is there as expected. We sent it well in advance. However, a critical data switch I need (in fact all data equipment for the community) has yet to come.

So I make a few calls and find out it was shipped the day before I arrived. Ahhh. Shipped via Canadian North, who don’t fly to Coral Harbour. They likely hand it off to Calm Air in Rankin Inlet, NU.

Should come soon I think. Yah right. The weather turns bad. I still can’t figure out how to tell if they will fly into a community. If it’s a “low ceiling” (I should look that term up) they won’t attempt it, at least in smaller towns. For a few days it turns overcast, and it’s snowing. So it seems that’s no good for flying.

So no flights in Thursday, Friday or Saturday. Sunday a flight comes, but no parts.

By Monday I’m so fed up with this waiting game. I truly wonder who is running these projects. I suspect no one in reality. So I call Canadian North Cargo in Iqaluit to track the parts. I get told to call the Rankin office to see if it was handed to Calm Air. So I call Rankin and was told “I don’t think we go to Coral harbor”. I said “I don’t believe you do either” and go on to explain how I was told the parts would likely go to Calm Air. He then suggests I call Calm Air. The same people I call several times a day to see if my parts arrived in Coral Harbour airport yet. So I call the airport and was told “some parts” did come and they will drop them off at the site I am working at.

So Monday at 10ish, 4 of 14 boxes arrives and of course the one I need isn’t one of them. Another call and I’m told another plane arrives at 3:30 so perhaps they will come. So I sit at site, like I have now for 6 days and hope someone shows up with parts.

Tuesday morning I go to the common area at “Leonies place” and there is Dan, one of the network techs we are working in conjunction with is sitting there.

So I take Dan on the work site tour. We start in the area I’ve been waiting to complete. Next we go to school. I popped over the day before around 3 to check out the site as it will likely be a future work site. As we open the doors between my site and the school, low and behold, all the fucking equipment I was waiting on is sitting there. They delivered it sometime after 3 and never bothered to tell me or evidently, anyone. That’s so Nunatypical.

I finally finish my work and train the customer. I hope I can finally get the hell out of here.

Don’t get the wrong impression. This town was okay. I walked around and took a few pics Saturday. It was a tad cold but clear and nice. That’s why when the flight didn’t come in that morning I was surprised. I walked most of the town in about 1 hour. Sunday I started to walk again but the wind had picked up too much. It was too damn cold to walk.

I was surprised how many dogs where tied outside on short leases. In the north dogs are everywhere and naturally you see huskies, that I assume pull sleds, usually in groups and spaced far enough apart that they can’t reach each other. Sometimes there will be a makeshift dog house nearby for them but I’m not sure I’ve ever seen the dogs use them. But in this town I saw a few dogs (non-huskies) that where tied up with really nowhere to go. I’m not sure I understand why. If it’s a pet, why is it outside? They don’t appear to be work dogs to me, but WTF do I know.

Leonies place is okay I suppose. Any northern hotel where you didn’t have to share a room, is a good hotel. The room was typical I suppose, except that between the mattress and box spring was a sheet of fiber board. That’ll stiffener up. Oh and the last day there was no water in the morning. The truck fixed that up an hour after I arose. Though I seemed to sleep okay (It’s not 30 degrees or no odd “whirrrrr, bang”), a few times I awake at odd hours. 1:30. 3:00 etc. And I’m wide awake. Watch Conan for an hour, wide awake. It was odd. Maybe the place was built on an ancient burial ground.

Anyway, I may be back some day to complete the rest of the town. That won’t be bad as long as the parts are there first. Please God, let the parts arrive first. lol

In the case at the school. Hes been there at least 20 years.



On the schools wall. (nice and close)

Class watching seal cleaning. Kind of an art form. Taken on my BB, so don't bitch about quality.

Repulse Bay NU

Repulse Bay NU, Oct 17^th to 19^th 2011

I swear it’s most likely the fault of the "guy" who books these trips that they start like shit. I’m one of 3 people who fly into town today. I call the hotel for a drive and was told by a woman she would call the co-op. The manager of the hotel calls the airport back to say they can’t give me a lift as they don’t have a vehicle. He says I could call a cab (there’s 1 cab) but the hotel is like a 2 minute walk and can be seen from the airport.

So I grab my 2 huge heavy bags and my 2 carry ons and start trudging through the snow. A few minutes later I’m standing inside the front door. The manager then says “they would have dropped your bags off for you”. Now you tell me. I believe half of the non-Inuit people are working up here because they can’t get jobs in the south, not just because they want extra cash. He also goes on to tell me the "guy" mentioned at the beginning of this blog never gave him a credit card number or even called back to actually book the room. (By the time I flew out, he still didn’t have the credit card number)

So I got to work ASAP as I have to be out of the hotel by Wednesday. At the work site I run into Jim, one of the network guys we are trailing around. Finally, a friendly and familiar face. He was flying out the next day, but we got to spend a bit of time together and have dinner together. This helped make this town experience a lot better for me.

Because of Jim we chatted with a guy who talked about caribou and seal hunting. Kinda cool.

The main site contact also shared a few stories about the herds and how they share and sell the meat their family doesn’t use.

It had snowed a few days before I arrived and it was cold with the wind but man it beats overcast skies any day. I did do a bit of walking and picture talking. I kinda like Repulse Bay. I wasn’t there long but I suspect a longer visit wouldn’t have been that bad.

New health center to be completed in 2013?

Extension to the co-op

Health center again from hotel door step

Rankin Inlet NU

Rankin Inlet Oct 12^th to 17^th 2011

This town started well by being met at the airport by a guy who brought me a vehicle. What a treat. A vehicle waiting for me.

Off to the hotel which boasts 50 rooms. A high speed access point was right outside the room so if the hotel wasn’t full, like it was in the evenings, you could actually surf a tiny bit and my black berry would work for BBM. Good for chatting with my southern friends. That always helps kill time.

I was in town to install 2 sites but much like Arviat the prime site had equipment we didn’t know about so I couldn’t finish it up. Because of this my trip was cut short by 2 days.

The weather was crappy fall weather similar to Arviat. It snowed 1 day but right after started raining making the whole place wet and slushy.

On my last day I did drive around and take a few pics. Again I kinda wish I was here in the summer or at least better weather. This place is like a real town with banks and more stores than just a Co-op and Northern store.

Like most places in Nunavut, the people were, for the most part, nice. So I have nothing either extraordinarily negative or positive to report.

Arviat NU

Arviat NU Oct 7th to 12th 2011
Sadly I am really starting to believe that the weather is ruining the Nunaexperience for me. Pretty much the whole time I was in Avriat it was either overcast, and windy or raining. My desire to go for walks in these communities is already low, but with this weather it hits zero.
I made it into town late Friday but managed to get keys for both job sites so I could work at my leisure. I like that. Free to come and go and left to my own devises. I work best that way. The work went as fine as can be expected but someone will need to return as we need extra gear to complete one site.
Now to the fun parts:
I took a cab from the airport. Unlike Clyde River the cab driver was smiling, spoke English and knew where I was going. Well work $5 for the 5 minute drive.

I got my “suite”, room 15 at the Inns North’s wonderful “Padlei Co-Op”. It the only room with a double bed (woo hoo). After I get acquainted with the work sites and grab my keys I head back to the “suite” to relax before dinner. While I watch TV I can hear a motor rumbling from what sounds to be next door. Yikes that’s loud.
I head out to the hotel restaurant where I meet the lady who manages the place. She explains how this is the only room with a double bed which to her is somehow a wonderful thing but proceeds to tell me that the water pump is in the mechanical room next to me and I will likely hear it. I tell her I already did. She says you will be used to it after a bit. (Oh will I?) I then ask her if I will eventually be sharing the room with a stranger. She said absolutely not. She doesn’t believe in that and put a stop to it a while ago. (Thank goodness for that).
So night 1 in the suite was the worst night’s sleep I’ve had since I got my CPAP machine years ago. You see in MOST of the northern communities water is delivered by truck and put into a holding tank. Some use gravity to get it where it goes some don’t. So every time some used water in my wing of the hotel, on came the pump that was literally fastened to the wall in the room next to me. Usually for only 10 or 15 seconds followed by a “bang” which seemed after a quick inspection was a pipe hitting something? A wooden joist perhaps. So with the exception of perhaps a few hours late late at night, every now and then, “whirrrrr, bang”. Try to sleep through that even with klennex stuffed in your ears.
Night 2 I decided the wonderful double mattress would become a shield against the noise. I was sleeping in the single bed which was furthest from the noise anyway. Before bed I took the mattress off the double bed and wedged it between my bed and the night stand on its side. So, ear plugs and a 10” insulated shield and I still slept like crap. The mattress shield seemed to not help at all. WTF.
Night 3, I walk into the room and it’s a lot warmer. It doesn’t make sense my thermostat is set to off. As I watch TV it gets warmer and it sounds like it’s raining out. I realize it’s not raining it the rad making that noise as it kicks out heat. Again WTF. So I now have the window wide open and have to open the door to the hallway to cool the place down. Great privacy that provides. So I sleep in the warmth listening to “whirrrrr, bang”, every time someone needed a drink or flushed their toilet, all night long.
Night 4. Okay tonight its up to 25 degrees and my thermostat says its off. Some other room MUST be controlling mine. OMG, The window’s WIDE open. The doors wide open. I’m in my shorts and sweating like a pig still. I can’t leave the door open while I sleep but the window stays open. I awake in the wee hours and my pillow is wetter than I’ve ever felt a pillow. Luckily there are 4 of them in the room. I switch pillow but I bet its 30 degrees Celsius in the damn room. It’s so hot I’m actually getting used to “whirrrrr, bang”. It doesn’t seem as frequent.
Last night, thank goodness. Temp still brutal. Windows and door open again most of the evening. It actually close to 0 outside but it stays around 23. So I push the bed in front of the window. Stuff 2 pillows over the rad directly beside the head of the bed, and doze off. It’s reasonably comfortable and again “whirrrrr, bang” doesn’t have the same effect on my life so I almost get some sleep.
Along the path of the room adventures I had the coffee maker on and the kettle along with the TV and lights, and tried to blow dry my hair. You guessed it, one breaker for the whole room. We found the breaker on a panel with no cover, just by luck.

Adventure two doesn’t need as much detail. Remember I’m in town over thanksgiving weekend so no one really wants to work. On day 2 (Saturday) I called the trunk rental place to see if they would answer my call today. (They ignored it while I was at the airport) They did and eventually I got a truck. Woo Hoo. My first workplace was 100 feet from the hotel so I didn’t really need it. The other site was 2 blocks away so I helped when all the equipment was located at the first site. So I delivered and installed the second sites equipment, then drove back to hotel. Once there I noticed the front passenger tire was a tad low. Perhaps a slow leak.
Sunday it looked about the same so I drove to the first site. (Yes 100 feet away, but I was planning on continuing on.) Once I go out and looked again I said to myself “If this was my vehicle, I wouldn’t drive on this tire”. So I called the guy who finally got me the van. He said he will try to find a portable pump and leave it with me in case it gets low again. I say “it’s Sunday if you wish to wait, no problem”. “I will try to find a pump” I was assured and was asked where it is parked.
In true NUNA fashion, no one showed up. I’m so glad the weather sucked so I didn’t want to see the town, or I’d have been pissed. Tuesday morning I called and by 11:30 that morning the tire was fixed and I was told,” It had no hole in it”. I bet some brat kid let the air out. BLAHH.
As a side note this isn’t like the south, where gas stations are everywhere with plenty of air available for 50 cents. And yes I asked people.

One my last full day I trekked over to 3 schools and the main government building to do some site surveys for future visits. I checked the lines etc. and took a ton of pics. My last morning I decided to move these pics onto my PC. It was acting exceptionally slow that morning. Moody piece of crap. I moved perhaps half a dozen pics onto it when Windows explorer crashed. After that EVERY picture that was on the memory card from the camera was gone. Surveys of 4 sites. UGG. After cursing Microsoft and Bill Gates (I picture him with his feet up enjoying his live and laughing while my PC crashes) and punching the couch (So I don’t create real damage), I pack up and head back to at least the government building. It’s the most important one of the bunch. There I take another few dozen pics to be safe. Perhaps I’ll be the one doing these schools and won’t need the pics.
A few good things in this community.
The people at the work sites and for the most part the hotel were friendly and as helpful as could be. One girl (likely less than 20) who waited there was a tad cold but she was either 7 to 8 months pregnant or had a really weird body. Either way I guess I don’t blame her.

I hope if I return to Arviat the weathers better so I can see some of the town. Even the cold weather is preferential to the damn fall rain overcast blustery crap. It just makes me wanna hibernate, just not in room 15. PS she assured me I could avoid that room next visit.


The hotel

community frezzer?



This was the "ART" in my room


Room 115 (or 15 on the door) UGG

Baker Lake NU

Baker Lake NU, Oct 3 to 7^th 2011

I got into town later in the evening and was met at the airport by a gentleman from a company called BLCS.

http://www.blcs.ca/

They offer everything people need. Before he drove to a hotel they run called “the BLCS work house”, he took me over to the site I would be working at to show me how to get there in the morning. He then dropped me off but not before handing me my room and vehicle keys. Imagine? That’s the way it’s supposed to work. We open the door and as I step inside a man named Silvain asks if I want him to make me a sandwich. I decline as I was fed by First Air on the way there but he insists I take a coke and a bottle of water. A great start to this experience. It really is the people that make these trips livable.

This place is no 4 star hotel, but I get a room to myself with half decent satellite package. There is also a general sitting area for the guests with a big screen and 2 comfy couches. Down on the first floor is a restaurant. Breakfast was included. 3 eggs bacon, sausage, home fries, toast with homemade bread and freshly brewed coffee. Normally breakfast is cereal or oatmeal so this is a welcome change. Even at home this kind of breakfast is rare. Sweet. The other times I ate dinner off the menu (reasonable northern prices) I can honestly say you get lots of fries and it’s quick.

Baker Lake is a well laid out little town. Three main East West roads are intersected numerous times with cross roads. The two schools and Northern store are nice and central.

For the most part, I’m working in the North East corner of town. Once my main job is complete, I managed to get some site surveys in as well. In fact at the high school I fixed an issue with the NWT installed Mitel they’ve had since it was installed. Their 2k guy did some real nice installs over the years. I’m not sure their 3300 skills are as good.

My first full day 1 had fog galore. Day 2 wasn’t that much better.

I was to fly out on day 3 but a satellite in space got itself all turned around so all communication from the north died. You couldn’t call out of your community and cell and internet service was down. All of Nunavut was dead in the water. All flights were grounded.

The sad part was the south didn’t seem to notice. I watch CBC and Global national news to see if they would tell me anything. Steve Jobs from Apple had just dies so that naturally dominated the news. Second top story? The government wants to regulate the amount of caffeine in drinks like red bull. The whole North is dead and it didn’t make either national TV stations news cast. Eventually it made the ticker tape portion at the bottom of the CBC but didn’t give us an expected ETA of the repair. It just mentioned it was happening. Shameful. It does go to show the south doesn’t care about Nunavut or NWT. I bet if it happened in Alaska It would have made the USA news.

The day I was to leave it cleared up so I did manage a few pics. I met some good people in Baker Lake. The BLCS staff know how to treat you, so I wouldn’t hesitate to go back if need be.

Posted at a job site:

Airport terminal


High School