A great way to start off the long weekend...

Christine, Amanda, Deon, and I decided to take a paddle out to the pingos after work today. (Chowder, Christine's dog, decided to come along for the ride as well). There was some fog over the water, as the sea ice is moving out, but it was generally calm, and an easy paddle.


Amanda, Christine and Chowder


In front of the pingos. (The big one is called 'Ibyuk.')

We got part way to the pingos before we decided to stop for dinner. There is a lot of driftwood around Tuk, due to the fact that we are part of the Mackenzie Delta, and the river's mouth is just down the coast. Thus, gathering enough fuel for a fire is never a problem. We built a fire on the beach, and cooked chicken, sausages and hotdogs on a grill. Chowder spent her time exploring the island we'd paddled to.



After dinner, we went to do some exploring on the beach, and found many interesting rocks, as well as parts of a whale skeleton and signs from the ice road that had melted through the ice. We decided not to paddle any closer to the pingos, since we had to paddle against the wind on the way back... so we headed back to town.

Christine, Amanda and I decided to skim through the show "Jesse James is a Dead Man" on the PVR, and had a good laugh about some misrepresentations of Tuk, including:

-There is no airport (How do they think we get in and out of town for 8 months of the year?)
-We are running deathly low on medicine (Well, I guess if we "have no airport" then yes, this would be an issue. However, the pharmacy in Inuvik regularly sends medicine on the plane)
-We have no hospital (No, we don't... but we do have a nurse's station and medevac)
-We have only one general store (I wouldn't call Northern a general store, nor would I call the other store a general store)
-850 people STRUGGLE TO SURVIVE the harsh Arctic winter (Yes, we were really struggling in our warm houses this winter)

And those are only a few of the issues. However, good exposure for the town I suppose. At this rate, I will be surprised if anyone in North America doesn't know where Tuk is!


Happy Aboriginal Day weekend from the pingos!