Ice...

Well, freeze up has begun in Tuk, and in fact many areas are completely frozen for the season now.



The kids have been out playing hockey since the end of September, and there are at least 6 rinks around down on ponds or the ocean that I can think of. Kids here will play hockey all day and all night if you let them. In the summer it's road hockey, and as soon as the ice freezes they are out for hours skating around. Oddly enough, the Tuk arena is only being flooded this week.

Due to the weather that is still nice-ish, and the fact that there is ice, I have been skating with some friends a few times within the last week. The first rink we shoveled off behind the RCMP detachment was bumpy, and it didn't help that two of the RCMP dogs were loose and running directly at us, at high speed as we skated around.

This weekend we decided to usurp one of the rinks the kids have been using behind the fire hall (aka the old sewage lagoon). It was nice and smooth after hours of skating by the kids, and was much more successful than our own rink we'd created. Pictures will follow, I haven't uploaded them yet.

With the advent of freezup, we've also already gone ice fishing. We trekked out across the ice and land to the good fishing spot we have by the old airport hangar, where we pulled out the 14 coney in one night. There was some open water where we went, so Christine, Andrew and I fished with our normal poles, but had no luck. Deon went over to an icy area and chiseled a hole in the ice, and did some proper ice fishing. He had some luck... if you want to call it that:





This, friends, is your friendly neighbourhood Arctic Sculpin. They are horribly ugly, spiny little buggers that are bottom feeders, and kept biting Deon's lure. I caught one as well, screamed and ran away from the hole. They are scary looking, and slimy. Chowder, Christine and Andrew's dog was particularly interested in eating it, but it really looked too spiny for her to digest.



We also made a bit of a campfire in the snow with some driftwood we scavenged... and then trekked back. It is nice to get outdoors while there is still some light, and the weather isn't too cold.

On another note- Christine and Andrew have added a new member to their family (nameless at this point, although I've suggested 'Clam' to go along with their other dog, Chowder):