Summer is here...

Well, it is official, summer has arrived. We had some beautiful weather near the end of May, with temperatures up to 25 degrees and lots of sun. I went to Inuvik at the end of May and found myself sweating when walking outside. The beginning of June however, was a different story. We had some cold weather, and several days of snow. Particularly, around June 8th and 9th we had flurries and snow that stuck to the ground in both Inuvik and Tuk.


Snow in the second week of June- gross!

We've since recovered, with temperatures near 30 degrees again, which we would have thought to be extremely rare before moving here. It seems as though each summer we get two weeks of "hot" days, even if they are not consecutive. The ice left the harbour on June 18th, so we now have open water for boating and swimming and fishing.

The warm and windy weather has provided us with lots of opportunities to be outdoors. In the summertime, we live for the evenings and weekends when we can be outdoors doing whatever... fishing, swimming, picnic-ing, yard work.

In May, Deon managed to find a BBQ at the Northern Store, and a tank of propane which is a very rare find up here. We spent some time collecting wood pallets so that we could make a "deck" out back on which to BBQ. We've enjoyed homemade burgers, ribs, and pork on the grill so far, and look forward to using it until it's too cold to use up here!


The BBQ deck that we built.


The chef!

We have also gotten back into fishing and picnic-ing. Deon had his first swim on the 21st which was Aboriginal Day, and a day off for us. We also went fishing, and Deon caught the first fish of the season, while Barry caught three fish on our first trip out. One was a flounder, or a "flat fish" as people call them here in Tuk. they're quite odd little creatures.


The flat fish- this is a view of the top of it's body, which looks like your average fish's side view.


The bottom view of the flat fish.

This weekend we had a busy weekend, we went to our friends' wedding for which I made a cake, and Deon was the "official photographer." The cake was a five layer carrot cake with buttercream and fondant. The bottom of each tier was wrapped in red ribbon, and then I created some red gumpaste roses for decoration. Most people seemed to enjoy it which is good! We enjoyed the wedding and reception, where the food included trout, whitefish, goose, muktuk, eskimo donuts, and a traditional turkey dinner.


The wedding cake that I made.


The Kitti Hall, all decorated up for the wedding.


Our friends Glenna and John-Blo and their family.


A picture for my mom of myself with the cake- and the dress and shirt that I got in Maui.

Before the wedding yesterday, as well as all day today we have been working on constructing a community garden. The GNWT has sent up the supplies for Tuk to build a cold-frame greenhouse, which will be Canada's north-most community cold-frame apparently. This weekend we put together the steel structure, which was tough work as we had to basically pop up the top of the green house onto a rectangle base. We then found out that the whole roof was missing- it must have been left in Inuvik when all of the supplies arrived on the ice road. In the mean time, we constructed 12 garden boxes out of wood, and started to fill them with peat. We have so far planted some potatoes, and other plants that were started in the Inuvik greenhouse. I'm still getting used to the concept of a community garden (no one gets individual plots), and will be interested to see how it pans out. At any rate, it's great to be outdoors and doing some work for the health and wellness of our community.


Larry, one of the Stanton managers cutting wood for the garden plots.


Deon did most of the drilling of metal screws into the frame- this is before we popped it onto the rectangle base, it is a lot taller now.

It was definitely a team effort, with everyone working and contributing resources and supplies to make it a success thus far. We had to haul water from a lake below the garden site to water the freshly planted plots, we had to round up tools capable of digging into the permafrost to anchor the frame... so it has been a great community building exercise. The project is intended to supply the community with fresh produce, and an ancillary benefit of it will be that it will act as a tourist attraction as well for the Tuk tour operators.

That is what we've been up to in June in a nutshell on the social front. Work is going well as usual, and I'm settling into my new "boss" role quite well as it is providing new and interesting challenges every day!

Made it onto someone else's blog!

Here we are ice fishing yesterday afternoon, around 2pm. We noticed someone taking pictures, and it is a new teacher in Tuk who is also a photographer. I figured this would pop up online sometime or another, and here it is!

Indian summer...

I don't know if it's possible to have Indian summer in the Arctic, but if it is, we definitely had it earlier this week. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday were gorgeous, with above normal temperatures of around 15 degrees, with beautiful sunshine and no clouds in the sky. Of course this morning when we got up there was fog galore, and it was raining. But we definitely enjoyed it while it lasted. We went fishing on Tuesday night after work, for a walk on the beach on Wednesday after our dinner guests left, and out to the Hangar for a dinner campfire and fishing on Thursday evening with co-workers.

It really is a treat to get such nice weather in September. The first September I was here was 2008, when I arrived somewhere around the 17th, and it snowed a few days later. Last year I believe it snowed on the 23rd. And when it snows in Tuk, it snows. And it doesn't go away until the following June. So I'm hoping at this rate the snow will hold off until the end of September, because I'm not quite ready to break out the parka and the Sorels just yet.

However, I won't mind to leave for vacation (October 1-12th) with snow on the ground here, only to go back to the GTA where I'm hoping Indian summer will still be happening, and taking advantage of that.

Despite our lovely summer, and spending plenty of time outdoors fishing, baseballing, and swimming, I'm still ghostly white. With a trip to the Caribbean last January and May, you'd think I'd have at least one tan line- not the case. I could be mistaken for an albino. Except that my hair is no longer blonde.

At any rate, here are some pictures of our night out on the land, with me fishing and catching the tiniest fish I've caught all year. Enjoy!











And in other news... the sun is finally setting, and staying down for a significant amount of time. This means that I am finally able to sleep again! We're losing daylight quickly now, the sun is setting around 10pm, and it doesn't rise again until around 7:30am.

Biggest fish this season...

Congratulations go to Deon who caught the official first fish of the season between our fishing pals and ourselves, AND for catching the largest fish so far this season (and maybe last season), tonight out at the lake next to @#*! Lake.

We'd all started packing up our gear, when Deon said "one last cast." As anyone who fishes (and is supersticious) knows, if you say this, you'll catch a fish, without a doubt. So Deon did his "one last cast," and didn't catch anything. But anyone who fishes knows that when you say "one last cast," it's not actually your last cast... you still have another one, just in case you didn't catch anything on your last cast.

So on Deon's "just in case" cast, he got a bite... and that bite fought back pretty hard. The rest of us were still gathering our gear when Deon pulled out a biggie. It looked pretty big, and we all agreed that it was a heavy fish. Barry got out his new fish scale that we got him from Bass Pro Shops, and we weighed the catch... it weighed in somewhere between 18 and 19 pounds. It was hard to get a precise reading because the fish was pretty slippery and Deon had a hard time keeping it on the scale.

The dogs will get a few meals out of this one! Between the four of us, we each caught a fish to keep, plus Deon's big one... and we threw a few little guys back. "Little guys" up here are maybe 7 pounds or less.

Here are some pics:





Let's see if we can beat this one... the season has only just begun!!

The fishing season begins...

This week was the Inuvik Petroleum Show, and we were in Inuvik for the week. It was a great week, with lots of schmoozing, lovely, warm weather, and some interesting conversations. The week before, we tried fishing a few times, but it was still very cold, there was some snow around the shores, and nothing was biting. Since we got back from Inuvik on Friday, we've been fishing twice.

On Friday night, as soon as I picked up Deon from the airport (long story on why he couldn't return to Tuk in the morning with me), we went out on the boat to see if we could find some fish. We first travelled west of Tuk out to Kiniksik, where there are said to be many fish.


Some ducklings swimming near the shore at Kiniksik.

However, when we arrived on the shores of the channel, we had a few mishaps. Deon ended up boot-deep in mud that just kept pulling his boots in deeper. He managed to free one boot, and then used some large, flat rocks to create a platform that he could stand on to dig the other boot out. Pulling eachother didn't help, because soon the person helping would start sinking into the mud as well.


Fishing under the midnight sun (well... this was at around 11pm).

We didn't end up catching any fish at Kiniksik, so we travelled back towards Tuk to
"the Hangar," which is just near the airport. We fished until about 11:00pm, and determined that it was time to go back to town, because none of us had caught anything.


A view of the Tuk DEW Line from the Hangar... 11pm.

It was a great trip, and so nice to be out on the water. While we were travelling on the boat, some mirages over the ocean were very apparent. Earlier in the evening when I was waiting for Deon to get in on the plane, I noticed mirages to the south of Tuk, making it look like there were huge hills in the distance. Of course, other than the pingos, which are pretty easy to differentiate from the surrounding landscape, there are really no hills directly around Tuk.



Looking back at Tuk from out on the Arctic Ocean... if you look really closely you can see that there is a mirage making Tuk look taller than it actually is.


More mirages out over the ocean.

On Saturday, we went out to "the end of the road" to have a picnic, and to do some more fishing. The weather was beautiful, perfect for hoodies and pants, no jackets or mittens required. We had hamburgers and hotdogs over the fire, and Barry's mom sent us some muktuk to try. I've never tried proper muktuk while living in Tuk, so this was something new for me. I expected it to have a strong marine flavour, and my expectations were relatively correct. Barry showed us the proper way to eat it, by cutting the pure fat part off the bottom of the hunk of meat, and the skin off the top. His mom had already boiled it, so it was right ready to eat- although Barry prefers it with some HP sauce, we tried it plain to get the true flavour. I had a few pieces, and refrained from eating any more. The flavour is very strong, and I have never been a "seafood person," and I only eat fish or seafood when I have no other choice... However, it was very kind of Barry's mom to give us some to try, and I am glad I tried it, because it is a local favourite, enjoyed by many in the summer months. I am guessing the muktuk we tried had been frozen since last year's beluga harvest, because I haven't heard any word on beluga presence around Tuk yet, but they should be here soon!


Mmmmmmmmmuktuk.

After eating our food, we travelled a bit farther to our usual fishing spot on the other side of "Shit Lake." We started casting, and soon after, Deon pulled out the first fish of the season. Now we all have to pay up, as we had pooled money ($10 each) for the person who caught the first fish of the season, so that fish made Deon a nice $30 profit!

A few casts later, I caught a fish as well... It was bigger than Deon's, the perfect size for Barry's dog Bronx. We put the fish on the shore, and Nugget, the little dog spent some time chewing on the fish cheeks.


Nugget gets in on the fun.


Nugget likes fish cheeks... just like someone else I know! (you know who you are!)

First crack at ice fishing for the season...

Last night after work, it was beautifully sunny and a pleasant -16C, so Christine and I decided that we should go ice fishing. We took out the skidoos, and Andrew was able to borrow an ice auger, and we headed out onto the harbour to find some fish. On the weekend Christine and I had gone ice fishing and saw someone setting their net under the ice in one particular area just off the DEW line site, so we thought that would be a good area to try.

Deon and Andrew had to drill a hole with the ice auger, and as you can see, it was tough work. By the end of the second hole, they both had their jackets off...:



Just for perspective, the hole was as deep as the auger bit, which is taller than Christine. So for any of you doubting that it is still cold up here, or that it is still winter... does almost 5 feet of ice give you a better idea?



And here we are, finally ice fishing. This is after Andrew and Deon managed to get the auger stuck in the ice, and it took a lot of jiggling, pulling, digging and cursing to get it back out.



All that drilling didn't end up yielding any fish, but we had a great time soaking up some sun and having fun after work.

Another mode of transportation...

On Sunday night Barry took us out on his Argo, which is a 6 wheeled vehicle that operates somewhat like a tank:



Of course, being the small one, I got to sit in the back with all of the gear. We went out towards Husky Lakes, which is not typically done at this time of year when skidoos aren't quite in season (at least in Tuk, anyway- not many people use their skidoos on bare land here, unlike in Aklavik). The ride was perhaps more bumpy than the skidoos in Aklavik the week before, and I have a plethora of small bruises to prove it.

We travelled with four other people who also had an Argo, and the goal was to find some lake trout in a large lake that Barry and Deon had scouted out the week before. My goal was to pick lots and lots of berries.



Upon our travels, since there was snow on the ground, we came across several types of animal tracks including moose, caribou and a grizzly with two cubs. Here is a closeup of the grizzly paw:



Barry estimated that the bear had crossed the path in the morning, and we were out there at around 5pm. A flat tire and a few pit stops later, we finally made it to the lake. The boys all got out their fishing poles, and fished with no success, while I picked several bags of cranberries, crowberries and ukpiks! I can cross off one of my "to-dos" for the upcoming year, as I have finally tasted ukpiks.

It started to get dark, so we headed back towards town, and more and more snow started to fall. The ride was bumpy, but the guys made it fun by having a snowball fight between the two Argos. I mostly just ducked my head. We finally made it back to town at 11:30pm, and a hot shower was needed to recover from the cold!

Another day, another fish...

Tonight the ocean was like glass again, so it was a good night to take Barry's boat out for some more fishing. After two nights in a row of Barry asking us to go fishing, but being busy with cake making or being lazy, we decided to join him. We headed over to our new favourite fishing hole, by the airport hangar. Some of us fished from one bank, while the others went across the stream to the other side.

It wasn't long before I caught the first fish, which was just a little one... so I threw it back. And when I say "I," I mean Deon... because I do not involve myself with getting fish off of hooks. Over the next two hours, between the five of us fishing, we caught 18 fish to take home, and let many, many go. A few sneaky fish stole some of our lures, while other huge fish somehow unhooked themselves. And, one of Deon's managed to escape off his lure, only to beach himself on a little island- Deon went out and helped him get away back into the water. That fish was a fighter and deserved a second chance!



So, we kept reeling them in, and both Deon and I ended up with similar sized "big catches." First, Deon reeled in a monster fish that was probably three feet long, and we weighed it to be around 14 pounds. Soon after, I reeled in what must have been its twin, weighing in at 13 pounds. Of course we kept those!





The night was nice and sunny, and the water not too cold by Arctic standards, so Patti told Deon she'd pay him $5 to swim across the creek. Barry upped the anti to $20, and Deon was in there like a flash. So he swam over, earned his twenty and then swam back. Soon after, I got thirsty, so Barry attempted to throw over a can of pop, which didn't quite make it... so back into the water went Deon. Can't keep him out of the water. (His mother warned me of that long ago...!)



Of course, it wouldn't be a night of fishing if I hadn't lost at least one lure by snagging it on the bottom. A trip to Bass Pro Shops will definitely be in store... Or perhaps a trip to Dollarama for me to see if they have any affordable lures for me to lose! hah.

When we came home, Deon gutted and cleaned the two huge fish and put them in the freezer. If we had a bigger freezer, I could see how we could easily stock up fish to last us throughout the winter, as a good source of free meat. However, we only have our fridge freezer, so there's no room for extras!

For your interest- here's a picture of a plane getting ready for takeoff on the Tuk runway. It is going to turn around and take off the other way... but as you can see, the runway comes awful close to the ocean!




Home sweet Tuk...

Fish heads, fish heads...

Last night was a most successful night of fishing for me. We went out at about 7pm, and there was a nice wind which kept the bugs at bay. Christine and I hauled a bunch of driftwood and made a campfire, so everyone could keep their hands warm. Barry spent some time doing target practice, and then went out onto the land for a bit to try to find his dad a swan.



Christine had the first catch of the night, a small little coney (aka Inconnu), which she is going to feed to Chowder as a late birthday present.

The wind died down a bit, and the bugs came out a bit more... which I think the fish enjoyed. After snagging my hook on seaweed about a hundred and one times, I was angry when I thought it had happened again. However, my line was acting a bit suspicious, and when I got it close to the shore, it was in fact, my first Arctic catch. It was a rather large coney, larger than any of us have caught so far at the end of the road. I screeched, threw the fishing rod on the ground and ran away, while Deon jumped into the water to get the fish. Of course, as many of you may know, fish are probably my biggest phobia, other than needles, and I have hated them for all of my life. Thus, Deon had to hold my prized fish while I held my stomach reflexes at bay to have this picture taken:



Due to a bet that Deon made, saying "if you catch a fish, I'll go swimming"... he was into the water, having a nice, refreshing Arctic dip at 10pm. He said it was pretty cold, and we mostly stood there laughing and taking pictures. As you know, there is no way I would have gone into that water after having pulled out that fish! Who knows what else could be lurking!

After Deon's swim we were all anxious to try to catch some more. A few casts later, and my line started acting suspicious again. I pulled out another fish not quite as big as the last one, but still a good size. Another episode of screeching, covering my eyes and ears, and telling Deon to do something, and my fish was out of the water.



That pretty much ended our fishing excursion for the evening. When we returned to town, Deon gutted and scaled the fish, and we put the big one in the freezer (eep!) and cut up the smaller one for eating in the very near future.


The big one, whom I've named Coney O'Brian.


The smaller one, whom we shall call Ice Cream Coney.

Can't wait to head out fishing again sometime soon! Deon's the last one who needs to catch a fish at this point, poor guy.