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!

How does my garden grow?

With approximately 0 (zero) hours of sunlight as of tomorrow, and only a bit of dusk, I expected my window-side garden to take a turn for the worse in November. However, it has surprised me, and is doing relatively okay. When Deon went to YK, he bought me an Aerogarden, which I'd been oggling online for over a year. It seems like the perfect solution for long, dark Arctic winters when fresh produce is in short supply in the stores.

So the Aerogarden is a hydroponic garden that grows using lots of water, and lots of light. The garden stays lit for 16 hours/day, and has an aerator that is constantly moving the water around. It sounds a bit like we have an aquarium in our living room. The light is very bright, and thus, you can place plants around the base of the Aerogarden so that they can mooch some light as well. Thus, on top of the new plants in the Aerogarden, our tomato, rosemary, cilantro, basil and hydrangea have made it so-far-so-good this winter!

I set up the Aerogarden two weeks ago, and this is what it looks like already:




From left to right, the plants are as follows: oregano, dill, mint, chives, basil, and thyme.

As I mentioned, the other plants are mooching light, and our tomato plant that we planted in the summer has 4 tomatoes on it. But the big news is that one of the tomatoes is now red. We'll have to eat it before leaving for vacation. That might not be too exciting considering it's the tiniest cherry tomato I've ever, ever seen. Maybe we'll throw it in a salad and see who turns out to be the lucky winner when we dish it up!

Welcome to my Garden...

One might think that Arctic gardening would be difficult, if not impossible. And I must say, when I started my plants in February, I didn't have much faith that they would someday flourish. I knew one thing I would definitely miss by moving up to the Arctic was taking care of my plentiful flowers (especially my dear orchids). However, as of lately with nearly 24 hours of daylight, and dutiful watering on our behalf, my plants are coming along very nicely. Soon enough I'll have a harvest of fresh herbs and vegetables (mind you, it might be enough for only one meal).


The windowsill, aka my garden.


At this rate, I might have a pepper by October!


My herb garden that Deon picked up for me for a pretty penny in Iqaluit. Rosemary, Basil, Cilantro and Chives. Rosemary is being a bit stubborn.


Some "just in case" tomatoes, I planted after my other tomato plant had it's unfortunate *incident.*


My almost fully grown cherry tomato plant. It might produce some tomatoes this month by the looks of things!


And... My hydrangea that was waiting for me upon my return from Ulukhaktok. An arm and a leg from Northern, but Deon knows how much I appreciate a living flower! Plus it really did need rescuing... the remainder of them now lie dead on the store's shelf.