A Day In Iqaluit

I was packed and ready to go when my ride to the airport arrived in the early morning of June 11.  I had woken up very early and did my usual “year-end” extensive cleaning routine so that when I came back in August, everything would be ready to go.  I made sure all the garbage was taken out and the fridge was empty of products that could spoil.  I also unplugged appliances that didn’t need to be powered during my absence.

All passengers & visitors are now required to wear face masks at the Arctic Bay Airport.  The only mask I had was the one that was given to me at the school.  Thankfully, it was acceptable.  The faceless Inuk hunter mannequin on display in the airport was also wearing a face mask!  I checked in and then waited for the plane to arrive.  There wasn’t any snow on the gravel tarmac.  Only one other person arrived to check in their luggage. 

The Canadian North plane arrived at 8:20am.  Usually, a stream of passengers emerges and walk into the terminal so that the plane can be safely refueled.  However, on this day, no passengers walked out of the plane.  When the boarding announcement was made, I bid farewell to the terminal staff and walked towards the plane.  The other passenger & I were greeted by the steward who was also wearing a mask.  All the passenger seats were empty.  There would only be three people occupying the passenger compartment.

Adams Sound.  I've been down there and travelled up & down this waterway.

The flight to Iqaluit was direct.  We were always required to keep our masks on unless we were drinking or eating.  The in-flight meal service was not in operation and only bottled water was being offered.  (Canadian North has suspended in-flight meal services on all its flights until further notice).  I decided to wait until I got to Iqaluit.  I looked out the window and watched the Arctic landscape pass underneath.  It’s always great to look down at the land and be able to say to yourself, I’ve been down there and travelled up & down those waterways.  The 3-hour flight was uneventful.  I listened to music to drown out the monotonous drones of the propellers.  The plane landed close to lunch time.

There was little human activity happening in the terminal building.  I walked to the Baggage Claims Area and waited for my luggage to appear.  I would be overnighting in Iqaluit.  Thankfully, I had a place to stay and wouldn’t need to pay for a hotel room.  I picked up my luggage and hailed a cab to my brother’s place.  He wasn’t in town, but I had a key to get in.  I dropped off my stuff and then walked over to Yummy Shawarma to see if it was open.  Thankfully, it was.  I ordered a large beef shawarma to go and ate it at my brother’s place.

I surfed the internet and saw many birthday wishes directed to Qapik Attagutsiak on Facebook.  Several photographs of her posing with family & well-wishers were also posted.  I really wish I was there for the celebration.  There were also acknowledgements from CBC News North & Nunatsiaq News.  I read somewhere that Qapik received a Happy Birthday card from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.  (The two had met in Arctic Bay in August 2019).  Happy Centennial Birthday Qapik!  

I spent the evening exploring Iqaluit with a teacher who formerly taught at Inuujaq School.  He & his wife have been living in Iqaluit for the last two years.  He teaches at the local middle school and his wife works at a grocery store.  In June, the town experiences 24-hour daylight.  However, during the evening hours, it appears as if the sun is constantly setting.  Time is stuck in “dusk mode”.

The co-worker drove his personal vehicle through all the neighbourhoods.  Even though I lived in Iqaluit for a year, I must admit the town has changed in the last 7 years.  There’s always construction of some kind happening somewhere.  We also drove to Apex, a small community along the coast.  The community is treated as a part of Iqaluit, but its remote location makes it feel like a separate town.  I lived in Apex for a month when I started teaching in Iqaluit.  I moved to the town-proper when an apartment was found.  There were a lot of people walking around Apex when we drove through.  The population must have increased because I can’t remember seeing that many people in 2012.

We left Apex and drove to another far corner of the territorial capital.  There is a very long road that extends to the north of the airport.  It’s not the famed Road to Nowhere, but it feels like it.  My co-worker explained that the road is used by locals to go hunting and camping outside the city. Some have even built cabins next to the road.  We stopped at a large radar dome that sits on top of a hill.  We got close enough to take pictures.  We then drove to end of the road, which took a couple of minutes, turned around, and then drove back.  This was my first time seeing this area.

We stopped at a place where we could take pictures of the airport and the buildings along Federal Road.  It was from this spot on a hill that I noticed a small car dump.  Vehicles of various shapes & sizes were stacked & piled into a large mass.  I’m not sure if the vehicles were going to be repaired or sent down south to be crushed.  City Hall should consider looking into getting a car crusher.  We descended the hill and drove along Federal Road.  I photographed the fuselage of a plane that was missing its wings and tail.  The last place we explored was the deep seaport.

The Iqaluit Deep Seaport project is still ongoing and is scheduled to be completed in 2021.  The port will become operational in 2022.  COVID-19 hasn’t seriously hampered the construction timeline.  The port is being built by Tower Arctic Ltd.  The two main construction methods are dredging and controlled blasting.  The people of Iqaluit are notified in advance before a controlled blast occurs.  You can probably find several videos on YouTube.  The controlled blasts have flattened a large portion of a rocky hill. 

No construction was taking place on the site when we arrived.  In fact, I was surprised to see no security fence or security personnel guarding the site.  Materials & equipment were lying around in neatly placed piles.  The only deterrent to intruders was an orange Warning sign with black lettering.  We didn’t walk past the sign.  We assumed someone, somewhere, was watching us.  We stopped short of the sign and took photographs.  We noted the large amount of materials & equipment being used to complete this much-needed capital project.  We’re all looking forward to seeing the port in operation.

Not far from the construction site, there is a launch site for people to load and unload their skidoos & qamutiks in the winter, and their boats in the summer.  There were a lot of skidoos & qamutiks around the launch site.  Some skidoos were even parked on top of a large rock!  There were a few people removing their skidoos & qamutiks and placing them on pickup trucks and trailers.  Watching them do this made me think how much easier it is to be a skidoo owner in Arctic Bay.

I do leave my skidoo out on the ice in late May, but I don’t need a vehicle & trailer to bring it back to my place before I leave for the summer.  My place is close to the coastline, so driving my machine over solid ground doesn’t inflict a lot of damage on the skis & tracks.  Iqaluit is much, much larger.  I would most likely need a vehicle & trailer to move my skidoo down to the ice & back.  The snow in town melts faster than the ice in the bay.  It’s only moving boats in and out of the water that’s a challenge in Arctic Bay because you need a trailer and a vehicle to move them.

The co-worker & his wife dropped me off at my brother’s apartment.  I thanked them for the evening tour and wished them a happy summer.  They told me to be safe down south and avoid COVID-19 like the Plague. 

To make a long story short, I safely made it to Ottawa the following day.  There weren’t a lot of people on the Canadian North jet plane, and we all had to wear facemasks.  I’m hoping to travel somewhere this summer, but the odds are not in my favour.  COVID-19 is still wreaking havoc on the world and the media is reporting that a vaccine is still far away from being ready.  I’m hoping things will improve in a week or two.  In the meantime, I’ll be taking a short break from my blogging duties to enjoy my short summer vacation.  Until then, enjoy reading my previous blog posts.  They’re 325 of them (not including this one).  

A Strange End To The School Year

Sorry about the three-week absence but not much was happening in the community.  With so many services suspended and activities cancelled because of the ongoing pandemic, there’s little local news for me to share.  I suppose I could still write smaller posts but I fear they would look more like tweets rather than full length posts.  I’ve mentioned before that I prefer the latter.

The annual fishing derby over the Victoria Day weekend last month was a success from what I heard.  The winners were announced over local radio & Facebook.  The winners picked up their prizes at the Hamlet Office.  An awards ceremony couldn’t be held because the community hall was closed due to COVID-19 restrictions.  (It still is). 

There were many skidoos & qamutiks parked on the ice after the derby.  They were a clear indication that many people went out on the land to fish & camp.  I’m certain the event gave people a much-needed break from having to stay inside a house all day.  I took many photographs of the skidoos & qamutiks.  The ice in the bay was still thick but the surface was beginning to turn to slush.

A second batch of learning packages were sent out to students in late May.  Just like the first time, students, parents, and/or guardians picked them up at the school’s main entrance.  These packages were to last until the end of the semester in June.

I stopped driving my skidoo at the end of May.  I parked it in its usual spot next to my residence and placed a tarp over it.  I would not drive it until October.  There was no snow in the community.  Skidoo drivers were now restricted to driving out on the ice.  People keep driving their skidoos until the ice melts in late June.  To me, it appears riskier to drive in June because large puddles of water appear and it’s difficult to determine if they’re bottomless or not.  I only have one skidoo and I don’t want to lose it to a watery grave.  I would be walking from now on.

I was walking to school on the morning of June 1 when I noticed the windows on one side of the old health centre had been adorned with the message, “Stay Safe” in English & Inuktitut.  I believe the staff at the new health centre made the display.  From what I’ve heard, only the living quarters inside the old health centre are being used by nurses.

June 5 was the last day of school for students but nothing special was done because of the shutdown.  No kindergarten graduation, barbecue, or year end activities.  The school instead wished students, parents, & guardians a safe summer vacation over local radio and Facebook.  High school graduation has been postponed to the fall.  The graduates were naturally disappointed but remained in good spirits.    

The last day for teachers was June 8.  We made it to the end, despite not seeing the students in class since mid-March.  My guitar students returned the guitars & guitar books they borrowed.  They were allowed to keep the photocopied music and song fake books I prepared.  The high school teachers & custodians cleaned out the lockers and placed their contents in labelled garbage bags for students to pick up in the afternoon.

A year-end staff “party” was held in the main hallway in the late morning.  The food was catered by a local family.  Everyone lined up a metre apart and helped themselves to the food.  Unfortunately, policy dictated that we all couldn’t eat in the same room.  People could eat in groups of 4 in the classrooms. 

While the food was being consumed, the principal came over the public address (PA) system to make several announcements.  He first congratulated everyone on a job well done.  He continued that he would be stepping down and taking a new position in a different community.  The vice-principal will be the principal next year and the high school art teacher will be the vice-principal.  He finished his address by wishing everyone a safe & happy summer.

Everyone spent the afternoon cleaning their classrooms.  Tables & chairs were moved to the corners so that the floors could easily be cleaned by the custodians.  All my resources went into envelopes and Bankers Boxes.  I erased all the boards and took down the posters.  My classroom was empty and bare by 3pm.  I put everything I was going to take home in my backpack and in plastic bags.  I took one last look at the empty classroom before turning off the lights and locking the door.  See you in August, I said to myself.

I handed over the keys to the principal and wished him well in his future endeavour.  I said my goodbyes to the staff before leaving the school.  Several coworkers asked me if I would be travelling anywhere exotic this summer.  I shrugged and said that I would most likely spend the entire summer in my hometown because of the COVID-19 pandemic.  If I was going to travel anywhere, it would be within Canada.  The situation in the United States is out of control.

In the past, I flew down south the very next day, but this time, I decided to stay in town for several more days.  The main reason was because the Elder Qapik Attagutsiak would be celebrating her centennial (100^th birthday) on June 11.  Her eldest daughter has organized large public gatherings to celebrate her mother’s birthday for many years and I suspected this year would be more significant because of the age number.  A celebration of some kind was being planned but I didn’t know the details.     

Unfortunately, Canadian North, - an airline that First Air merged with – decided to alter my plans.  They changed my departure to the morning of June 11 because of scheduling difficulties & passenger restrictions brought on by the ongoing pandemic.  I thought about challenging the change but decided not to risk a further delay.  I only had 8 weeks to enjoy the summer.  Well, six, really.  More on that in a future post.

Speaking of departures, I better go and finish packing.  I leave tomorrow morning!