Spring Break

April 2 - 11 was our "March Break". Spring Break typically conjures images of sandles, beaches and warm sunny weather. However, as they say when in Rome do as the Romans do and so I did as the locals did and set my sights on Whitehorse. It's a popular vacation spot for many northerners and a chance to get some more supplies. As a result, my vacation was comprised of bear spray, camping and unpredictable mountain weather.

Whitehorse is a city of approximately 23 000 and the main employers are government and mining. Many junior mining companies have been converging in recent months on a large gold discovery south of Dawson City along the Yukon river last summer.

The last two pictures offer a glimpse of the Dempster Highway between Whitehorse and Fort McPherson. The "highway" is actually a gravel road named after a Mountie callled William Dempster. In 1911, constable Dempster was assigned with task to locate the "Lost Patrol". http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/hist/hh-ps/lost-perdus-eng.htm. In 1958 the Federal Government made the decision to build this 671 km road through the Arctic wilderness from Dawson City to Inuvik. Oil and gas exploration was booming in the Mackenzie Delta and the town of Inuvik was under construction.

At about 50 km outside of Whitehorse we noticed a place to buy some cinnamon-buns. It was called Braeburn Lodge. Just to make things interesting, we planned to stay the night in Whitehorse with people we never met. David, Kara-Lee and their 3 children and are friends of the Hanthorn's; their house is pictured below.
Braeburn Lodge presented an opportunity to purchase some tasty treats as a thank-you for our soon to be hosts.
Upon entering the establishment, there was nobody at the service counter and only a couple of locals sitting at a table slowly drinking their coffee. They motioned to me to enter the kitchen. I cautiously walked in and eventually found the cook. I asked for a dozen cinnamon-buns. He replied with a heavy German/Swiss accent that he couldn't make that many. I negotiated 6. After waiting 20 minutes the pastry chef came out with two makeshift cardboard trays of baked goods and he layed them down on the counter. He said, "that will be $51.00" and with that I could hear the two locals chuckle in the background. Although I was surprized by sheer size of the pastries, I was even more dumbfounded by the weight not to mention the cost. Heather, Ruth and almost ate one bun and found ourselves full!

The pictures of the church show where we overnighted on the return trip home. Again, we didn't know anyone from this church. Arrangements were made by the Hanthorns. We pulled into the church around 10:30 and the phone rang at 11:00. A lady from the church was looking for the pastor to find out which songs would be selected for the next morning. She was on the worship team. In the end, she offered her home for us to shower the next morning. She explained she would be sleeping in late, mentioned the 3 dogs she owned, and to just walk in because the door would be unlocked. The next morning as I pulled up to the address, Heather precariously said, "I'm not so sure about this." Then, all of a sudden, a lady dressed in her Sunday best burst out the door with a big smile and was frantically waving. Now that was a warm welcome! Heather responded, "Okay, I'll be fine." and she quickly got out.

The next three pictures are views along the Klondike highway between Whitehorse and the Dempster Hwy turn-off.

The next 16 pictures shown are from Kluane National Park and more specifically: Kathleen lake, Kathleen Lake campground and the Auriol ski Trail. I wanted to ski the 7 km loop, but since it was pooly marked I ended up doing the 15 km trail which took 5 1/2 hours to complete! I lost my bear spray skiing down and crashing on one of the many steep slopes on the return portion of the loop. Fortunately, most of the bears were still in hibernation.

The last 7 pictures are views along the Alaska Highway between Haines Junction and the Mount Logan Look-out Point as per the map I had (You can't actually see Mt. Logan. In order to do that you must fly in). Due to active tectonic uplifting, Mount Logan is still rising in elevation. Before 1992, the exact height of Mount Logan was unknown and measurements ranged from 5,959 metres (19,551 ft) to 6,050 metres (19,849 ft).

The Alaska Highway (also known as the Alaskan Highway, Alaska-Canadian Highway, or ALCAN Highway) was constructed during WWII. It runs from Dawson Creek, BC to Alaska via Whitehorse. After the Japanese invaded Pearl Habour, the US feared another attack from the same nation over the polar region. As a result, this 2200 km hwy was built by the U.S. army in 9 months and construction was completed in 1943.

R and R

The last week of February was an opportunity to spend some time with Heather's cousin Rebecca and family and to participate in teacher workshops. It was -22 when we departed Fort McPherson and -3 on arrival in Edmonton. We last visited them in 2006 when Rachel was a baby. Now Rachel is 4 and she has a little brother named Noah who both hit it off with Ruth. Rebecca graciously took care of Ruth while Heather and I did school visits and attended the teacher's conference. Rebecca is a great cook! Although Chris was away for work most of the week we did have a chance to connect near the end of our visit; he's as witty as ever! Also while in Edmonton, Ruth and I visited the Aviation Museum, which may be soon shut down due to a condo developer.

The Fruit Man

Bill aka "The Fruit Man" has transported fresh produce from Vancouver to the Arctic for more than 20 years. Since he sells product close to "southern" prices, people buy with reckless abandon and don't bother to look at prices. Bill has been the subject of at least one T.V. documentary. Legend has it that the first time Bill took his product to Tuk, nobody bought the cauliflower. He was confused at first because people there told him the cauliflower must be rotten because it was white and didn't have black spots all over it. Then it dawned on him the people of Tuk never saw fresh cauliflower and had mistaken bad cauliflower for good. Another story: the police once pulled him over and stumbled upon huge wads of cash. They didn't believe a fruit business could be so lucrative and quickly began an investigation on the assumption he was shipping drugs. However, after cracking open pineapples and coconuts for hours they only found fruit inside of fruit.

Relocation

Current temperature at 1:30pm mountain time: -38 degrees Celsius

Dawn is around 10:20 am and it's completely dark at about 5:45 pm.

We moved to the church apartment last Saturday! It's the seventh time we've moved since August and hopefully the last until June.

As seen in the pictures we are haven't unpacked everything. We've learned to be patient and not get bent out of shape as we learn to live among the boxes and as we frequently rely on each other for help to find the things we need.

Our toilet is not yet installed so we use the public bathroom in the church. Since the toilet is not yet connected, a certain septic aroma rises up from the toilet drain that's been temporarily plugged with rags. The goal today is to install the toilet.

A vent was not installed for the dryer during the building construction so the Hanthorn's have graciously offered us the use of their laundry facilities. John, a missionary from Australia and an electrician in his previous career will cut the required 4 inch hole in the floor to vent the humid warm air under the building. This project has been put on hold since we're awaiting the materials to arrive from Whitehorse. In the spring, additional pipe will be added to extend the vent out the side of the building.

There's been two mini-floods since we moved in; both occurred at about the same time around 7am during the past week as we were getting ready for work. Fortunately, we've been using the public washrooms and as a result stumbled upon the leaks. The plastic water supply line to the sink popped off on it's own at a connection point from the wall, so I shut off the valve and looked for a mop. Since there was no mop in the building and there's not yet a phone line , I proceeded to go over to the Hanthorn's to alert them to the situation. Paul and several of his children came over with a mop and lots of towels to expedite the clean-up. If the water was left on the floor for an extended period, it could have eventually seeped under the floorboard, frozen, expanded and caused havoc on the floor structor. Housed in the floor is the in-floor heating system -a network of glycol pipes. The floor also contains electrical wires and water pipes. The temperature at the time of the first water leak was -48 degrees at the time.

There's a rummage sale going on in the main sanctuary this weekend. When nobody's supervising, people knock on our door to pay for their purchases.

For the past two weeks a local, skilled contractor from Inuvik has taken the church's "to do list" to near completion.

Christmas

We've been fortunate to spend this Christmas with two families, the Hanthorns and the Halls. We returned to live with the Hanthorns on December18th after a brief hiatus housesitting. The Halls, friends of the Hanthorns and now our good friends as well, arrived this past Tuesday to celebrate Christmas. In attendance this Christmas: Ben and Barbara with their four teenagers, the Hanthorns with their 8 children + 3 foster children and our family of 3. To more easily identify the Halls: one picture has Ben adjusting the collar on his son's coat. Another photo has Ben sitting with his wife; the other 3 teenagers are not shown because they were not keen on having their picture taken.

The Halls are from Fort Nelson, B.C. and Ben is a residential and commercial builder; good news since he's been a driving force to help complete some priority items for the church building. Soon we'll vacate our 200 sq ft quarters (as seen in these posted pictures) for the church apartment.

Copland

The Sgt of the local RCMP and his family left for Mexico a week ago and we've been house sitting ever since. The family will return on December 18 and we have a lofty goal of relocating to our own accomodations by then. This may be an ambitious goal since the apartment still needs: 3 coats of paint, light fixtures connected, carpet and tile installed, unpack all the boxes and assemble all the Ikea furniture. I've lost count on the number of times we've moved but on the positive side, it's always been a move a short distance away:)
The RCMP quarters are subsidized and maintained by the Federal government. The house is large at approximately 3500 sq ft with 4 bedrooms and a large family room in the basement filled with toys. The dwelling rests inside an RCMP compound and it is comprised of 3 houses for members and the RCMP building itself. The perimeter of the compound is secured by a metal fence.

Although there are many advantages of living here, there is one challenge - the dogs. They're both high maintenance mutts. Jack is younger and has a good temperment; however, Sady is an old, eccentric dog set in her ways. Sady needs eardrops twice per day for an infections she's currently fighting. Initially, it took both of us to administer the drops but I can now do it on my own. They need to be fed twice per day, let outside 3 times per day and walked at least once per day. I know this sounds like typical care most animals receive, but there's an added layer of complexity when man's best friend absolutley refuses to eat unless moist dogfood is carefully mixed into the dry food. Letting the dogs out always lets in cold -20 degree air and the only way to execute this taks is by luring them both outside with a special doggy treat. Walking dogs in these temperatures is even less desirable.
Although we were warned that Sady bites, we have all been bitten. My altercation with Sady occured when I found her trying to rip open the second bag of garbage. She miticulously spread the trash bag so evenly that not much of the floor was left exposed. I mistakenly grabbed her by the scruff of the neck when her head quickly spun around to sink her teeth into my forarm - yes it did hurt and skin was broken. At first glance it would appear adorable how Sady follows me everywhere I go but this also means I constantly the putrid odour of her ear infection in my nostrils. Finally, we discovered that Sady loves to relieve herself in two rooms of the house so we need to be diligent in shutting the bedroom door and always keep a watchful eye when she's in the dinning room. All that said, I'm not complaining, just explaining, because we truly are blessed living here in the interim.