Kugluktuk from the air

Here are a couple of pictures from the air of Kugluktuk. I was flying in from Cambridge Bay and I was on the right side of the plane to get some good pictures. I remember landing here for the first time 15 months ago and laughing when I saw that the runway was gravel. My husband was really wondering what I had gotten us into!

Tomorrow my mother is flying in and I am getting pretty excited! My dad is too busy with work to come up though. My mother is going to help us install our new kitchen and finish off the rest of the renovations. Right now I have no kitchen! All of the cuboards all pulled out!! So hopefully by next weekend I am posting pictures of our new kitchen!

An amazing treat on my birthday!

Actually, I got a few treats on my birthday! The first was from my husband who let me buy a nice little china cabinet at the Northern Store sale. It now holds our little collection of carvings. Then last night (my birthday) we had a spectacular thunder and lightning show! This is only the second time we have had a storm like that since we got here 15 months ago. The next treat was all of the people who showed up for my birthday bbq! I needed a good excuse to get everyone together. Then the final treat was unbelievable! A friend made me a birthday cake that was out of this world! She made me a muskox cake! The pictures don't do it justice! We are really blessed with the friends that we have here. Another friend of ours put it very well- he said that we all have relatives, but up here, the people that we surround ourselves with- are our family. I liked that.

Trip to CamBay

I got the change to go to Cambridge Bay for 5 days for work at the end of August. Well it was cold, windy, but I got to see muskox so I was happy! It was nice to see another community in Nunavut- so far I have only seen here and Iqaluit.


Here is the small herd that I saw. They were only about 1km away from town.



The DEW Line site there in town. It sure all looks out of place on the tundra!


Cambridge Bay had a very nice graveyard. Everywhere I go I take pictures of graveyards- I have no clue why! Kinda odd I guess!





Here is a cruise ship that was in town on the day that I arrived. It was so funny to see the tourists all dressed in toques, parkas and mittens and I just had my fleece pull over on! They didn't speak much English, but you knew from their voices in the Northern Store that they were blown away by the high prices!

Trips to the falls

My favorite quad ride so far is going out to Bloody Falls. It is about a 35km round trip, probably less if you don't bomb around at random around the tundra like I do! We have been up there quite a few times now by boat and quad. It is a good fishing spot and just an all around place to relax! Here are some pics from a few random trips:


Bloody Falls is there in the distance where the Coppermine River narrows (centre of picture). Still about 5km of quadding left to get there.

This pictures is taken from the falls looking back at where I took the above picture.

Here is part of the water moving through the narrows. People call them falls, but really it is just a very narrow spot in the river that the water moves through very quickly! I have no clue how the fish move up through this!

Here is a caribou hide out on the tundra. Someone probably shot it, and since the hides aren't very good in summer they left it behind. This picture was taken the 13th of August and you can already see that the tundra is turning brown.

Here is Matt relaxing on the rocks at the falls.

Me out on the tundra. Yep, I was wearing my light winter coat on the Labour Day weekend. It was pretty windy and cold! However, that all changed this week- we had temperatures up to +18! We broke records up here!

Here is our friend Amanda, sad that she didn't catch any fish! Her and I have been up there twice together and still no fish!

Me and my hubby!

Kugluktuk has been called the banana-belt of Nunavut because we always have warmer temperatures than the rest of the territory. We also have a lot more greenery than other communities. In some spots the willows are taller than me! Almost like having trees! We also have a lot of berries. I have been busy picking blueberries, blackberries, bearberries and cranberries. I almost have enough to make a big batch of jam! The only berry I have not found yet are akpiks. Maybe next year!

Here is a little hikhik jaw in the dirt.

On one of our trips to the falls we ran into a group of Danish guys who were canoeing down the Coppermine River. All they could talk about was getting into Kugluktuk and relaxing by ordering a beer. Well we had to break their hearts by telling them that there was nowhere to order a beer in town! They looked so sad! So the next day when they arrived Matt and I took them down our last 4 beer. They were so happy that they sent us home with about $60 worth of shotgun shells as a thank you!