Two Weeks and Counting

Two weeks from today we will be leaving Nunavut! Plane tickets are booked, truck is bought, house deals are going through.... my gosh, this is actually happening!

I spent all of boxing day shopping online for everything for our new house. Between The Brick, London Drugs, Costco and Sears I have found almost everything we need. I got some great deals on our furniture and electronics. Then from London Drugs I got all of the small stuff like cleaning and baking supplies. One quick stop to Ikea in Edmonton for some shelving and a quick run into a Walmart and we are done! I am so glad I was able to shop online. Now our time can be spent with family! We have a week between the closing of this house and the closing of our new house so we will hang out in Dawson Creek and Fort Nelson with family. This is so exciting!

Here is Hunter with our Nunavut license plate for our new truck! We had to register it up here since we bought it all before we moved. I am sure there aren't many Nunavut license plates going around down south!

The Nunies Are Here!

Oh this is fun!! Clare up in Arctic Bay is having a contest about Nunavut Bloggers! Here are the details:

In celebration of Blogging in Nunavut I'm introducing the Nunies in conjunction with Nunavut Blogs!. The Nunies are a simple recognition of the best that blogging in Nunavut has to offer. Here is how it works...

From now until January 21st, 2008 there will be the opportunity to nominate blogs in two categories:
1) Best Nunavut Blog
2) Best New Nunavut Blog (the blog must have started in 2007)

and a third category for...
3) Best post of 2007

To nominate blogs for the first two categories send an email to the Nunavut Blogs! email address nunavutblogs AT yahoo DOT ca. You can nominate up to five blogs but you can only make one submission. Oh yeah, The House and other Arctic musings, is ineligible to be nominated... my award, my rules.

To nominate the best post of 2007 send a link to the post to the same email address. To be eligible for the two blog categories the blog must be primarily about Nunavut, written by someone living in Nunavut, or written by an expatriot Nunavumiut now living elsewhere. The post can have the additional criteria of being a post about Nunavut, not necessarily by a blog falling into one of those other categories.

After January 21st the top five nominees will be posted and voting will open for a week, with the Winners being announced in the beginning of February. What do the winners get??? Not much really, a nifty badge to post on their blog (that I've yet to design), a little promotion of their blog, and dinner for two at the House, should they ever make it up this way. If anyone else wants to donate a prize you can let me know.

Please spread the word, so as many people as possible take part in the nominations/voting.



I am addicted to northern blogs. I check them nearly everyday. Sometimes twice a day. Good thing some people post often to keep me entertained! I just have to share my nominations. It was a tough decision cause I love you all so much! :)

Okay for #1- Best Nunavut Blog- I nominate Larry (aka. Bob for telling it like it is!), Footprints (neat to see a view on Nunavut that isn't your traditional "kablunak" experience), WayWayUp (I feel like I learn a bit of culture from Darcy- I grew up redneck so know little about classical music and history!), and Jen of Nunavut (her pictures are outstanding and I love her cat, Norman).
#2- Best New Nunavut Blog- Nunavut Uncensored. Nice for people to have an anonymous place to vent without fear of losing their job. Thanks ArcticAgent.

And for #3- well I have to nominate myself for the entry on the birth of our son. Of course I think that was the best post of the whole year!
http://wenttokugluktuk.blogspot.com/2007/06/introducing-hunter-gillis-went.html


Now I would like everyone out there to email in your nominations! And make sure you vote for the birth of our baby boy for the third category!

Happy Voting Everyone!
ps. Tina- since you aren't in Nunavut I cannot vote for you- but I love your blog! Your boys are adorable!

pps. Jen of Nunavut has a contest going on too, but I want to win it, so you cannot enter ;p

What A Great Day!

It really was a great day!! We were up at 6am when Hunter got up to eat. We opened up presents and were all back down for a nap at 8am! Hunter was pretty cute trying to open up presents and eat the paper.

After the nap I got everything ready for Christmas Supper. We had 12 other people over and it was such a wonderful evening. I cooked a monstrous 27lb turkey and it was delicious. So we all ate, drank and were merry. I am really going to miss our friends here in Kugluktuk when we leave!


Our first family Christmas:


Me and my boy:


Dressed up with dad! Thanks for the present Nannie Gillis!


Our friend Lori gave him this cute Santa hat today:


Hey mom! Look at all of my presents!


Screw the present Ma, give me the paper!!


The kid could not get enough of the paper!


Adorable in Christmas pj's


Kitties love Christmas too!

Santa Claus is comin' to town!

I love parades in town! I heard the sirens as they went around the lower part of town, so I got my camera ready. Once the siren seemed loud enough I ran outside and got some pictures of Santa!!


Here he comes!!



Santa has to use the fire truck to give the reindeer a rest before the big day!



A parade isn't a parade unless the cops are involved! heheheh



And there are always trucks full of people shouting well wishes!



And my favorite- the line of skidoos that grows longer and longer as the parade moves through town!

Lobster Night in Kugluktuk

Matthew calls me from work on Wednesday afternoon and asked what was for supper. I said I had a nice moose roast in the crockpot. He replies with "well I really want frozen pizza!" Okay, this is weird, he never wants pizza, but ah well! So I tell him I will just use the roast for lunches and he can bring home whatever he wants for supper. Well my wonderful husband brought me home lobster!! His supervisors husband was in Nova Scotia that week and brought back a heap of live lobster and we bought a bunch of them. What a treat!


What is this thing mom??


Oh Pinchy, I love you!


I don't want to die!!! This lobster poo'ed on my floor before hitting the pot!


I didn't lose my sock mom... the lobster ate it!

More Cute Pictures...

I am playing around on my Mac today and have finally just figured out how to re-size pictures so I can get them on the blog. Any one have a solution for this: when I am putting in a blog entry I add the pictures. Now all I can see is the gibberish here, but when I hit the preview I see the pictures. I am putting the pictures in as JPEG's. Is that it?



This picture is what we put on our Christmas cards. Want one? Send us your mailing address!


Here is Hunter with the beautiful stocking our friend Lori got for him.


And here is the boy in his moose hat and moose sleeper. We like moose!

Cute Pictures

Hello. I am a Mac and I am a PC

Guess what arrived yesterday!

After listening to all of the Nunavut bloggers talk about their love for the Mac and then my Dell dying, I decided to get myself an early Christmas present! I called My Mac Dealer in Edmonton on Wednesday. Paid on Thursday. And had my new MacBook Pro by 5pm on Friday. Unreal!

Now I just have to figure out how to use this thing.....

Censor This.

With all of the grief that has been given to Nunavut bloggers lately- I just wanted to show the other side of the story. Here is an article that was posted in todays letter to the editor in Nunatsiaq news. I wonder why racist articles like this are published.

From Nunatsiaq News
December 14, 2007



NLCA benefits "white Nazis" only?
My fellow Inuit, the white man is now laughing joyously.
He wants us to fight a fight amongst ourselves.
Come and join our new fight, the fight to regain our independence and autonomy.
Yes, they will say that we cannot control our destiny and our desires because we are only good at fighting amongst ourselves.
We are saying to them that our ancestors had managed to survive for centuries upon centuries without any assistance from the nations of this planet.
My fellow Inuit, in less than a century the white man has managed with calculated motives to wipe out what held our nation and families together.
What we must now realise first and foremost is the notion that "fighting for a nation" and "running a country" are two completely seperate entities. We must not depart from this proven ideology.
The Nunavut land claims agreement is only for the benefit of the white nazis not for the Inuit nation.
Join the good fight that is coming soon.
Lootie Apak Kooneeliusie
Qikiqtarjuaq

The News!

Okay everyone, here is the news!

Nope, not pregnant! I need a while to recoupe from having Hunter.

We are MOVING! I think we have shocked everyone with this news as we have been very settled over here. A number of things have brought us to this decision. Matthew needs a change of pace and I want to be a bit closer to the family. The last year with all of the suicides in our community really took a toll on both of us. Our jobs can be very stressful and we would like to feel happier all around.

On our trip that we just had to Edmonton we flew to Whitehorse and drove to Faro. It is a small community of just 400 people about 360km Northeast of Whitehorse. Our offer on a house there was accepted and our house here in Kugluktuk has buyers lined up. Faro looks like a nice change of pace. There is very little crime there- no one locks their homes or vehicles. Matt will be travelling for work and I will be working from home. So that allowed us to move anywhere we wanted. I will now be only a day and a bit drive from family and they are pretty excited. A real perk to Faro is the housing. It used to be a mining community but the mine has since closed. It went from a population of 2000 to 400. So at our nice young age, we will be mortgage free!

I have sold my sewing store to another woman in the community who will run it out of her house. All of our skidoos and quads have been sold. All of the furniture will be going with the house. We are pretty much just packing up the boy and going! Matthew also got to buy his dream truck. Well as close to his dream truck as we could get. We are planning on leaving here on the 14th of January. There is a still a lot to do between now and then so I feel like I never have a spare moment.

So that is it! Our big news!

Oh The Excitement!

Okay- I have been home for a week! Sorry! I came home a week early but I have just been so busy I haven't had a minute to blog.

And sadly I won't be telling you the exciting news just yet. Well some of you know already, but I will fill everyone in this week. I promise!

Here is a picture of the boy to make you all say "awwww".