My new store and renovations!

So I decided to add to my busy schedule and have started a little store on the side! I am now selling sewing and craft supplies out of my porch. There is very little in the stores here in town for supplies and it is all very expensive. So we came up with a small budget to start my little store and got all of the supplies shipped up on the barge. I painted the porch and made my poor husband take all of his tools and other man crap out to the shed. So far the store has been doing good! There is a lot of interest in town, so I think it will be a success! Here are some pictures of my new store- Kara's Sewing Supplies!

Here is the door into our porch from the house. That shelf has my cheaper fabric, fabric ends, and lots of leather. I have moose hide and then cow hide in a whole bunch of colours.

This side of my little store has beads, cross stitch fabric, felt, lace, rabbit/beaver pelts, yarn, earring/broach backs, thread and a bit of other random stuff.

Here is the back of the store. I use my deep freezer as my fabric cutting table. I have a whole bunch of fleece material on the right that seems to be popular.

Here is my wall of fabric! I have a little bit of everything!

Here are the first of the pantries installed! These ones are in the kitchen and we have 9 more feet to install in the laundry area. We also have to do the whole kitchen. The new kitchen cupboards are going to look the same as these pantries. Our place is going to look great when it is all put together!

Barge Fun

Well the barge arrived and I was giddy until they dropped the sea can in our yard and I realized how much crap we have! We are renovating this year, so everything for that arrived. We are going to be putting in new flooring in the whole house, new kitchen cupboards, 13 feet of pantries that are 8 feet high and 2 feet deep, new washer/dryer (thanks mom and dad!), new dishwasher, and a new fan for above the stove. Plus there was the 600lbs of shitty kitty cat litter, oodles of kitty food, and food for us as well! We did the usual routine for unloading- we called up some friends and bribed them with a bbq and beer. That always does the trick. We had 6000lbs of stuff unloaded in about 3 hours! The other 1000lbs arrived a couple of days later. So since then we have been busy putting together our pantries in order to make room for everything.

We really lucked out this year, my amazing mom down in BC did all of our shopping for us in Grande Prairie and arranged all of the shipping. She really loves to spend our money! Everything though looks really good. And even better, my mom is coming up the third week of September to help us install the whole kitchen! She is right handy! My dad is working and will be unable to make it up on this trip, but hopefully next time.

Our house is going to look really good with all of these renovations. I am so glad that we bought a house last year as the prices have really taken a jump here this summer. And owning a home really makes this community feel like home. I noticed when we were out on vacation I couldn't wait to get "home" which was back up here! We have now lived three years in the north- 2 in the NT and one here- and it is now hard to imagine living anywhere else.



Here comes the front end loader with our sea can!














Here is the very talented driver from NTCL dropping off our sea can in our driveway.
















Here I am with my bounty of supplies for another year! Everything in there other than the pallet of dog food right in front of me was for us! My washing machine is the box on the tilt in there and it arrived with a big dent in the top. But since the dryer stacks on top of it, the top of the washer had to be removed anyways! So that worked out well!

















Here is our crazy friend Amanda showing off our crap! She was great slave labour!

THE BARGE IS HERE!

This time of the year is honestly better than Christmas! Everyone in town is talking and trying to guess the day the barge is going to arrive. And then it comes on the horizon and your phone rings off the hook as everyone tries to claim to be the first to see it coming! This is our second barge season and it is no less exciting! Last year we had a lot of our furniture and food come up on it as well as our new quads. This year we have all of our house renovations, food and stuff for my little crafting/sewing store I am starting up. We have lucked out and all of our stuff is actually on this first barge and we should be able to get it delivered tomorrow or the next day. I have no clue where will put the 7000lbs of stuff! Did you know our two kitties go through 600lbs of shitty kitty (cat litter) in one year? Crazy the stuff you have to plan for up here. After one year I think we got a lot of the kinks worked out! Enjoy the pictures folks!




Oh baby! There it is on the horizon! It is a tug pulling three platforms of goodies all the way from Hay River- our old home! In this picture the barge is on the other side of a big sand bar.

Alright, if you squint really hard you can see the barge waaaay out there!

Here it is a little closer to town. There is so much on those platforms! Last year we had our spotting scope out and we tried to spot our quads on the deck before it arrived. Surprize, we didn't see them!

So the ship pushes all of the barge platforms together to make one big deck for unloading. All materials are on top and the bottom is filled with fuel that is pumped into large tanks here. The barge brings up enough fuel for the entire year. The barge even travels with a couple of its own front end loaders to unload everything. People sit along the shore or come down on their hondas to check everything out.

We have 11 pallets and 3 cartons! We talked to the guy in charge and it looks like most of our stuff is in one seacan. So hopefully we can get the whole can dropped off in our driveway and we can unload it from there.



And this has nothing to do with the barge- but Tweak is just so damn cute! It has been over 20C everyday for over a week and the kitties are cooking! Here is Tweak in Matts chair. They fight over it, mainly because I sprinkle it with tuna flavoured cat nip when Matt isn't looking!

August in Kugluktuk

Ack! Can you believe it is August already! People are arriving back in town for another year. Lucky me- I still have 2 weeks of my vacation left. The weather here has been amazing. We have seen a week of +20C to +25C. The sun is now setting for just over 4 hours a night, but it still isn't really that dark. I got my new Canon camera out of its box and I have been taking pictures like mad!


The coast guard arrived to do a crew change. The boat stayed in town for a few days.






I found some nice little tracks in the sand. We are so lucky- we have miles upon miles of sandy beaches!

The flower season has pretty much come to an end, but I did find this nice lousewort (I think, let me know if I am wrong!)

A boat down on the shore of the Coronation Gulf.

A valley near Four Mile Bay. Kugluktuk has such great scenery!

Out at some friends cabin there is a tub out on the tundra. It looks so out of place!

A wasp on another one of our beautiful beaches.

Our trip out

So we headed out of the community for our first holiday in a year. We left June 16th and returned July 19th. We spent most of that time on Vancouver Island and then a bit in Edmonton as well as a quick weekend in Dawson Creek. Our time on the island was a hoot! First off, we both got laser eye surgery and can now see without glasses! Life is grand! Then we did a week of camping with my folks at China Creek and went out salmon fishing everyday. We also went to my grandparents 50th wedding anniversary and it ended up being quite the family gathering. We also went on a nice 2 day boat trip up the north end of the island. We enjoyed going to restaurants after not seeing one for a year, as well as shopping! After almost 5 weeks though, I was quite happy to return home to my house, kitties, and remaining summer vacation! I cannot seem to find my other disk with pictures on it, but I will keep looking! But here are a few that I did track down.


Here is just one of the many rubbermaids of fish we hauled in!

This is the marina at China Creek. I am pretty sure there were more people in this campground than there are up here in Kugluktuk!

Here is my grandpa holding up a couple of nice Spring Salmon.

And here is my wonderful husband holding up just one of the salmon he caught!

My missing roll of film....

Well I had misplaced a roll of film in my house and found it just before we went on vacation! So here are some pictures from there. You will all be happy to know that I have just received my first digital camera! I got a canon rebel. It sure does look spiffy, but I am not so good with gadgets unless it is my meat grinder! Anyone out there who is a pro, please send some tips my way!


A great storm blew into town in late April or early May- I cannot remember already! It was wonderful. It snowed and the wind blew all weekend. Before this we could already walk on gravel on the roads! Here the RCMP are stuck on a main road. The snow at least 3 feet deep and hard. A front end loader ended up pulling the boys out.

This is from the same storm. Matt is trying to walk out of our driveway, but the picture just doesn't do the scene justice! The drift is over 4 feet and was so hard! So we spent the day driving over it and over it with the skidoos to break it down. Gee, life is so rough!!

Here it is folks- my pride and joy! The shiny gadget is my 1 horsepower meat grinder straight from eBay. Can you believe I got a 66lb crate shipped here for only $87 from California! One day the Americans will catch on, but for now I will keeping taking advantage! The stuff on the tables is muskox and caribou hamburger jerky. I was smoking and dehydrating it. Super tasty!

Here is Matt with our table full of goodies! There is my caribou and a quarter of muskox that was given to us. We made lots of meat treats and I still have some ground Boo in the freezer that I will be making homemade sausage from very soon!

Here I am- head butcher! My mom taught me well on the farm in northern BC on moose and deer. The caribou is a wee bit smaller than the moose I am used to though! Oh! See those cupboards in the back? Well we have new ones coming up on the barge! A whole new kitchen is coming and flooring! Oh the excitement! I can hardly wait the next month until it all arrives!

Here is my amazing assistant! He is holding up the foot of a muskox!

This is a great picture I took from the side window of my house after the same storm from the pictures above.

So my mother is a seamstress. I always said I would never, ever, no way in hell take up sewing. Well mom gave me a sewing machine for my birthday a couple of years ago and what do you know.... its not that bad! Here I am with my first creation! It is a packing shirt that I made for a friend who will soon deliver her third child. Up in the north, babies are laid on an adults back and tied in with a packing shirt. The babe sits there quite warm and comfortable leaving the adults arms free to drive the skidoo or do shopping. I have an orange pillow on my back- yep, no kids yet- just the cats.

Vacation Time!

Well after one full year of not leaving, we are headed out on vacation today!

We will be down on Vancouver Island to see some family and celebrate my grandparents 50th anniversary! Then off to Edmonton/Dawson Creek to visit friends and family. Then back up here on July 19th. We definately need this vacation as we are both feeling a bit run down!

Have a great month!

Buildings and such

So we do not have much for stores and such up here! Here is a bit of a tour of the town!



This is the Coppermine Inn. I guess you could call this our restaurant as well, but you have to book a day in advance. You can smell their amazing brunch all over town on the weekend!

This is our one and only gas pump in town! We are paying $1.07 a litre, cheaper than most folks down south!


Our RCMP station- those poor cops need a bigger, better building!

This is the high school. This year we had 3 students graduate from high school. With such a high dropout rate- this is a success that really needs to be celebrated!

The Health Centre staffed mainly by nurses and once in a while a doctor!

The Northern Store- Groceries and everything else.

Nunavut Arctic College where I work as the Community Adult Educator. While the building looks plain from the outside, it is beautiful on the inside!

The Co-op- our other choice for groceries and other items.

Spring, early summer and other random stuff!

A nice evening at a lake close to town on the 1st of June.

A tent set up near town.
A quad stuck pulling the komatik from the ice to shore. It took a few other quads to get him out.
Early June on the Arctic Ocean!
My quad full after going to the post office to get the mail! I also have groceries hanging off of the handle bars! I love my quad!
A skidoo coming in on the dirt to town. Poor skidoo!
Skidoos and komatiks on the ice in late May.
Matt with me and my first caribou that I shot in April! It was very tasty!