Monthly Archives: December 2007

Here is a whitefish (top picture) and a loche. They are two common kinds of fish, which are caught on the Mackenzie River all year.

Here’s someone carrying groceries home between buildings, beside the utilidors.

Inuvik recently reached -30c. This is unusually late for the season.

Little known fact, the Gwich’in Tribal Council’s file room is named The Matrix.

The Mad Trapper seems busy at 5pm Friday.

A raven takes a minute downtown before resuming flight.

This looked like spray paint vandalism, until I read the message.

It’s actually just a Christmas greeting in white paint written from the inside.

The Northern News Services website has expanded its photo galleries. You can now find views from Yellowknife, NWT communities, Nunavut and a gallery of wildlife.

These photos are very good, be sure to check them out or submit your own. 

Click here for views of the NWT

Click here for views of wildlife

Click here for views of Yellowknife

Click here for views of Nunavut

Sometimes walking outside feels like the videogame Myst.

This is becuase you come across strange buildings and think “they must somehow be important in some way, but I don’t know what it does.”

What is this building, for instance? A weather station?

Here are some views from the Inuvik CBC office.

1. Reporter Chris Harbord, who has been replacing regular host Wanda McLeod during the Christmas break.

2. Broadcasting from a tent, early CBC broadcasters seem to be having a good time.

3. This CBC sign is made from crochet wool. How northern is that?

4. Me wearing an appropriate shirt for the shortest day of the year.

Looks like there’s been a lot of fox traffic here!

I think my favourite part of living in Inuvik is the absolute silence.

If you walk outside of town, there will be moments where you can’t hear anything except natural sounds like birds or wind.

These novelty plates are pretty common in town.

This is a pretty strange product from North Mart, which retails for $10.99.

It’s a whole chicken in a can.

It turns out, it’s exactly as advertised — it’s just a whole chicken, with bones and ribs and skin, shoehorned into a can and covered with chicken broth.

The meat was slimy but it made a good meaty soup.

Has anyone ever seen this elsewhere? Just seems like a wierd product.

On the shortest day of the year, (where Environment Canada doesn’t officially register one hour of sunlight for Inuvik, though this is exaggerated) here’s a toast to the NWT power corp keeping the lights on.

Here’s the Inuvik Liquor Store on Friday at 5pm.

Foxes have appeared everywhere in the community lately. Check out those hi-beam eyes!

This one was outside my apartment building before 9am today.

Notice the Gwich’in words on the Capital Suites hotel sign. I believe it’s the name of an organization which partly owns the hotel, rather than a translation of “hotel” itself.

This grapefruit juice was purchased today at Arctic Foods. It’s expiration date is September 4th! That’s four months ago!

Transportation to the north is sometimes a slow process, but this is definitely a record.

Steve Slade and Keitha Clark (both musicians travelling from the Yukon) held a fiddle workshop last week.

This laughing child somewhat reminds me of a court jester.

He was having a good time outside Ingamo Hall at the BBQ last week.

There sure are a lot of boarded-up buildings in town. This is because places have been closing (Frostys and SunBurst Bistro this year), glass is expensive, and shipping glass is even more expensive.

Here is a photo from the Daily Mail, and it’s from Japan.

However, since we have beluga whales here too (and they are a traditional food staple) I thought it was too funny to pass up.

Here’s the link to the article.

This is probably too small to see, but the sign says “no parking.” Apparently it hasn’t been enforced in a couple months.

A husky patiently waits for its owner outside North Mart. (In the background is Inuvik’s famous Igloo Church.)

Here’s the post office around 11am. As you can see, we don’t have a lot of sunlight.

Here’s the local community band rehearsing at Samuel Hearne school.

Notice the northern lights which are painted on murals.

The community band recently played a fundraiser for the Food Bank, and accepts members with no prior musical experience.

Temperatures have been dipping to -27c and beyond. You should plug in your vehicles.

Here’s Rev. Parsons from the local Anglican Church on Sunday morning.

Notice the traditional languages written on the fabric.

One of the benefits of living in the arctic — and especially on the edge of town — is lack of light.

When the sky is clear there are many visible stars.

These photos were taken on Boot Lake Road on Saturday night around 10pm, almost in pitch darkness. The shutter was open for nearly a minute on each.
(Note: I am trying to figure out proper white balance technique, I realize these are too yellow.)

This is Jared Sowan, an award-winning songwriter who visited Inuvik’s Legion Hall on Dec. 7.

On his guitar case was a sticker which read “no tolerance for violence: Violence is not a Cree tradition.”

After his show, he was nice enough to jam with local musicians.

Here’s a link to his Myspace if you want to listen.

There was a free outdoor barbecue at Ingamo Hall on Saturday before a fiddle workshop.

There was outdoor skating, hot chocolate, hot dogs (what else are BBQs for?) and some tea — notice the big teapots in the third picture.

Here’s a sholiday sign outside Arctic Digital. It’s part of the town’s holiday decorations.

Hey, remember animated GIFs? They’re back!

This is local swimmer Richard Phillips, 16, who is raising funds and trying to get to the North American Indigenous Games.

He is featured in the Inuvik Drum this week, please check it out.

Here’s a classic record from the CBC radio archives. Boy does he look young!

Here’s a view from last week.

Inuvik has a “solar glow” in the afternoons, but there is no visible sun.

This bird was pecking on some kind of animal pelt near the Gwich’in campground outside of town near the East Channel of the Mackenzie River.

What kind of animal is this?

This metal sign looks pretty cold. But then again, it’s -30 celcius in Inuvik these days!

Inuvik has one traffic light and it just blinks yellow most of the time.

It’s only active during peak hours!

Seriously, who skateboards inside the video store?