Interesting week back

Was out skiing at the Nordic track last 2 nights, temps around -25 to -27. the track was freshly packed the first night I went out but the snow had sintered up and it was essentially skiing on sandpaper – very little glide on the skate strides. Needless to say I had the track all to myself.. The next night the track had been groomed and the snow had a little more humidity in it so the glide was markedly better but I still had to pole was more than usual, even downhill.

Regardless it was nice to get out after work and it is interesting to see the daily difference in the amount of light in the sky. The first night I went out there was no colour in the evening sky but the next day an azure blue could be seen off to the west. A shot looking south at 1:30 PM

There was a thin haze in the air last night so the highly anticipated auroral display that was to occur over much of North America was not to be seen; though I suspect that even if it was clear, Inuvik was on the cusp of the coverage map and it was probably going to be bust anyways, especially with the moon out.

Harper, the Prime Minister - for those of you reading internationally, came to town on Wednesday. He announced the federal funding commitment for the extension of the Dempster Highway to Tuktoyaktuk. Canada will finally have a sea to sea to sea highway, Diefenbaker’s dream finally realized. In reality it seems to the fruition of savvy lobbying by Oil and Gas to have taxpayers build a road that they need for resource extraction of the natural gas deposits (Parson’s Lake) in the area. This will no doubt be the end of the 40 year journey of the Mackenzie pipeline initiative. Instead of building the line to Alberta, the gas will simply be piped a short distance to Tuktoyaktuk for loading on LNG tankers for Asian markets, cheap and easy.


I was able to attend the invite only ceremony, by talking my way in (try that in the south, getting past all the RCMP), and took some pix of the Prime Minister, the Premier and the head of the IRC, Nellie C., and got a free lunch too. The full national media show was in tow, interesting to watch the press and the PMO staff interact - very scripted. I must admit the Arctic is probably the only place you can walk right up to the Prime Minister an introduce yourself. LOL. Lots of security of course but they didn't even check my camera case as I walked up to him.

Meanwhile, of course, the town is slowly dying due to the failure of Inuvik’s gas well which was used for heating. Right now Inuvik is using propane infused with oxygen that is truck in from Whitehorse at 20 times the going rate in Alberta for natural gas. The premier of the territories was also up with Harper, of course, he announced an LNG facility for Inuvik but where the natural gas will come from is anyone’s guess. With the town deciding not to renew the private supplier of natural gas to the town the feeling is that the situation will get worse before getting better. Many home owners are switching to wood stoves to offset monthly heating bills that topped $2000 or $3000 a month for some last year. Ironic to have the highest heating costs in Inuvik while 14 trillion cubic metres of gas is a mere 80kms away. Check the National Post article;

http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/04/15/nothing-left-in-the-tank-inuvik-is-running-out-of-gas-literally/

Out by the airport on Tuesday, picking up luggage that did not make the plane, for some arcane reasoning, on Sunday