A variety of pix from a while ago, just around the road closure

A while back, before I flew to Whitehorse, I went out to Reindeer Station after work on a yet another clear sky day and took that opportunity to skin up the hills behind the site to ostensibly do some skiing but also to revisit the area, as it was the place that we toured to via boat went to when I first had an opportunity to come to Inuvik. The snow was very supportive and the skiing was good. I ended up going over to the old electrical shack that supported the communications tower for Reindeer Station in the days when it was a community with a postal station and all. The travel on the barren lands was excellent, long days, and good snow pack and warm temps, stayed out much longer than I figured and ended up getting back to the truck near after 11 PM.

The trip out on the road was interesting as the ice road was bare ice, some of the corners were full 4 wheel drifts at the alarming speed of 30 kph. I put the truck in 4WD for the trip back as I was sliding everywhere simply leaving the parking area for Reindeer Station. On a sad note I, after innumerable kms and countless turns over a decade of skiing this trip broke one of the edges on my tele-skiis, so they will come to an end here in the Arctic and when the river is open they may just have to float down the Mackenzie to their final resting place, in an environmentally sustainable manner of course.

A few more catch up pix of the last day of snowmobiling on the closed ice road. Was up until 1:30 in the morning as it snowed a bit that day and had drifted quite nicely onto the road by the plow-line. Consequently travel on the refrozen surface covered in new snow was fast and rather fun. Snow was up to 50cm in places – good fluff.
I also went out to Airport Lake via the trails system for the dame reasons and I also wanted to get over to Inuvik’s spaceship; which is an antenna array out by the airport that looks strikingly like a flying saucer. Easily visible on a promontory, anyone who sees t for the first time always remarks how 50s sci fi it looks. Since this was going to be the last day to use this particular snowmobile the die was cast with regard to getting over to it. Of course up close it has little resemblance to a saucer but its geometric configurations are appealing composition wise. Some nice midnight sun pix on the way back to town.

Also stopped by the barge, William Bradley, moored in the Airport lake outflow channel. Now clear of snow I have included some pix of the antenna and lights that festoon the top deck. It would be an interested ride to sit on that perch and navigate the delta.

Also pic from the Muskrat Jamboree on one the dog sled racers who apparently was in the Yukon Quest or part of it. The dogsledding competition is rather unique in that a section of the track parallels the ice road so people race along the ice road in vehicles keeping pace with the dog teams, then race back to the finish. It should almost be a team event, trucks and dogs for best time, lol