Sunrise festival Satuday events

Well after the pancake breakfast and appallingly flat light and no sun and light snow the snowmobile parade went ahead with about 10 sleds participating including the one pulling the hockey rink "float" - looked like a lot work went into that. The parade wound its way down Mackenzie, which is usually banned territory for snowmobiles to Jim Koe park to meet up with the ice carving competition - which was actually compacted snow carving. People a lot of effort into it with the eventual winner being the drum dancer though I thought that the polar bear was really well done and the catholic church carving was unique - being that you could look at one from the other. There was also a stylized mushroom though it didn't apparently place.

The bon fire was done out by the golf course and consisted of approximately 800 pallets - accordingly to a friend who helped build it. The ice café was a bit of a bust with the vender not even using it after a town worker spent all day creating it, including carving an ice polar bear with a chain saw. The blocks were taken directly from Boot Lake. The igloo was a bit ambitious height wise and the workers were not able to close it off so it had an improvised plywood roof, but that didn't matter as everyone still crawled inside for a look.

Global Breakfast news from Edmonton was poking around and pulling the "celebrity" card to some extent. The fire works seemed to be everyone's favorite with most of the town watching from the bon fire site or from their vehicles parked along the roadways - good views from all sorts of places.

A little out of sequence but I went north along the ice road towards Tuktoyaktuk late Sunday afternoon after picking a friend up from the airport who was coming back to town. with a late start I just wanted to go to the Aklavik / Tuk junction but in falling temps I went right to reindeer station. road was in OK shape with some newer heaves /cracks that hadn't been bladed off yet. temp went to about -33 before I hit a bit of a front coming from the north and the temp soared all the way up to -29. Raods are good for 20000 kg right now, not enough to do heavy hauling on.

Sunrise Festival - Friday night

To kick off the sunrise Festival the community put on a "taste of Inuvik" event featuring a mélange of traditional foods and main stream; Musk Ox meatballs, Caribou tacos, Greek salad, Char stew etc. Lots of bannock and doughnuts. The next morning the pancake breakfast was held at the legion, true to form the breakfast started at 10 AM and went till 2 PM. blueberry pancakes, sausage, bacon and eggs - last two shots are there.

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

Some late XMas pics around town

Inuvik puts up a lit "tree" in Jim Koe park, some seasonal lights on the poles along Mackenzie Road, and both ends of town have greetings...which can be viewed backwards when one is driving south, a message perhaps.

Holiday shots, yup, not Inuvik

Inuvik sunrise festival 2014

well, even though the sun has officially returned to Inuvik, it's snowing today son not much to see. The sunrise festival is this weekend and should be interesting, quaint but interesting, lol. The tourism office is pushing it in the local market and offering somewhat discounted flights from Yellowknife. Here's the itinerary
http://media.wix.com/ugd/5f2095_32891b493ee64aa0bba668b3062df335.pdf

Again from http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/astronomy.html?n=1145&month=1&year=2014&obj=sun&afl=-11&day=1

The amount of sunlight goes from nil to five and a half hours by the end of the month. Big gains every day, be nice to se the sun again here

Rising and setting times for the Sun
Length of day Solar noon
Date Sunrise Sunset This day Difference Time Altitude Distance
(million km)
Jan 1, 2014 Down all day 1:59 PM 0.6° below 147.106
Jan 2, 2014 Down all day 1:59 PM 0.5° below 147.105
Jan 3, 2014 Down all day 2:00 PM 0.5° below 147.105
Jan 4, 2014 Down all day 2:00 PM 0.4° below 147.105
Jan 5, 2014 Down all day 2:00 PM 0.3° below 147.105
Jan 6, 2014 1:45 PM 2:17 PM 32m 22s 2:01 PM 0.2° below 147.106
Jan 7, 2014 1:31 PM 2:32 PM 1h 01m 42s + 29m 19s 2:01 PM 0.1° below 147.108
Jan 8, 2014 1:21 PM 2:43 PM 1h 22m 02s + 20m 19s 2:02 PM 0.0° 147.111
Jan 9, 2014 1:13 PM 2:52 PM 1h 39m 00s + 16m 58s 2:02 PM 0.2° 147.114
Jan 10, 2014 1:06 PM 3:00 PM 1h 54m 09s + 15m 09s 2:03 PM 0.3° 147.119
Jan 11, 2014 12:59 PM 3:07 PM 2h 08m 06s + 13m 56s 2:03 PM 0.4° 147.124
Jan 12, 2014 12:53 PM 3:14 PM 2h 21m 15s + 13m 09s 2:03 PM 0.6° 147.130
Jan 13, 2014 12:47 PM 3:21 PM 2h 33m 44s + 12m 29s 2:04 PM 0.7° 147.137
Jan 14, 2014 12:42 PM 3:27 PM 2h 45m 45s + 12m 00s 2:04 PM 0.9° 147.144
Jan 15, 2014 12:36 PM 3:33 PM 2h 57m 22s + 11m 37s 2:04 PM 1.0° 147.153
Jan 16, 2014 12:31 PM 3:40 PM 3h 08m 40s + 11m 18s 2:05 PM 1.2° 147.163
Jan 17, 2014 12:26 PM 3:45 PM 3h 19m 42s + 11m 01s 2:05 PM 1.4° 147.173
Jan 18, 2014 12:21 PM 3:51 PM 3h 30m 30s + 10m 47s 2:05 PM 1.6° 147.185
Jan 19, 2014 12:16 PM 3:57 PM 3h 41m 05s + 10m 35s 2:06 PM 1.7° 147.197
Jan 20, 2014 12:11 PM 4:02 PM 3h 51m 30s + 10m 25s 2:06 PM 1.9° 147.211
Jan 21, 2014 12:06 PM 4:08 PM 4h 01m 45s + 10m 14s 2:06 PM 2.2° 147.225
Jan 22, 2014 12:01 PM 4:13 PM 4h 11m 52s + 10m 07s 2:07 PM 2.4° 147.240
Jan 23, 2014 11:56 AM 4:18 PM 4h 21m 52s + 9m 59s 2:07 PM 2.6° 147.256
Jan 24, 2014 11:52 AM 4:23 PM 4h 31m 44s + 9m 52s 2:07 PM 2.8° 147.272
Jan 25, 2014 11:47 AM 4:29 PM 4h 41m 31s + 9m 46s 2:07 PM 3.1° 147.289
Jan 26, 2014 11:42 AM 4:34 PM 4h 51m 11s + 9m 40s 2:08 PM 3.3° 147.307
Jan 27, 2014 11:38 AM 4:39 PM 5h 00m 46s + 9m 34s 2:08 PM 3.5° 147.325
Jan 28, 2014 11:33 AM 4:44 PM 5h 10m 15s + 9m 29s 2:08 PM 3.8° 147.344
Jan 29, 2014 11:29 AM 4:48 PM 5h 19m 41s + 9m 25s 2:08 PM 4.1° 147.363
Jan 30, 2014 11:24 AM 4:53 PM 5h 29m 01s + 9m 20s 2:08 PM 4.3° 147.383
Jan 31, 2014 11:20 AM 4:58 PM 5h 38m 16s + 9m 15s 2:08 PM 4.6° 147.403

Back in Inuvik after being in the land of sunlight ie below the Arctic Circle. The sun comes back, officially, tomorrow. Flying back yesterday it as interesting to look back and see the limit of where the sun was above the horizon and shining on the land, about a 100 kms south of the airport. a large Arctic vortex is over most of North America and this is moderating temps in Inuvik, it was -26 when I landed but warmed up over the evening to -22. In the meantime it was -35 in Edmonton. Sun festival this weekend