Arctic Comment

Lights out

2007-01-05T19:34:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Marc Winkler for sending me this photo of Inuvik trees in early December. People are always asking me how dark it gets during the Winter in Yellowknife. I've blogged about the Northern darkness before, but for those of you who have just joined us it goes something like this: in Yellowknife on the the Winter solstice on Dec. 21 there are about five hours of daylight, meaning the sun rises at about 10 a.m. and sets around 3 p.m.

As you move farther North during Winter solstice season, the total number of hours of sunlight starts to decrease. Near the top of the Northwest Territories in Inuvik, where this photo was taken, I'm told there's no direct sunlight for at least a few weeks during the year's darkest days. As an illustration, this photo is believed to have been taken at 12:40 p.m. sometime during the first week of December.

Iqaluit sled ride

2007-01-04T12:18:00.000-07:00

About four hours after arriving in Iqaluit for a work sojourn last May, my friend Chris offered me a ride home. This video shows a few seconds of our trip.

A lot of people in Yellowknife have, and presumably ride, snow machines. But I can't say I see them within the city limits all that often. But in Iqaluit, anecdotal evidence seems to show snowmobiles as a primary method of transportation for a substantial number of people. (Though Iqaluit city administration seemed antsy about getting them off the streets while I was working there more than two years ago, I haven't heard of any action being taken)

Much of the appeal to living in Iqaluit, for me anyway, is getting around town on a snowmobile in the winter. Then if you get yourself an ATV for when the snow melts, you've got your transportation needs covered for the entire year.

Late New Year's post

2007-01-02T15:28:00.000-07:00

Though a little late, thought I'd share a story I wrote for the Nunavut News/North newspaper while living in Iqaluit about two years ago. I'd have to say it's one of the strangest New Year's tales I've ever heard. It took place in Canada's Northernmost community, Grise Fiord - home to fewer than 200 people on the southern shores of Ellesmere Island, way up at the tip of Nunavut. Here's the story.

The Yellowknife Airport

2006-12-30T11:43:00.000-07:00

For anyone thinking of taking a trip to the Northwest Territories, this is one of the first things you'll see when you get off the plane. The thing is, you're not going to see a polar bear anywhere near Yellowknife because the few that do reside in the Western Arctic live much farther North.

Almost all of the populations of polar bears in Canada's North roam the tundra of Nunavut, which was once part of the Northwest Territories. But for more than seven years, Nunavut has been its own territory, and the N.W.T. has been left searching for its own cultural icons.

There are a few, like birch bark baskets, moccasins, and bead work which originate in the N.W.T. But many of the gift shops in Yellowknife still stock tonnes of Inuksuit and soapstone carvings, all of which are distinctly Eastern Arctic, read Nunavut. N.W.T. licence plates are still the shape of polar bears, and a 'Nanuq' skin still sits on the floor of our legislative assembly. With no action since the two were divided in 1999, I'm not sure this will, or should, ever change.

Back like Bison

2006-12-24T16:14:00.000-07:00

These animals were standing beside the road about an hour outside of Yellowknife in the middle of November. The photo was made in the middle of a morning spent looking for an unexpectedly hard-to-find dog mushing competition.

It was so hard to find that I never did make it and ended up pulling over on the side of the road to shoot, among other things, a frozen self-portrait of me in my new wolf-fur hooded parka from Nunavut. (see below)

Since I last posted anything on Arctic Comment, it's been the sort of while that's added up to nearly a year. But a few things have happened to renew my interest in this project. As before, I'll try to stick to opinion and interesting video/images which relate at least indirectly to Canada's North. I'm also going to avoid posting personal drivel about things like my cat, although he's incredibly cute. Any personal items posted will hopefully be the type of great stories that will help illustrate something about the North. Any feedback or constructive criticism will be gratefully accepted. Here's to what's to come.

Until I get posting full swing, I'll wish everyone a Merry Christmas. I do so not because I'm a Christian, but because it's still socially acceptable to do so in the North.

Zai jian

Video: Tourists on ice

2006-01-26T11:23:00.000-07:00

This is a video of Japanese tourists using a brush to clear snow off an ice road so their photographs will more vividly capture the fact they are driving on ice. I don't want to seem like I'm harping on the Japanese here, but just as our ice roads are of interest to them, they are of interest to me. And I must admit, when I first came up here, I thought ice roads were pretty cool as well. Below is a different perspective of the same road.

Video: Driving in downtown Yellowknife

2006-01-24T19:22:00.000-07:00

Here's a video shot out the window while driving in downtown Yellowknife a few weeks ago. If the wind's a little loud, turn down the volume. The building shown just before the thing cuts out is the Northwest Territories legislative assembly. After watching this thing with fresh eyes, all I can say is that for a town of less than 20,000 people, there sure are a lot of pickup trucks.

Column: Our new Northern MPs

2006-01-24T11:08:00.000-07:00

As a number of you have kindly -- and some not so kindly -- noted, I was about as far off as possible in predicting who would win the Northwest Territories parliamentary seat cushion last night.

In the absence of any kind of poll I was forced to use my instincts and some basic analysis; both of which are apparently not worth much on the open market. But I'll get over it.

Widely predicted by those who know, our five-time Liberal incumbent Ethel Blondin-Andrew was trounced by a New Democrat named Dennis Bevington. I’ve been looking for a photo I can legally post here, but instead I’ll just leave a link to his campaign site.

Dennis seems a solid enough guy, though not necessarily inspiring. In a Saturday piece in the Globe two days before the vote his top quote was something to the effect of feeling that Canadians are looking for a change.

I’m not saying Conservative Richard Edjericon, or anyone else on the ballot could do a better job. What I am doing is assessing our new MP in the wake of my election call having proved to be so far out in left field that you’d have needed a bleacher seat to field it.

Dennis, Jack and the rest of the NDP seem to support developments such as the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline, and will likely try to ensure benefits come North as much as possible. I suppose this is all anyone up here can ask for.

In the meantime we’ll have to watch closely to see what Mr. Harper has in store, and whether everyone will play nice in order to avoid the time, energy and cost of another election.

My feeling is Harper will be able to pass just about anything he wants in his first budget, as there’s not a leader alive who would want to be seen as forcing another election. I, on the other hand, would love one. Who says governments are meant to govern?

In other news, the Liberals held onto their seats in Nunavut and the Yukon.

Most interesting is that Nunavut's Conservative candidate -- who was openly denounced by the territory's conservative chapter president early on in the election -- might have won the seat with a little more support from the status-quo loving non-Inuit people in Iqaluit.

More than anything else she did or didn't do as MP, Nancy Karetak-Lindell's vote for same-sex marriage is likely what brought about the groundswell of Conservative support in the staunchly religious land of Nunavut.

With none of the three territories' MPs in the governing party, it will be interesting to see if anyone even bothers looking North now.

Here are the final results for the NWT.

Video: Steam on the water

2006-01-22T13:41:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I've posted a video here. As the previous ones seemed to go over well, here's another. This is taken the first week of January from the Yellowknife River Bridge, a few kilometres outside of Yellowknife. The water would usually be frozen over, but December's warm weather had left tonnes of open water steaming, as you will see.

The warm weather has also delayed the opening of a winter ice road to the diamond mines which is used to truck in supplies.

Column: Hot to talk Northern election

2006-01-21T19:51:00.000-07:00

With an election on Monday, it’s time to send out some prediction on who’s going to win, and more importantly: why. We could get into how difficult it is to campaign up here, what with -30 C weather and great distances between tiny communities, but this close to the election, I’m just hot to talk turkey.

So let’s set it up: last time around, the race in the Northwest Territories must have been one of the country’s most exciting.

NDP candidate Dennis Bevington lost by 53 votes to Liberal incumbent Ethel Blondin-Andrew, whose photo appears here courtesy of the Prime Minister’s Office.

It was the closest race in the country. And unlike many ridings, the NDP camp was still sitting around on the floor of its humid office, chomping nervously on their nails late into the night, waiting for the final polls to come in as old man Martin delivered his victory salute on the tube.

The Conservative candidate – flown in from somewhere on the east coast – finished a distant third.

This time things are different. In Richard Edjericon, the Conservative camp has found someone who while not necessarily capable or well-respected, is at least local. And like Blondin-Andrew, he’s aboriginal.

Having a pair of aboriginal candidates running for two of the three mainstream parties has lead some to suggest a potential split in the aboriginal vote, allowing Bevington to come up the middle to be crowned King of the Arctic his third time out. This theory seems way too simplistic and I’m predicting a tight three-way race.

Some say that in the territories, because there are so few people, voters choose a candidate based on their character. This may be true. But I say people up here want to vote for the winning party just as much as the rest of Canada.

I suppose now is the time to come to terms with it, even though we may be crying about it six months from now when we realize what exactly we’re in for. By this I mean that Stephen Harper is our next Prime Minister, no matter how short his reign may be.

Up here, it may be even more important to have an MP in government than anywhere else. This is a huge territory, with very few people, and it is understandably a low priority on a lot of people’s political radar screens.

Paul Martin seemed to be trying to leave a legacy by paying attention to what was going on up here, but ideas such as the “Northern Strategy” captured the attention of few Canadians at large, and even fewer reporters.

More importantly, I think in the last election, a vote for Bevington was a vote to oust Blondin-Andrew, more than solid support for the man. Locals say there has never really been a strong NDP movement up here, and Bevington seemed to come out of nowhere. To me, this says he could fade back into nowhere just as fast.

And people seem to have forgotten that prior to 1987, or whenever Blondin-Andrew was first elected, the territories elected a Conservative MP for three consecutive terms.

This leads me to believe that there were a lot of Conservative supporters who have been hiding in the closet for a long time – either voting Liberal in hopes of getting/keeping federal money flowing up this way, or voting NDP last time around in hopes of getting rid of a been-there-too-long MP.

We’ve also got quite a few RCMP and Canadian Forces members up here, and the ones I’ve talked to have seemed pretty impressed with Harper’s plan to help defend the Arctic.

This brings my prediction for Monday: Edjericon wins what will once again be one of the tightest races in the country. I’m just waiting to see if those closet conservatives are willing to come out and support him, or whether the soft vote which propped Bevington up last time can be taken away as easily as I think. With no official Northern polls, we'll have to wait and see how everything shakes out on Monday.

The Greens are running a young guy who will capture some of the soft NDP support, as well. We’ve also got an independent candidate who seems hell-bent on pissing off aboriginal people, though I’ve never actually spoken with him.

With so many ideas swirling about, who doesn’t love federal politics? Now we just need some people to get out, cast their ballot, and add a little bit of legitimacy to this whole thing.

Column: Turning Japanese heads skyward

2006-01-14T16:19:00.000-07:00

Yes, I promised you a series on Nunavut, and it IS coming. But these things take time. Gathering your thoughts, let alone any hard facts, about Canada’s black hole of information is a difficult task. For now, enjoy this story about Japanese tourists in Yellowknife.

It’s -30 C outside and 11 p.m. on Friday night. The Japanese ladies in the photo above are boarding a bus to go Aurora Borealis watching near a lake just outside of town.

I don’t really have the full story, but the lights so fascinate the Japanese that every year a few thousand of them are willing to fly all the way to middle of nowhere - better known as Yellowknife - for the chance to take a look.

Just prior to shaking up these full-body snowsuit wearing women with the unexpected flash of my camera, I had a chat with the group’s guide. He says they usually leave their downtown hotel around 9 p.m.

They then wait inside the mini-bus for the Northern lights to show until about one in the morning. Should the lights be fickle and forget to fill the sky, participants can choose to stay two hours longer. After this, at three in the morning, the guide says they must return to town.

Now I’m not sitting in my apartment staring out the window, waiting for the lights to come out. But I do regularly look up to see if there’s any activity, and lately the skies have been so overcast that I doubt anyone is seeing anything.

Just before Christmas, I interviewed a Japanese girl who won a trip North at the Expo in Aichi, Japan. If nothing else, she seemed understandably anxious about seeing the lights. The tour guide I talked to last night was the same guy who helped translate for the girl.

I asked him if she had any luck.

He shrugged and said, “I don’t remember,” but his nervous smile gave me the feeling he might be lying.

And this winter there have been weeks at a time when the round-the-clock cloud cover aboveYellowknife has been so thick the sun was invisible.

So no matter how impressive, this is why the Northern Lights are not really a great tourist attraction because no amount of money can guarantee you’ll see them. Even if you do, you have to know a bit about photography to get a decent photo.

Photo: Ward Hunt Island, Quttinirpaaq National Park, Ellesmere Island, Nunavut

2006-01-05T13:02:00.000-07:00

april, originally uploaded by neoviking.

It's time we get out of the boring, road-having Northwest Territories and go east to Nunavut.

The photo above is about as far North as you can go in Canada's newest territory.. Look at the map above it, find Alert, then look about a half centimetre to the left and just a smidge lower: that's where this was taken. The park is apparently spectacular, though its remote location and the high cost of travel mean less than 200 visitors took in its breathtaking beauty last summer.

In the next few weeks I plan to deal with a few Nunavut-specific topics.

This photo comes courtesy of Neoviking, whose Northern shots are better than mine partly because he's had a chance to travel to more places, and partly because he's just a great photographer.

More of this deserted Arctic beauty is available at the link under the picture.

Column: An independent N.W.T candidate

2006-01-04T20:22:00.000-07:00

There's an independent entry into the race for the Western Arctic parliamentary seat cushion: Jan van der Veen.

Reported by the CBC to be an economist, van der Veen says he's been in and out of the Northwest Territories for the past 16 years. His credentials include having run twice for the old Reform party in my home province of Ontario. While a search of the Northern News Services online archive revealed nothing, I seem to remember a letter he wrote concerning what he saw as the racism of certain aboriginal self-government agreements, though let it be said that I could be wrong.

Van der Veen currently resides in Fort Simpson, a settlement of about 1,100 people reached by ignoring the turnoff to Yellowknife and continuing more than 200 kilometres down the road. I became aware of his candidacy yesterday morning. The messenger; a full-colour, glossy flyer asking me to protect Canada's Arctic by voting for Jan van der Veen. None of the other candidates had reached into my mailbox, so I gave the material some time. While the graphics were tackily eye catching, the messages were a bit muddled.

Phrases such as "personal ownership options for land claims," and "rights and governance of independent race," said nothing to me. But it's clear the man is not happy with the way issues such as aboriginal land claims and self government are being handled by our two levels of government.

A reliable source says van der Veen is not even close to being a wingnut. But someone who I'm assuming is non-aboriginal and basing his campaign around reforming issues involving aboriginal people had better tread carefully.

So we've got ourselves a five-way race for the title of King or Queen of the Arctic. Only two candidates have a realistic shot at winning and van der Veen doesn't appear to be one of them.

But who cares? More competition should make for a more dynamic race.

And considering how distant federal ideas and messages seem from the North, the NWT seems fertile soil in which to grow an independent MP. But an on-again, off-again Northerner likely has as much chance of taking root as green beans growing on the Nunavut tundra.

Photo: Frost-covered trees

2005-12-29T17:20:00.000-07:00

On Frame Lake trail, Yellowknife, Northwest Territories

Column: Voter turnout trouble in the Arctic

2005-12-28T13:28:00.000-07:00

Canadians aren't bothering to vote, and the North is no different. In the last election, only 43.9 per cent of Nunavut voters, and 47.3 per cent of voters in the Northwest Territories took time to cast a ballot. Those bearded Yukoners were the only one of our three territories to best the Canadian average of 60.5 per cent, and even then, only by about one per cent.

For most of our short history, between 70 and 80 per cent of those eligible to tick their chosen candidate's box did so on the big day. Then in 1997, with a country divided and Quebec sovereignty a big enough issue to cause the Sponsorship Scandal, 67 per cent showed up at the polls. And by 2004, with no clear options to the rule of the Liberal party for those oft-ignorant, but still crucial Ontario voters, just more than 60 per cent of the electorate came out.

It seems clear we've got a problem here, but it's worse, or nearly as bad, in other rich, democratic nations. Given the trend of absenteeism, three years ago Elections Canada commissioned a survey of non-voters to help explain the great decline.

In answer to an open-ended question, people said they just aren't interested in voting (22.7 %), and that they felt their participation was meaningless (15.7 %) or that they just have a negative view of politicians or government in general (26.2 %, and 13 %, respectively).

But as Hunter S. Thompson once wrote:

"Anybody who thinks that 'it doesn't matter who's President' has never been Drafted and sent off to fight and die in a vicious, stupid War on the other side of the World ... or locked up in the Cook County Jail with a broken nose and no phone access and twelve perverts wanting to stomp your ass in the shower: That is when it matters who is President or Governor or Police Chief. That is when you will wish you had voted."

Maybe we need a realistic threat of military conflict to get people interested in who governs.

After all, the highest election turnout in Canadian history came in 1917, where a nearly unbelievable 90 per cent of voters cast their ballots shortly after former prime minister Robert Borden began forcing kids to enlist in the army in the middle of World War I.

Give people a chance to lose their children and they'll MAKE time to vote. But this didn't seem to work in the U.S. or the U.K the last time around, though there was no talk of conscription and the number of dead soldiers was still in the hundreds at the time.

Now let's get back to Canada, and the North more specifically. Why are people here, with the exception of those in the Yukon, voting less frequently than anywhere else in the country?

After all, the North is very political. In fact, it's really the only thing we have up here. Outside of a few mineral extraction operations, there's really no economy to speak of. But every year, the federal government cuts a cheque for hundreds of millions of dollars, and our territorially elected officials - many of whom needed but a few hundred votes to earn their more-than-$90,000 a year job - bicker over how best to spend it. Local band and community councils sessions also seem to receive passionate participation.

Even in Nunavut - where not even 44 per cent of people voted federally last time around - voter turnout in the 2003 territorial election was reported to be more than 80 per cent.

So people up here definitely seem interested in politics, just not of the federal variety.

In the past, I'm not sure the issues which dominate the national media resonated with Northern voters. I mean, does someone who doesn't have full-time access to a nurse care really care about or understand a discussion of MRI waiting times? Even myself, a nearly addicted news junkie, often resists picking up the Globe and Mail because the front page doesn't say much to me.

Last week, Northern issues such as sovereignty and military investment in the Arctic hit the headlines. I'm not sure longterm residents here really care whether the Canadian military is getting ready to put some meat on its tundra bones, but let's count the discussion as that of an issue which originates geographically in the North, if not culturally.

And Jack Layton came to Yellowknife last week hoping to bolster support for a candidate who lost the closest race in the country last time around.

That was nice to see, but is it really worth the investment to come up here?

I mean, let's get a hold of ourselves: there about 100,000 people living in our three territories, two-thirds of whom are eligible to vote. Considering the thousands of dollars required to fly around and campaign in free-your-face-off weather, do the three seats available provide a large enough potential return on your investment?

I wish I knew what we could do to get all Canadians to care about federal politics, at least to the point where they would take the 15 minutes to get out and vote on Jan. 23.

I don't.

Zai jian

Photo: Tracks in the snow

2005-12-27T00:24:00.000-07:00

Look at those tracks in the snow, originally uploaded by Extended sojourn.

While hiking across Yellowknife to shoot this photo, I was thinking about the Christmas Kate and I were in Taiwan; the only other time either of us spent the season away from our family. I didn't mention it in my column below, but upon further consideration, I believe I should have.

This is more to recognize David May - a man who truly taught me the importance of keeping track of what's happening in the world - than anything else.

If he ever posts the video of the hilarious turkey he cooked on the big day in Taiwan, I'll be sure to post it here.

Column: Company over Christmas in Yellowknife

2005-12-26T20:07:00.000-07:00

We were worried; well, sort of worried. Sometime after returning from China at the end of September, Kate and I decided to spend Christmas in Yellowknife.

The background: Most people who emigrate here, do so to work, not live. By this I mean they collect a pay cheque, then hop on the first plane out of here during the Christmas holidays and vacation. Many teachers in small Nunavut commmunities are the worst; returning to their province of origin for the full two-month summer break and not returning until they absolutely have to.

While Yellowknife does have a large number of longtime residents (often children of miners or wayback government bureaucrats) who have genuine ties here, by and large most southerners flee like rats out an open sewer grate when the holidays roll around.

Would we end up sitting around by ourselves, in the darkness, wondering why we didn't join the exodus?

But during the first couple of weeks of December - just like anywhere else in Canada - people began asking what we were doing for the holidays. Within days, a friend of mine had asked us over for dinner and one of Kate's co-workers had invited us to a feast on Christmas Day after we dropped by an open house for smoked salmon appetizers and homemade gingerbread. As of today, Boxing Day, we have a nearly full calendar for the week ahead.

When you think about it, Yellowknife is full of people who have chosen to abandon their families, in one way or another. And so it makes sense that here friends would become family, something I've always advocated anyway.

The more I move and the more I meet people, the more my friends become family. My immediate family is reasonably close, and I believe we always will be. But with only so much time to spend, I support spending it with those we feel closest to; not necessarily those we are connected to by birth.

Maybe my thinking is that of the 20-something Canadian generation; one of the most-highly educated and rootless of all time. We can apply for jobs in India online; or move to British Columbia because we think the lifestyle would suit us. With highspeed internet connections, and CNN on every continent, we can live virtually anywhere without ever having to adjust to a new culture. As a father of a friend of mine says, "having too many choices can be just as bad as not having enough."

Then again, maybe I'm off topic. The point is that this Christmas, I began to see this city of almost 20,000 people as more than a group of wandering minstrels passing time until the next job posting down south. There is a community here, you just have to put yourself in position to see it.

Zai jian

Photo: From top to bottom, Rankin Inlet Nunavut

2005-12-24T15:49:00.000-07:00

From top to bottom, Rankin Inlet, originally uploaded by Extended sojourn.

This has nothing to do with winter, or Christmas, but I just dug a bunch of Nunavut photos from this past summer out of a folder on my computer. This rainbow stretched, unbroken, from one shore to another this past July. A warm thought, I suppose, during a cold time of year. Merry Christmas.

Column: A discussion of darkness

2005-12-22T11:42:00.000-07:00

photo: Hay River, Northwest Territories, about 4:30 p.m., Dec. 9, 2005.

I'm always asked by friends in the south what it's like to live in total darkness during the winter.Though it's unclear where the idea came from, many people in southern Canada seem to think anyone living North of the 60th parallel goes without sun in the winter.

Yesterday was the shortest day of the year. CBC news reported Yellowknife as having had about five hours of daylight, while some southern Ontario city had about nine.

So in Yellowknife, the days are definitely shorter, though not entirely dark.

The further North you move, the less light there is, but even the most Northern communities are said to see a few hours of dusklike conditions in the dead of December.

Healthy humans need sunlight. And seasonal affected disorder - or whatever it's called - does exist. Yesterday, a cab driver told me the lack of sunlight in Inuvik gave him high blood pressure.

This seemed a little strange to me, and over lunch a friend pointed out that Northerners often deal with the darkness in unhealthy ways; heavy drinking and a lack of excercise being two of the worst. So while darkness may have been the official cause of my cabbie's pressure problem, there were likely other factors at work.

For me, last winter was difficult. I felt like I was going crazy. Living in Iqaluit, the capital of Nunavut - a land without trees and with the kind of wind that can alter your course as you stumble home from the bar - I wasn't getting much excercise; working way too many hours. My life consisted of shuttling from my apartment to work, then occassionally to the bar in the evenings. I felt as if the walls were closing in on me, and I was perpetually tired. Getting on the plane down to Ottawa in mid-December, it was relief like I've never felt.

This winter hasn't been nearly as bad. I've been playing basketball two or three times a week and haven't been drinking nearly as much. I still feel a bit tired, but not such that I'm unable to function. And I don't feel as if I need a break from the North, as I did last year. There have been nights where I felt restless and felt frustrated by the fact there was nothing to do, but I've felt that way during the summer, as well.

So I now wait for the light to creep back into my life. By March, the sun will be seen until eight in the evening, and the cold will be more refreshing than brutal. I've always liked summer more than winter, though the cold is something I've managed to get used to.

And I actually prefer the cold to the stinking hot. You can dress for -50C, but you can only take off so many clothes.

Zai jian

Column: A Northern Christmas tree

2005-12-16T10:21:00.000-07:00

About 20 kilometres outside of Yellowknife, thinking we just might have found the perfect Christmas tree locale, we park the vehicle. The surface of the two-foot deep snow is firm, though unable to consistently hold our weight as we walk. I look back to see my girlfriend Kate – snowpants and all – lying in a heap, still smiling after falling face first for the third time in about 20 paces.

With the weather an unseasonably warm -20 C, the spills aren’t that big of a deal, but we’ll have to work fast if we want to finish before the sun sets at 3:30 p.m.

At $1,600 per person to fly to Toronto, we decided to spend this Christmas in the North in order to save money while starting our own traditions. For the past three weeks, Kate has been making the decorations for the Northern tree we plan to saw down this afternoon.

When I arrived here in April of 2004, I found it shocking that there were any trees at all growing in the Precambrian Shield of rocks which surround Yellowknife. Who would think that rocks -- some of which are estimated at 3 billion years old -- would contain the nutrients needed to sustain any sort of life. And while they can't be classifed as anything but trees, they are of such a sickly looking nature that Charlie Brown would have a tough time picking out the perfect one for the holidays.

And after bouncing the idea off of a number of people, it appears not even other Yellowknifers support the idea of having a homegrown tree.

There was some discussion as to whether the needles on such a beanpole would last the entire holiday season. Other people told stories of having to graft together more than one tree to obtain a full look. There were recently partnered co-workers offering to sell their extra artificial trees to save us the aggravation of going out to chop one down. And there were those who believed we couldn’t cut one down without a permit.

Finally, a number of people wondered why we didn’t just buy one of the trees imported from the south. But these well-traveled natural trees sell for more than $50, and if this was to be a Northern Christmas, we were determined to have a true Arctic tree.

Now fully upright and waving her newly-purchased 14-inch saw around as an elementary school teacher would his pointer, Kate leads our group to the final spot. After some debate, we choose an eight-foot high tree sporting a two-inch thick trunk with branches about three quarters of the way around. A quick glance at other trees in the area confirms we’ve located a gem.

Down on her haunches, Kate leans into the tree. She fells it with no more than half a dozen pushes and pulls on the blade. Like a newborn child, Nathan and Kate wrap the tree in a sheet before carrying it into the back of his SUV. The drive home set against a sun setting in a sky filled with ice fog just feels good.

At home we crank the screws on the tree holder nearly as tight as they can go to hold our trophy upright, then turn it such that the nearly barren side faces the wall.

The homemade tree decorations are brought out. Orange slices which had been drying on top of the fridge are strung with ribbon. Little drums made out of toilet paper rolls covered with brightly coloured construction paper are hung on the branches. Musical lights covered by clear plastic bells – a one-dollar Yellowknife garage sale pick up – are laid close to the body of our malnourished specimen to keep the branches from bending.

Against a now pitch black sky, we turn on the lights and debate the merits of our find.

“It’s nature,” says Kate.

“But nature can do better,” Nathan says.

“Not up here it can’t,” she says.

But this is our piece of nature. When you stand in the dark and look at it with the clear plastic bells lit up, it really does look pretty good.

So this is Christmas.

Photo: Ferry incoming

2005-12-14T09:59:00.000-07:00

Ferry incoming, originally uploaded by Extended sojourn.

This is a shot from the Fort Providence ferry heading south across the Mackenzie River from Yellowknife. Because there is no bridge across the river, Yellowknife is not accessible by road from the rest of Canada for about three weeks each spring when the once-frozen river breaks up. Despite the thick, slushy, icy waters, the ferry often keeps running all through December until they can set up an ice-crossing a few kilometres downstream. While the winter transition is often seamless, there are times when the ferry passage becomes too choked with ice and stops running a few days before the ice road gets going. As a plug for checking the conditions of your route before travelling, let me say we were almost stuck on the same bank you see here, waiting to return to Yellowknife. We crossed Friday; the ferry stopped running the next day.

During the uncertain breakup period, stores bring in stacks of tractor trailers and gas stations fill up reserve tanks of fuel, hoping to have enough stock. Crates of fresh goods are actually ferried across by helicpoter during this time. A helicopter ferry ride across might cost about $300, regardless of the number of passengers; something I unfortunately never had the chance to do.

And cars do drive over roads made of ice for part of the year in the NWT. Many of these roads cross over frozen bodies of water. It's not as scary as you think, though people who don't admit to an element of fear are probably lying or don't have much to live for. The whole of the territories is connected by a series of winter roads for part of the year. We'll save this topic for another time.

Column: Fort Smith: What a road can do

2005-12-13T23:34:00.000-07:00

Arctic Comment
Dec. 13, 2005

Most of the small communities I've travelled to in the North have been in Nunavut; meaning there are no roads connecting them to anything. The only way to get there is to fly on the type of small planes most mothers would never board. If you're lucky enough to get the ones which have the lawn-chair type seats and allow a glimpse through the front windshield as you're coming in, the bizarreness crystallizes before your very eyes as you see nothing, then more nothing, then POW, a little circle of wagons, huddled together in the Arctic night.

Most of these places have less than 2,000 residents, no stop signs, and few cars. The area where you might find a sidewalk in other small towns is patrolled by snowmobiles. Life here makes little sense to the casual observer and goods are often barged in during a two-month ice-free shipping season. Most of these communities have little to no economy. Even that brass ring of eco-tourism is a tough sell when the Canadian middle class can't use that car they've been paying off for the past four years to come see what you have to offer.

I write now about Fort Smith, the most southern community in the Northwest Territories. The NWT is a little different from Nunavut in that about a third of its thirtysome communities are directly linked by an all-weather road to southern Canada.

Having been to a number of these fly-in, huddled wagon settlements in the eastern arctic, the trip to Fort Smith was my first to a small NWT community far away from Yellowknife. And while it doesn't have traffic lights, it has sidewalks, which, as a point of interest, were actually cleared for pedestrians the morning I was there.

A flip through the grocery store flyer included with my local Slave River Journal revealed that prices on the shelves were indeed comparable to Yellowknife. There is some debate over how much more expensive living in Yellowknife is compared with an urban centre in southern Canada, but it is nowhere near as ludicrous as living in Nunavut.

And instead of a "greasy hamburger you wouldn't want to eat in any other part of the world" and a plate of soggy fries costing you $20 or $25 (as it does in many Nunavut communities), this same gross burger et frites is about $7 in Fort Smith. Now it seems nearly every community in the North needs to work on the quality of their burgers and fries, but that's really another topic. I'm just saying we're using apples and apples here.

And the town is spread out. Houses have lots and look similar to those in any Northern Ontario town. There is a banner draped over one of the main streets declaring "Fort Smith the Garden Capital of the North." As a side note, this town of 2,300 people was the NWT capital from 1911 until 1967, when it lost the title to an overgrown mining camp named Yellowknife.

A road brings vitality to a community. It immediately brings down the cost of everything and makes it a place where people can actually expect to live without an inflated government wage to keep them afloat until the next plane ride back to civilization.

There are currently what seem like fantastical proposals being bandied about by Northern politicians to build a road all the way up to the top of the NWT and from Manitoba up to Nunavut's Kivalliq region on the Western coast of Hudson Bay.

These proposals, if approved, would cost a total of about $1.5 billion to complete. This money would go to improve the lives of about 15,000 people. Many people would say this isn't worth it. But the longer I've been up here, the more I really start to believe that in one of the richest countries in the world, all Canadians deserve a road out of town. I've seen what it can do.
Zai jian

Photo: My first decent Northern Lights shot

2005-12-10T12:07:00.000-07:00

More of the same, originally uploaded by Extended sojourn.

It's taken a while, but I've finally got a few pics of the Aurora Borealis that I'm not afraid to show people. This is one of them, taken yesterday while driving back to Yellowknife from Fort Smith. This picture doesn't do justice to how full the sky was, but I'm still learning how to catch these things through the lens. More pictures and posts to come from Fort Smith, the Northwest Territories' southernmost community, as well as its capital until 1959. Much thanks to friend and fellow photog Neoviking for making the trip and the picture possible.

Photo: Birds across the horizon

2005-12-08T11:34:00.000-07:00

Birds across the horizon, originally uploaded by Extended sojourn.

The photo of the week, as taken this morning. The sun rises a little late in Yellowknife at this time of year. But when the sky is not covered with thick, grey clouds, it can look like this.

Column: Diamond tourism: Can this work?

2005-12-07T16:20:00.000-07:00

N.W.T. prepares for rich girls on bling flings

Oct 31 2005
CBC News

Residents of Yellowknife may be coming into contact with some very wealthy tourists this winter.

The N.W.T. launched its diamond tourism program earlier this month, marketing the territor – mainly in southern Canada, the U.S. and Japan – as an exotic and alluring place to shop for jewelry.

Travel packages are geared to target markets such as engaged couples and couples celebrating anniversaries.

But what's being called an "over-the-top" package is also being sold.

"They come up in a private jet, have a lovely day at a lodge, the last day they actually come here, pick out their diamond, get their names laser-inscribed on it and off they go," says Hillary Jones, director of Arslanian Cutting Works in Yellowknife.

"But, the one I find really exciting is the 'bling fling'. It's where 10 ladies get together and come explore the North, see the aurora and buy diamonds. It's a girls'-weekend-that's-gone-wild sort of thing."

Government, tourism companies and the secondary diamond industry all want to promote
diamond-related travel to the territory.

The plan is expected to increase the money visitors spend in the N.W.T. and promote the region around the world.

A publicity company has been hired to market travel packages through a high-end travel company in Toronto.

An evaluation of the diamond tourism program in 2006 will determine how much consumer
interest there is in picking up N.W.T. diamonds in the North.

---------------------------------------------

Arctic Comment
Dec. 7, 2005

According to the numbers, the Northwest Territories is owner of Canada's hottest economy, derived mostly from natural resources, and diamonds in particular. But while the value of what's taken from the ground counts as part of the NWT's gross domestic product, the money actually takes flight to other parts of the world through royalties, which currently end up in Ottawa, as well as profits reaped by the company selling the diamonds, which is based far, far away.

Years ago, the territorial government tried to keep more diamond wealth in the North by helping finance a number of diamond cutting and polishing houses here in Yellowknife. Unable to compete with foreign countries making use of labourers with the same skill at a fraction of the price, the result has been what some would call a disaster, others simply a mistake. The loss from one operation is believed to have cost the territorial government upwards of $6.5 million.

Aside from the mistakes made, it seems clear our leaders know the NWT definitely needs another stream of revenue in order to have any chance of building something which resembles more a balanced economy than a giant mineral extraction operation.

For years, tourism has seemed to hold the potential to be that stream. In Yellowknife, you can see the occassional Japanese tourist - visible by the sorels found on their feet during all months of the year. But talking with locals, even the number of Japanese making the Northern Aurora Borealis trips seems to have dropped in recent years.

This is not the time to get into why traditional tourism does not seem to be taking off in the NWT. The Diamond Tourism initiative hopes to generate more interest from people with the money to make the trip happen. But according to rumblings from a number of journalists brought North for their own "bling fling," the offerings seem unimpressive, with tales told of an eight-hour tour of Yellowknife that would make Gilligan go insane.

Now whenever you take something and open it up to a bunch of reporters, you run the risk of bad publicity. But for the government's sake, I hope the problem with these tour packages has more to do with the reporters being outside the target market than with the fact they've spent a lot of money to promote a dud idea.
Zai jian

Video: Yellowknife's Santa Claus Parade

2005-12-04T18:54:00.000-07:00

The city of Yellowknife holds its Christmas parade a little earlier than most places in Canada mostly because eventually it just gets too cold to stand in one place for more than a few minutes. This year's parade happened on Nov. 19, and while there were a number of idling school buses parked along the side of the road for people to warm themselves in, the weather was relatively mild. This is a little bit I put together at the parade. At nearly 90 seconds, it might be a bit long, but please watch for the wail of the sirens at the end, which I found a little disturbing.

Photo: Three sets of eyes

2005-12-03T20:29:00.000-07:00

Three sets of eyes, originally uploaded by Extended sojourn.

Here's your weekly Northern photo. Taken by me, in Yellowknife.

Comment: My debate question

2005-12-03T20:05:00.000-07:00

I'm super sick of hearing people complain about having to discuss or think about anything political over the holiday season. I really can't think of a better time to talk about the future of our country than when you're fanatically overeating with your loved ones.

Here's my question for the leaders debate:

I'm finding this campaign too focused on the concerns of daily life and issues such as taxation. I'd like to hear your vision for Canada over the next 25 years. In the midst of rising powers such as China, in which direction do you see Canada moving in order to maintain or improve its position in the world?

If a panel of TV execs thinks my question hits the right market segment, you could see me on television during the Dec. 16 debate - if you're watching, that is.

Send your question to question@electiondebate.ca

Elections: people die for this shit.

Zai jian

Column: Ottawa's pet project

2005-11-30T14:16:00.000-07:00

Imperial Oil to launch hearings on Mackenzie Valley pipeline

Wed, 23 Nov 2005
CBC News
Months after cancelling initial work on the Mackenzie Valley natural gas pipeline, the $7-billion project took another step forward Wednesday when Imperial Oil said it will hold public meetings.

Imperial said it is proceeding with the expectation that recently negotiated access and benefits agreements with aboriginal groups will be ratified by December 2005.

The announcement comes after Deputy Prime Minister Anne McLellan sent a letter to Imperial Oil last week in which the federal government said it will consider taking on some of the risk of building the pipeline if Ottawa gets a greater share of the rewards.

"Sufficient progress has been made in all key areas – namely clarity of the regulatory process, the negotiation of benefits and access agreements with northern aboriginal groups, and fiscal framework discussions with governments – for us to proceed to public hearings," said Randy Broiles, a senior vice-president at Imperial Oil.

"But this is not a decision to build the pipeline," Broiles added.

He said a final decision still depends on several factors, including access agreements, final terms on fiscal matters, natural gas markets, project costs, and levels of shipping commitments.

The 1,220-kilometre pipeline was proposed by Imperial, ConocoPhilips Canada, Shell Canada, ExxonMobil Canada and the Aboriginal Pipeline Group.

While three aboriginal groups, the Inuvialuit, the Gwich'in and the Sahtu, are now involved in the Aboriginal Pipeline Group, and reported to be close to reaching an access agreement, the Deh Cho First Nation are holding out. The Deh Cho are in the midst of negotiating a land claim agreement with the federal government.

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Arctic Comment
Wed Nov. 30, 2005

The above announcement -- taken as an indication the pipeline will be built sometime within the next three years -- was met with predictable praise from our Northern leaders. For the benefit of those who aren't watching every move made up here, this is a process which has been going on for more than 30 years involving all of the same parties, including oil companies, aboriginal groups, the territorial and federal governments, and now, independent intervenors.

In the 1970s, Ottawa sent up a judge by the name of Thomas Berger to see if he could sort out exactly what the impacts of such a mega-project would be on the small, primarily aboriginal communities in the NWT. He found that more needed to be done to mitigate the environmental and social damage that this type of project would bring about.

So Imperial Oil, a subsidiary of Exxon Mobil, laid low for a while. But eventually the
Arctic folder was reopened and when it was, nothing had really changed. Noone has really been able to determine how to deal what have been deemed social problems, ie heavy drinking, drug use, and new industries such as prostitution, expected to be brought about by the influx of thousands of migrant workers during the pipeline's construction phase.

Then in April, after spending time negotiating with aboriginal groups over the price tag to access their traditional terrritory, Imperial announced it was stopping a portion of the work on the pipeline. The company cited, among other issues, an unclear regulatory process, and unconfirmed rumours of what it said were unreasonable demands by aboriginal groups to have the company provide infrastructure such as schools and roads in affected communities.

Shortly after the oil company's April proclamation, the federal government announced a 10-year, $500-million fund to deal with the aforementioned social effects of the pipeline. Since that time, the federal government has made it clear that this project is going to get done at almost any cost. Just prior to last week's announcement, Deputy Prime Minister Anne McClellan, coincidentally hailing from the oil patch better known as Alberta, wrote a letter to Imperial saying the feds would consider taking on some of the risks of the pipeline if Ottawa received a greater share of the rewards.

Risk? What risk? Has anyone in McClellan's or Imperial's office taken a look at the price of natural gas? Or maybe they mean the non-existent risk that the world will have recovered from its addiction to fossil fuels by the time the stuff is actually pulled from the ground. And isn't risk a part of doing business, especially when your business is a commodity?

In the weeks prior to the announcement, a number of politicians and citizens were quoted in local media as saying they were worried there might not be a pipeline. But as journalist Andrew Nikiforuk put it when he spoke in Yellowknife a few weeks ago, at today's prices, "there is no such thing as stranded gas."

As a relative Northern newcomer, I'm not for or against the project, but let's remember that it's Northerners, not oil execs or pushover federal politicians, who should be dictating what's happening here.

Video: Baker Lake, Nunavut blizzard

2005-11-17T16:28:00.000-07:00

People in the Eastern Arctic are subject to the worst types of weather with winds having been known to gust over 90 km/h. Add in a little blowing snow and ice and you've got yourself one hell of a storm. The best part is, in some regions of Nunavut, these types of storms can happen anytime between September and May. Lovely. This video is from a reasonably bad storm in Baker Lake, Nunavut during the second week of November.

Video: Yellowknife, first week of November

2005-11-17T16:22:00.000-07:00

The first snow that stuck came late to Yellowknife this year, meaning the first week of November. Looks like there's no way we're going to avoid a white Christmas. Not that I was trying to get away from it by moving up here.

Kivalliq Region Champions

2005-11-15T23:52:00.000-07:00

DSC_0108, originally uploaded by Extended sojourn.

Please see the post below for more information on Baker Lake, Nunavut, and the basketball tournament.
Nunavut was ceremonially separated from Canada's Northwest Territories in July of 1999. While about 85 per cent of the territory's inhabitants are Inuit, there are three distinct geographical regions.
The seven communities of the Kivalliq region are home to somewhere around 8,000 people and are primarily situated around Hudson Bay. The boys in this photo have just won the Kivalliq regional basketball tournament in a home gym packed with hundreds of cheering fans.
They will play the winning teams from Nunavut's two other regions, the Kitikmeot (West), and Baffin (East) on the weekend of Dec. 4, assuming the weather is reasonably good and the planes are able to land.
As a point of interest, Baffin island is said to have greater name recognition among Canadians than Nunavut itself.
Now you know.

Photo: Baker Lake, Nunavut shoreline

2005-11-15T23:36:00.000-07:00

Baker Lake, originally uploaded by Extended sojourn.

I spent this past weekend in Baker Lake, a community of less than 2,000 people located in the geographical centre of Canada, but was better put by a reporter friend of mine as "literally the middle of nowhere."
Refereeing a basketball tournament was the reason for my trip, though I was also working on a profile of an Inuk artist.
Two day-long blizzards within three days -- one of which iced up my glasses and caused me to hyperventillate so badly that I couldn't walk the 500 metre distance from the gym to my two-story little hotel -- nearly kept a few teams at home.
Despite the up to 80 km/h winds whistling in between the doors of the gymnasium, the games went on. Elders in fur lined parkas did the wave on the sidelines while dozens of other people watched the action on a large video screen in the lobby.

A test post

2005-11-08T13:05:00.000-07:00

This is it. I've finally done it. There will be more in the coming weeks