Michelle and I arrived in Inuvik around 12:45pm this afternoon. But wait.. you need the whole story. My parents dropped Michelle and I off at Vancouver Airport at 10am on Sunday morning. Our flight was at 11:30am.. destined to arrive in Whitehorse by 1:30pm. However, half an hour after take off, the captain informed us that his windshield had cracked extensively, and that we had to make a stop in Prince George for repairs. We lingered in the extensive Prince George airport until 7pm that night... as they had to fly in a new plane to take us the rest of the way. At least we got to watch the first two periods of Game 1 against the Sharks! And the captain informed us later that the Canucks had won! The staff were great and really took care of everyone the whole time. The passengers got to know each other, and we were all one big happy family when we finally staggered off the plane in Whitehorse at 9pm.
On the shuttle into town, we were with a bunch of students from all over Canada who'd come up to the Yukon to do soil sampling with all the new gold mining operations up here. They were a cool crowd, and we were on the same flight heading north the next morning. We caught our first taste of Arctic wildlife on that shuttle ride, catching a glimpse of a fox crossing the street, and a coyote running along the side of the road!
I met up with my friend Meagan, who's from Whitehorse originally. We did the Global Capstone course together at UBC. She picked me up from the hotel and we drove down to the canyon just below Schwatka Lake.. also their reservoir (see pix of the moon over the glacier and river!). We walked along the river a ways, seeing two little muskrats cruising near the riverbank. We headed into town and grabbed a pint of the Yukon Gold, the local pale ale. We were the last ones out of the bar as they closed up.
I was exhausted when I arrived back at our hotel, but somehow got caught up talking with the man at the front desk! He kept me there for an hour and fifteen minutes... talking about his harem, showing me his wildlife pictures, and some of his artwork, as well as showing off his facebook pictures of his trip around Europe! He was really great, and I would've loved to stay and talk if it wasn't 1am, but I finally snuck off to bed to get a few hours sleep!
We found ourselves hanging about the Whitehorse airport this morning with many of the same faces we saw yesterday. We had a big breakfast upstairs and then did laps of the small waiting area before boarding. There was no security. NO SECURITY. I thought such things couldn't possibly exist in this scare crazed world, but I suppose they're just a little more realistic up here!
We rode a little Hawker Siddeley 748 up to Inuvik, stopping in Dawson City on the way. One of the friendly faces we'd met along our journey was a local to Inuvik and offered us a ride into town. He even waited for us while we figured out where we were supposed to be going! We've met nothing but super nice, chatty, helpful people the whole way! Except for one old man sitting in a parking lot that told us to go back where we came from when he learned we were from Vancouver... we've run into him twice now, and he hasn't had the most pleasant greetings for us... but besides him, the people are great!
We've settled into our place, a little blue unit that's part of a rowhouse. There's no one else living here yet, so we've got the place to ourselves! It's pretty nice too! Check out the pix!
Anyways, we took a little promenade through the town this afternoon before picking up some groceries. We are awaiting access to a vehicle up here so we dragged our heavy bags back to our place. It's been sunny and gorgeous and much warmer than we were expecting! The locals we've talked to think it's going to be a quick thaw this year, meaning we could be seeing our little yellow friends sooner than we thought! Michelle and I are going to head down to our sites tomorrow morning to sus the scene and see what's hanging out along the river.
I'm going to try for an early night tonight, but we'll see how that goes with all this light! Apparently Inuvik gets about 20 hours of daylight at the moment, which will stretch to 24 hours of daylight for the course of 56 days starting at the end of June. I still can't imagine!
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