Pictures, actually.

This is about a 20 minute walk from the town. There are a lot of Inukshuks around here - but they actually serve a purpose, rather than aesthetics. They are built by basically anyone, but are put on top of the large mountains to let you know you are near something. So around towns and things you will see a lot of them. They don't necessarily have to be the 't' shape that most take in the South, essentially an Inushuk is a pile of rocks - or so we were told. There are a ton of rock formations all around here that used to be mountains, but were mowed down by the glaciers during the Big Ice Age, the one that was like 25,000 years ago. Oh, and it's also covered with Falcon poop. There are a ton of them milling around. If we can put a video up, we have some footage of a Falcon swooping down at us right around here. He came down at the dog we were walking with. It was pretty intense. I had a rock in my hand and was confident I could fight the falcon. Shawna suggested to go back to town.

This makes up the majority of the landscape, the low lying areas are grass and moss covered with various low lying plants and rocks jutting out everywhere. To the left where you see the hill, that is a whole bunch of large, small, and crushed rock leading up to the top of a mountain that's been destroyed by nature. In the distance you can see the Arctic Ocean. Our town is built directly around a small bay that leads into the Ocean. Apparently whales will swim right into the bay (they haven't for about three years though) - for those of you reading who are familiar with my home - the bay in Taloyoak is about the size of Millers Bay on the Rideau, and cuts off at the point across and to the right if you were standing on my dock.

 

 

 

 

 

 

From Cambridge Bay to Taloyoak this is what the landscape looks like. A ton of fresh lakes and ponds created by glaciers moving around and melting. Of course, the holes that are made are just filled with the snow from each winter melting. Some ponds last the whole summer, some don't. As you move further North towards the Boothia Peninsula the landscape becomes more mountainous and these lakes take shape around them. You can swim in any of them if you like, they are also pretty well fine to drink out of - no worse than lake water. I've been trying to take a swig out of at least a few each time we go out on the land. I'm still feeling ok, so I'm going to keep doing it. Shawna is not a fan of my antics.

And this is just another idea of what the land looks like with Shawna in there. The rocks you see in the foreground are standard size, and are the same as what you see in the background. Going up and down these mountain will make you might agile, and certainly will give you a work out. Good shoes are a must. No cheapies here. We've got shorts on now, the weather is uncharacteristically hot right now. Every day has felt like a standard warm September, with a bit of cooling around 9 or so. Sun still doesn't really go down. It does this little dip thing around 2:00am or so then mills back up.

 

 

There's some pics to tie ya over. That took like an hour to post, so we'll keep trying whenever we're here at the school.

Pictures at Last!

We just got back from another breathtaking walk across the Arctic Tundra with Sheldon, the AM of the Northern Store and Echo, his beautiful dog. I wish I could put into words how absolutely amazing the landscape is around town. It's the best backyard you could ever hope for. The best way to describe it is untouched or even prehistoric. There is no sign of man anywhere...no telephone poles or anything. Just lakes and beautiful rock formations. We have ever seen anything quite like it.

We've been spending most of our time at the school trying to get everything ready and planning as much as possible before the students arrive on August 4th. There is still no news on our stuff, but we're pretty comfortable at our VPs house until it arrives, especially now that we've managed to cool the place down. I'm sure when he gets in he'll know who to call to make things happen a lot quicker. We've met lots of fun people and were invited to a BBQ last night. Whenever people get together for dinner, it's always pot luck style, so we eat well and everyone saves money. We had steak, broccoli salad, Greek salad and then cupcakes for dessert. There were potatoes too, but we forgot to put them out. You can get pretty much anything you wish here, as long as you're willing to pay. We're starting to learn to close our eyes. Jon is, Shawna is not.


Very excited for dinner tonight! Last night a fellow named Noah stopped by and offered us four nice Arctic Char fillets for 15 bucks...which is a pretty solid price. Probably go for quite a bit more down South at a butch shop. It was delish, and we're excited to get into the caribou soon! We're going to cook up the rest tonight. I (jon) got excited when we bought it and had to cook some up right away. So now we're going to try it in meal form.

FYI TO EVERYONE: WE HAD SOME PICTURES UPLOADED, BUT THEN, SHAWNA REALIZED THAT SHE WAS HUNGRY. SO, NOW YOU DON'T GET TO SEE PICTURES. BECAUSE SHE PRESSED CANCEL. THE INTERNET IS REALLY SLOW, SO IT TAKES A WHILE. IF YOU'RE PATIENT, IT'LL GET DONE, BUT SHAWNA WASN'T. HOPE TO POST SOME SOON. I'LL HAVE TO DO IT WHEN SHAWNA IS AWAY. -JON

A bit of a longer post for today now that we are a little bit more settled. Our furniture has still not arrived, so we're currently staying at the VPs house. He is coming back into town by August 31st, so we're really hoping we can be out of his hair by then. The house is very similar to what we're going to be moving into, so it's giving us a good idea and it's really nice. The ground floor is a living room/dining area with a nice big kitchen. Then there is a bathroom on the landing to the stairs upstairs and two bedrooms/laundry room with a bunch of shelves on the top. The house also has a massive porch that is also used for storage.

 Craziest thing here is probably the sweltering heat. I guess the houses are built to take in as much heat as possible which will be amazing in the winter, but right now the temperature of the house is 27 degrees...same temperature as Kingston today! Outside its not too warm, but we went for a walk around town in capris and sweatshirts last night. The landscape can be described by its absolutely stunning rock and ocean views. The kids just run around everywhere like wild things, loving the land and the long hours of daylight they have this month. They are very curious about us and clearly knew we were coming and that we would be together. I can't say enough about how friendly everyone is...everyone says hello when they pass on the road, and they all welcome us and ask what grades we'll be teaching. We were wandering around last night and people kept driving up and making sure we weren't lost. The town just keeps growing...there are actually about a thousand people. So maybe one day soon we'll get a fast food restaurant :P

Only a couple things have gone wrong...two of Jon's bags, including his guitar didn't get here with us, but they arrived on a plane today and were delivered to our door. Also...mid-walk last night we were in the middle of town and what we assumed was a wolf walked right in front of us (Note by Jon: We saw it in the distance). Thankfully it turned out to be a wolf-dog who was chained up and didn't seem too bothered about us. Grocery prices are STUPID high. Last night we bought a pizza, a loaf of bread, some jam, popcorn and a frozen ice tea and it came to 48 DOLLARS! Thankfully the VP is going to bring us some stuff from Yellowknife when he flies in, like vegetables.

 We had the opportunity to get into the school today and see our classrooms, as well as get an entire box of curriculum material, so we've spent the afternoon planning. We're going out on a walk this evening with the assistant manager of the Northern Store we met this morning, so hopefully we'll be able to post some pictures soon!

Arrival

Good Day All,

So Shawna and I have officially arrived at our destination and home in Taloyoak. Our flights flew along swimmingly and there were no problems to report. We took off from Toronto on Monday afternoon and landed in Edmonton for the night. This morning we left for Yellowknife - upon arriving there we scooted over to departures for our final leg of the journey: Yellowknife to Kugluktuk to Cambridge Bay to home. The majority of our stuff arrived with us, a few pieces are supposed to meet up with us tomorrow as well. The land here is unbelievable and like nothing we've seen before. There has been lots of rain the last few months, so looking down from the plane you see what looks like thousands of puddles. Small lakes and ponds of all shapes and sizes. We'll drop some pictures up here soon of our travels, but for now we're going to go for a walk around town.

Here's Where to Find Us on a Map

Our town is located on the Boothia Peninsula. If you are on the up and up on your Arctic-ness, you might know the town as Spence Bay. Then again, if you're on the up and up you would probably already know that. Many towns and villages around Nunavut have changed their names to reflect the culture within them in recent years.

If you are not a fan of my ranting about history and junk - you might as well stop reading here. :)

In regards to the name of our blog - I stumbled upon some cool history about the general region around Taloyoak and read that the magnetic north pole was first discovered in 1831 around the Adelaide Peninsula - which is slightly South-West of Boothia Peninsula. Additionally, I found out that magnetic north is not a constant, and it is always moving - hence good compasses have a calibration mechanism (I learned that one from my Godfather, Peter). Below I've attached two pictures. One is a neat looking map circa 1950 of the Circumpolar World, (Circumpolar is a new word for me too. As it literally suggests, it is comprises the countries located around the Arctic Circle and those with shores along the Arctic Ocean). And below that picture is a neat notice I found on a google search milling around looking for info on magnetic north. The notice is for the recovery of John Franklin's expedition to magnetic north which never returned - sometime in the mid 1840s. If you are interested in reading on the North and such, I just picked up S.Grant's Polar Imperative --- it's supposed to be the best overall history of the Arctic world in scholarship right now, try it on.

11 Days!

This is our first test entry of the blog we're planning on keeping while we journey up to Taloyoak, Nunavut for a year of teaching grade seven. We were granted the positions at the end of May and are moving up in a very short eleven days to our new home. All of our effects were shipped up at the end of June and we're just hoping that they get there before we do. I don't much relish the thought of sleeping on the floor for a few nights while waiting for all of our furniture to arrive via barge order.

We also managed to squeeze in a big non-perishable grocery order on the last ship headed to our new hometown. It's much cheaper to get items shipped in by boat, but there is only a brief period of the year where the ice melts enough to allow ships through. Even though we ordered at the beginning of July, we won't receive the items until sometime in September.

Over the next few days before we leave, Jon and I are just trying to get in as much time with friends and family as possible- including a Jays game this weekend we are both excited for! Obviously we both want to be out in the summer heat as often as possible too. Come the end of August, we can expect to have frost on the ground in Taloyoak, which might be quite a shock to the system.

We fly out on July 25th from Toronto. In Toronto we'll also be meeting up with Sarah, who is a new hire music teacher as well. From Toronto we go on to Edmonton to spend the night. Then we catch an early morning flight to Yellowknife and finally make the last five hour trek to Taloyoak, where our principal will pick us up at the airport.

That's all for now! The rest of the blogging will continue either closer to the flight or upon arrival.

Family pets playing amongst boxes. They will not be accompanying us. :(