Sissy Blizzard

Well, our much-hyped (by Environment Canada) blizzard was a measly one at best. I woke this morning around 10 and saw blowing snow outside. I was hoping it'd get worse but it never did. :( Oh well, there's still lots of time left until spring for blizzards!

Here are some photos of the "blizzard":


Here we see just how wussy the blizzard really was. We shouldn't be able to faintly make out those houses in the distance, let alone the college. What a gyp, haha.


Here we see the lame gusts of wind. Pfft, I can sneeze stronger wind than that. :(

In completely different news, I think the Sugar Rush Café has a new cook because I bought these the other day:


The raw fish was actually cooked shrimp, but they were tasty nonetheless.

I think the sushi was a hit because when I purchased them, there were 4 or 5 plates left. The next day there was but 1 plate left. I hope the cook makes them again. Any food out of the ordinary tastes so good these days.

Well, this weekend was pretty slow, as per our norm (even in London). Together, we only went outside once and it was to the Northern for a ($20) 12-pack of Pepsi that Jeff used to bribe me with for a can of Coke earlier in the day. I'm so easy to please...!

Our good friends Matt and Allie from Sarnia sent us up a "care package" full of goodies. Jeff got season 1 of the Gilmore Girls...which he has now been watching for 10 consecutive hours.

I spent a good chunk of my day putting DVDs on my mp3 player.

Quality time with each other is definitely our #1 priority...ha ha ha.

(posted by Jaime)

Imminent Storm Threatens Village

We have our first-ever blizzard warning in effect as residents of Nunavut. Straight from the lips of Environment Canada:

Blizzard warning for Rankin Region including Whale Cove upgraded from winter storm watch Blizzard conditions will develop overnight or on Sunday morning. This is a warning that blizzard conditions are imminent or occurring in these regions. Monitor weather conditions..Listen for updated statements. An intense low pressure system moving into the region will bring strong northwesterly winds of 60 gusting to 80 km/h in its wake creating blizzard conditions overnight or Sunday morning. Conditions will improve by Monday morning.

We're very excited. We've heard so much about the bad winter storms this area is subject to, but this is the first evidence we've seen that supports it.

In other news, I was in Repulse Bay this week, here's a couple of pictures... The first is an overview of about half the town, and the second is an arctic circle monument as seen from my hotel window.














(posted by Jeff)

YouTube Video

After I sent this link to my family, I figured it would be a good idea to post it here for all to see:

YouTube video of Rankin Inlet.

I'll also include the little synopsis I sent to my family along with the link:

The large building with the red roof is the Northern store. Just after it starts, you'll see a building in the background with a green roof. That's the post office and RBC bank. After that it scans over a yellow building which is the old health center.

If you pause the video at 18-19 seconds, you will see our building. It is to the right of the building with red at the bottom. At 19-20 seconds, you will see a red building which is the college.

The water you see in the background throughout the video is the eastern shore of the inlet.

In other news, I went to my first aerobics meeting tonight. Unfortunately on my way there, I tripped and hurt my elbow. It didn't bother me during the workout but it's swelled up since then. I don't think it's serious because it doesn't feel too bad. Not to mention I've broken enough bones and sprained enough muscles in my life to know what "serious" feels like.

Anyway, aerobics was great! It was nice to get a workout for the first time since...well, so long ago I don't even remember. I also got to meet the blogger behind Rankin Adventures which was nice. I always like meeting new people around town. Janice is a lot more coordinated and in shape than me! She also didn't seem to break a sweat! My face and legs were red for about 30 minutes afterward -- probably from shock, haha.

I'm looking forward to going to aerobics next week. Now all I need is something to fill Tuesday and Friday nights and I'll be booked solid through the week.

(posted by Jaime)

It's A Small World After All

When living in Nunavut, sometimes it feels like you're living on a totally different planet than everyone else. It's nice when life reminds you the world is pretty small.

I started a new class today: HR Management. I had been told that the instructor used to teach in London (Ontario) but I forgot about it until I was walking out the door wearing a Fanshawe College t-shirt (Fanshawe being a college in London). When I walked into class, I was immediately greeted with, "Fanshawe!" from my instructor.

As it turns out, he used to live two blocks away from Jeff and me in London. Not only that, but he worked at Fanshawe, which was literally across the street from where I worked. We probably walked past him in mall and the grocery store...but we had to move 2300 kilometres away to actually meet someone who in essence, was a neighbour in London. He now lives on the floor below us. For someone who loves coincidences, this blows my mind.

However, we weren't neighbours for long as he moved to Cape Dorset to work for the same GN department Jeff works for.

In other news, it has gotten pretty cold around here lately. Weirdly enough, as soon as November started, the temperature dropped 15 degrees. Today the high was around -19C. Coming from the extreme south of Canada, today topped one of the coldest days of my life. I told a few people this today and they stared at me for a second before breaking out into laughter.

I guess I'll hop on the bandwagon and report on Halloween in Rankin. Since it was pretty warm (-5C? I can't remember), we didn't get as many kids as I expected. Apparently when it's colder our building will get more kids because it's warm in here. I made the front entrance of our apartment (mine and Jeff's, that is) look like a pathetic haunted house. Xeroxed drawings of jack-o-lanterns and cut up garbage bag was the best I could do in the 20 minutes I had between getting home and the start of the kids. I don't know what it's like in other communities, but there was a specific time for trick-or-treating here. It was from 6-8 and the kids were good about staying within that time frame.

Also, the contest I won ($500 to spend on half.com) is turning into a big pain in the butt. To be able to order anything off half.com, we need an American credit card number to authorize it and an American address to ship it to. So the whole point of the contest getting us free stuff has been lost because we have to find and pay someone to let use their credit card number and ship the stuff up to us. Sigh...there goes the fun.

All in all, things are going great. We're still enjoying every second of it up here. Our plan right now is that in May I'll be out of school and we'll take a vacation to Ontario and hopefully somewhere a little more exciting than home for a bit (no offence family!). Jeff thinks I'm insane for this, but I really want to stay up here for a few years before ever vacationing south again. I want the full weirded-out effect when we go on vacation. I have dreams all the time where we go back to Ontario and the tall buildings scare me, haha. I think it'd be a neat thing to say that going "back home" gives you culture shock.

Oh yeah, the sunset at 4pm thing. Apparently the sun sets sooner than that, but that's around the time it starts getting dark quickly. It's a bit weird but I like it, and I think Jeff likes it too. In London, we would look at the clock and say, "Oh darn, it's 11pm already. How did that happen?" but here, we look at the clock and say, "Holy crap, it's only 7pm! I thought it was 10!" I feel like we have a lot of free time here which is complete reversal of London. I like it!

(posted by Jaime)

Stupid Keywords

StatCounter is a wonderful thing because it lets you spy on who is coming to your website. It gives you all sorts of interesting information, my favourite of which is "came from" which shows the pages that provided the link for people to get to your website. I notice we get quite a few humourous keywords so I have started compiling them. Here they are, for your amusement. Not all of them are "stupid" per sé (like "what is nunavut in inuktitut") but random and strange and a miracle that they lead to our blog. Please note I have left spelling/grammar problems intact.

If you landed on this page because of a Google hit, feel free to actually peruse our blog. We (or other bloggers) can likely answer many of your questions.

Updated July 18, 2007.

an interesting thing about nunavut
an ordinary life of a nunavut person
arctic bunnys

best thing about nunavut
broccoli prices in nunavut [NEW]

coinstar sucks

does nunavut have a grocery store
does xpresspost take longer during the christmas rush
driving to nunavut

espn employee winter parkas

haircut in the eighties
how does an inuit sod house looks like
how does nunavut get their clothes
how does nunavut look like?
how long would it take to drive from toronto to nunavut
how long does it take to fly from nunavut to toronto
how nunavut got its name
how to say good morning in inuit
how to say nunavut in inuktitut

i got a written job offer and they revoked it [NEW]
inuktitut word
i love my vitamin cookies
iqaluit alphabet
is there a mcdonalds in iqaluit

ketchup prices in nunavut

life in nunavut.ca
love fur mittens

made you look + nunavut + forward
malls in nunavut
management associate northern store blog

nice things about nunavut
northern manitoba gets dark
nunavut good/
nunavut sucks
nunavut not interesting
nunavut gloves
nunavut parkas
nunavut dishes
nunavut village
nunavut stupid
nunavut what is it like

one thing that makes nunavut interesting

picture of parka winter coat in iqaluit
prices in n [NEW]

rankin inlet alphabet
rankin inlet coats
rubbermaid store london ontario

similarities of ontario and nunavut [NEW]
site scene, rankin inlet, nunavut
stupid tourist questions about whales

travelled a lot for work
the coldest nunavut has ever dropped in temperature
things to know about nunavut
things you don't know about nunavut [NEW]
top 25 questions on nunavut

video life in nunavut
video of a fairchild merlin in flight

wendy's homestyle chicken fillet picture
what are people in inuktitut
what is nunavut in inuktitut
what kind of people live in nunavut [NEW]
what they don't have in nunavut [NEW]
where is nunavut
what schools did laura secord go to
white kids that move to nunavut
who the name nunavut came about
why is nunavut so cold?
why not move to nunavut

yellowknife parka
yellowknife stupid tourist questions
you know nunavut when [NEW]
yuotube gramer
yuotube videos aerobicos


Keep coming back for more, I will keep updating this list.

(posted by Jaime)