Takeout Prices

Greetings, friends!

It has been almost 2 years since I left Nunavut and today I found some old takeout menus from Iqaluit.

One of these days I plan to scan all the receipts I saved, if they haven't faded too much.

Also, I have cleaned up my Flickr photo page and made it easier to browse. In 2008, I uploaded a few hundred vacation pictures from when I went to BC, which made it hard to find anything else but those photos. They have been deleted so my Flickr is left with only Nunavut photos. Feel free to have a look! I even created a Northern Prices Photo Set which should satisfy the curiosity of many (they're my most popular photos and blog posts, by far).

Without further ado, here are the menu scans:

Cardiac Arrest, Northern Prices Style

Please swallow all foods and take a deep breath before casting your eyes on the photo below.







Clyde River, Nunavut. 12 cans of Coke. And no, there is nothing special about this case of pop. It's just a regular case of Coca Cola. For $60.

I used to think $21 for 12 cans in Rankin Inlet was expensive. I'll never say that again.

Photo credit goes to a brave coworker of mine.

Vehicle Lessons, Dog Sledding, & Long Overdue Price Photos

Well folks, last week was that time of year again. Yes that's right. A new chapter in the book of Vehicle Lessons Learned was added. After a particularly windy day, I was driving around Iqaluit's "New Plateau" area. I rounded a curve and boom. Stuck. Foot to gas pedal, no movement. My first thought was, "This can't be happening. This isn't real." I thought if I gave reality a few seconds to set in, I'd push the gas pedal again and we'd be on our way. No such luck. Attempts to dig or push the Suzuki out of bumper-high snow rendered useless. Yes, I was genuinely stuck. After a few phone calls placed to Wynberg's after-hours towing line and $200 later, the XL-7 was back on the mean streets of Iqaluit. I am never driving up to New Plateau area again...unless I have to.

The most embarrassing part of the ordeal was that I wasn't just on any drive, I was giving a "tour" of sorts to a visitor. I felt like a northern poser who had just been outed as a newbie southerner. A little bit of my dignity was left in that ditch, haha.

On Monday of my visitor's stay, we went dog sledding. I had never been and wasn't sure what to expect. The dogs weren't behaving too well unfortunately and so we had to stop often so the guide could motivate the dogs to run. I also learned that every single piece of outwear I own isn't good enough when all you're doing is sitting or standing. My fingers went numb in sealskin mittens and my toes were freezing in my -70C rated boots. Still, it was enjoyable.

Now for some photos. I've included some photos of grocery prices as it's been way too long since I've done that.


Walking to the dogs.


Me checking out the doggies.


The view while sitting.


Don't be fooled by the gear...I'm freezing under there.


The view while standing.


The dogs take a break while the humans eat some snacks and warm up.


Click the photo for a link to a larger size.




These photos are making me hungry.






I want chicken, I want liver, Meow Mix Meow Mix....holy freaking cow.




Money-saving tip: don't bring your pet to Nunavut.


More good advice: don't get addicted to energy drinks. That IS a 12-pack, folks.




Also, avoid making babies in the north if possible. Or let your baby roam free outside.




Probably the most ridiculous mark-up of them all.

More Flyers

I finally got around to uploading some more scans of the Northern flyer. Enjoy!









(posted by Jaime)

General Post

Not too much to say right now, but I felt like making a post.

1. I have just updated the Stupid Keywords section. I have been updating it about once or twice a month since I first created it, and it seems to be a popular page on our blog. So check it out, if you haven't already.

2. I bought our first piece of inuit art today. As I was leaving school for the day, a man was showing one of my classmates some jewelry. He had a really nice ivory ring so I said I'd run down to the ATM and come back to buy it. I don't have a lot of interest in carvings, but I do like the jewelry.

When we have working batteries for the camera, I'll post a photo of the ring.

3. I don't know if it's warming up for good now, but this -26C (before windchill) weather feels great. Our themometre actually shows the temperature now, for the first time since about November. I've been amused by southern Ontario's recent "cold snap." Our friends and family find it of utmost importance to inform me when their weather is even remotely similar to ours.

4. I posted some photos of some Northern flyers onto our Flickr last week.

5. We finally have a working computer/TV in our bedroom. We splurged on a nice desktop with a screen far bigger than we'll ever need. The computer has a TV hook-up and with Windows Media Center we can record TV onto the hard drive and watch it later. You can even pause and rewind live TV. It's pretty neat, I love it. I don't know how I lived without it. It's great being able to pause TV when you need to get a drink or something, and then fast forward through any commercials (assuming you were away from the TV for a few minutes). Well listen to me, I sound like an advertisement. Just mentioning Windows Media Center is going to open a whole new world of stupid keywords! Possibly far stupider than "What is Nunavut in Inuktitut?"

That's all for me!

P.S. What IS Nunavut in Inuktitut? Haha...obviously kidding.

(posted by Jaime)

First Post of 2007

It's true what they say about a sucker being born every minute.



I guess it's safe to say that we're indifferent to whole price difference thing.

To anyone who was curious about the results of our first time playing Bingo... we didn't win anything, but we did have a good time.

The temperature has dropped here lately. The windchill has been hovering around -50C lately. It doesn't feel too bad. The only part I don't like is that my nose goes numb within the first 30 seconds of being outside.



This is the famous Sugar Rush Cafe in Rankin. I manage to go there about four times a week. I don't know what I'd do without that place!



This is, of course, a road in Rankin. I find it amusing that the only vehicles you can see are snowmobiles, and one snowy ATV (or Hondas, as we call them here).

I also have some videos I took while driving around town, but they take much too long to upload and I haven't got the patience to upload 4 videos. I might just wait until we're on a faster Internet connection in Ontario to upload them, because it will be a lot less painful.

Well, according to my counter, we have been in Nunavut for a straight 5 months, 2 weeks, and 6 days. I have been daydreaming (and night dreaming) about how I'm going to spend time in Ontario. We're not sure what day we'll be flying back, but I imagine it will be around May 13th or so. By the time we get back, we'll have spent just over 9 months in the north.

It's hard not to constantly think about the excitement of seeing familiar faces and places, but I try not to let it dominate my thoughts. I hope that after a few trips to the south, leaving gets less exciting. I'd rather not spend my entire time living here just looking forward to leaving for a few weeks.

Jeff and I have had a few discussions about where we'd like to live after here (which hopefully won't be for about 8-10 years from now) and so far, we can't agree on anything. He wants to move to a large city, and I want to move somewhere else that is relatively remote and north. I am definitely a person who prefers the country over the city, so if I can convince Jeff that we shouldn't move any more south than Winnipeg, I'll be happy.

(posted by Jaime)

Northern Lights and Kentucky Fried Chicken

I'm getting a cold, I can tell. I always get sick in August.

My two trips out of town got cancelled this week, and replaced with another to Coral Harbour tomorrow, so I'm hoping I feel better by then.

On Saturday night, we went out to look at stars, because it wasn't cloudy for the first time in a while. It just happened to be that there was a lot of northern lights, and we got to see quite a good show. In Ontario, I'd seen the northern lights two, maybe three times, and they always occurred in the northern sky. It's sort of neat up here because they're all over the place. Not to mention much brighter than the ones I had seen. We didn't take our camera with us, unfortunately, so we didn't get any pictures. I remember being pretty cold on Saturday night, and it was windy anyhow, so I likely wouldn't have been able to hold the camera still enough to take any decent pictures of them.

Jaime's doing dishes, the cat is constantly meowing, and bingo is on the radio. The movers still haven't shown up with our TV. I could go for some TV right now.

We actually splurged and went to the Pizza Hut/KFC kiosk in the Northern for supper. We each got our own personal sized meal combos and surprisingly it only set us back about $16, including two pepsis. The food was actually really good .

(posted by Jeff)

Yet Another Grocery Post

Since I'm pretty sure nobody is sick of these grocery entries yet, I bring you yet another grocery post.

580g of drink crystals: $6.49
Hamburger Helper: $4.49
"Ham Helper" (same thing as above but different brand): $3.59
Canned cream of broccoli (smaller size, makes two bowls): $2.59
Package of approx 24 no-name cookies: $3.85
6 cans of Pepsi: $10.98
Small amount of fresh ground beef: $4.50
4 very small chicken breasts: $7.95
Package of 3o-35 chicken nuggets: $9.99

In other news, we opened up a bank account yesterday and deposited all the wedding money. Wedding money is now grocery money.

I also am in the middle of applying to Arctic College but I am waiting to be called back because there was some confusion about a computer course that I wanted to take.

We are also still just borrowing Internet as the local Qiniq "dealership" is still waiting for modems to be shipped in. They were supposed to be in last week but I just called and they're still not in.

The sun is starting to set earlier but it still does not get very dark once it does set. I've noticed that the horizon stays a pink colour after the sun sets and does so until the sun rises again. It starts to get bright around 4am. If you lied in bed all day, it would be difficult to tell what time it is based on sunlight. Take this morning for example. Jeff woke up all frantic and asked me what time it was. I turned the clock around and replied, "five," and he said, "oh...it's hard to tell," and then we fell back asleep.

We might be going out on the land this weekend with some of Jeff's coworkers. They said it's not definite but I'll be very excited if it is. We'd get to use somebody's ATV. I am dying for an ATV as just walking around gets kind of boring and I want to see what it looks like outside of town.

Well, that's all for me.

Oh yeah..
To Tammy: Try not to get too nervous. :) I was personally surprised by how smoothly everything went. If you've already ordered your parkas then you definitely have nothing to worry about, haha. I'm still looking for someone who sells the Canada Goose parka that I want. P.S. Check out Northern Sights. A guy named Curtis writes it and he just moved to Repulse Bay this past month.

To the anonymous winter gear tipster: Thank you for your advice, we are definitely going to follow it. I think Jeff is going to go into that Weaver and Devore store when he is in Yellowknife. He plans to buy his parka there.

(posted by Jaime)

More Food Prices

We went grocery shopping again tonight at the Tru-Value (yes, normally that is a hardware store) and since all the 'southerners' who read our blog were so fascinated by our last food price post, here's more from the past week:

2 Cans of Dr. Pepper $1.87 each
1 Loaf of Wonder Bread $3.49
1 box of six Fish Sticks $9.99
1 package of 12 hot dog buns: $4.99
24 slices of American cheese: $7.69
1 Hostess cookie: $2.19
2 cans of tuna: $3.79
12 cans of Pepsi: $18.79

...and finally, 1L container of apple juice:



... that's right, $5.89.

(posted by Jeff)

Internet Woes

If you want to have a good cry, like I'm about to, read this service/rates page for the Internet company here.

Look at Piqsiq! $400/month!

This is officially worse than the pop thing. AND the Tide thing*...put together!

Someone hold me!


*It's $40 for a small box of the stuff.
(posted by Jaime)

Settling In

I was feeling a little masochistic so I went to the Northern store again today. Jeff and I had somehow forgotten to bring shampoo and conditioner. 1 bottle of shampoo, 1 bottle of conditioner, and a package of 20 plastic/disposable party cups ran me $24. We didn't bring much in the way of kitchenware so the plastic cups are perfect.

We also checked our mail for the first time and we had mail! A flyer from the Northern store, but at least it's mail. They've got a real great deal going right now...12 cans of pop for $18! Do me a favour: next time you take a drink of pop, think of me.

We ventured to the co-op today. It's pretty much another grocery store. Same stuff, same prices.

We also had our phone hooked up today. We've already had one wrong number. It's been 5 hours since it's been hooked up and no telemarketers have called. In London this would be a world record!

Well, I know what most you wanna see and I'm not going to fail to deliver.


One of the stranger sights in town. A field of dogs. Dogs in fences, dogs chained to houses. Just plain dogs everywhere. They all bark and howl when you walk by.


Me standing by a little pond. This more or less is looking onto the inlet that looks onto Hudson Bay. Yeah, that's a toque in August.


Arctic cotton.


The view. The houses you see on the left aren't really part of town. We think they're summer cottages.


Tundra.


Some kind of arctic berries. The ground here is soft and squishy. It feels like you're walking on thick sponges but because the tundra is like desert, it's not wet. In fact, when you step on the soft land, little clouds of dust fly up around your feet.




Our apartment building!!! It's the tall one.


The majority of the town. This does not show the section we live in, which seems to be the newer section.


An ermine. It's something of an arctic weasel. They're pretty much the squirrels of the north. They swish their tail around and dig through stuff.


Another view of part of town.

A panoramic view of the edge of the town. That's not the entire town.


(posted by Jaime)

First trip to the Grocery Store

We just came from our first trip to the grocery store. "Wow," is all I can say about this:

White bread 2.39
8 Hamburger buns 3.49
6-pack of coke 10.98
One white onion 2.38
200 grams of cheese 3.99 (this was an on-sale item)
1 pound margarine 4.39
2 meat pies at 2.89 each
2 pork chops 6.75
1 package of breakfast sausage 5.89
1 hotrod packaged meat-thing 0.99
8 pre-packaged hamburger patties 14.39
1 package of chicken nuggets 9.99
1 package of cigarettes 11.74

...and we only bought stuff that didn't seem outrageously expensive: mostly store-brand stuff. We passed on the 8 dollar windex and the 12 dollar containers of orange juice.

(posted by Jeff)