First, a preamble to set the context. I feel I need to explain why I went out of my way to create a page on the website to talk about the experience of eating just one meal. I arrived in Cambridge Bay on August 25, 1997 and the story of the meal took place on…
Late during my stay in Cambridge Bay, I was part of what turned out to be a memorably odd chartered ice-fishing trip. My memory is very hazy about most of the particulars of the trip, including about exactly when it took place, but it certainly during the spring of 1998. Ice-fishing in spring? You might…
this post is part of the“Arctic Memories” Series From August, 1997 until July, 1998 I worked as an English and Computer Instructor at Nunavut Arctic College in Cambridge Bay, Nunavut. Living in the far north, above the arctic circle, made for some unique experiences. During that time I maintained a website called Grant Wilson’s Arctic…
“Mount” Pelly is an esker and is called “Uvayuq” in inuktitut, the native language of the Inuit. I know this now because Wikipedia told me so. There was no Wikipedia the day we undertook this trip. It would first appear a little over 2 years later. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uvayuq Saturday, September 27, 1997 After a morning…
The local description for travelling away from civilization onto the arctic tundra is going “out on the land.” Saturday, September 6 was a big day for me. It was the first time I had the chance to venture out of town onto the tundra with a vehicle. Quads and of course snow mobiles (we generally…
It’s Saturday, September 27, 1997 and the weather was still holding. Most people have been saying that the icing up of the water in the bay is unusually late this year. So the available time for being able to roam out of town on a quad was fast decreasing. This Saturday morning was chilly. No…
Soon after the group “igloo building bee” (check that out here), the first brave souls to sleep in the igloo (the first night after we built the thing on March 22, 1998) were Doug S., Suzanne and Alex T. The rest of us had VERY legitimate excuses not to sleep in the igloo all night…
My commentary in 2020 Helping to build and later sleep in an igloo still remains a strong memory from my time in Cambridge Bay. After all, it’s not a common thing to be able to do anywhere south of the arctic. In the original version I included everyone’s family name, but I’ve decided to edit…
My 2020 Commentary I’d travelled into the unknown before. I still remember the leaving Saskatoon airport to travel first to Los Angeles on my way to Japan. That was a trip that took me into a decidedly different world. Well, although I wasn’t leaving Canada, this trip was taking me yet again into a different…
So, Where is Cambridge Bay and What Does it Look Like? On August 25, 1997, I got on a plane bound for Cambridge Bay, Nunavut (then still the Northwest Territories). Why was I going? In short, after nine years of working at a regional college in northeast Saskatchewan, I’d decided it was time for a…
