Physics 101: Bodies in Motion...

Hello Everyone,
We had a little bit of excitment today when we had a Cat clearing the ice off the parking lot in front of the store. When you look at a Cats tread's they are designed to have incredible traction going forward and backwards, but when you put it sideways on a incline it has alot of skates enabling it to move sideways effortlessly. The result is the pictures above, a cat collects a ski-doo and impales it around a post. No one was injured in the filming of this incident, please don't try this at home.
Take Care,
CG

Sunday Musings

Hello Everyone,
The good weather continue's and the town is a hive of activity with all the mine meetings going on and all the locals heading to the land while the nice weather lasts. I remeber while I was at Wal-mart, we'd constantly have What were they thinking moments when recieving new frieght, Well here at baker we have the topper. Yesterday while unloading our planes frieght we found someone had the wisdon to ship us a Lawnmower for our spring selection. Now that will be useful as soon as someone ships a lawn up here.
Christopher is still plugging away at potty training without success, Melissa is learning and doing her first cross-stich projectand I'm out of things to say.
Take Care,
CG

Spring In Baker

Hello Everyone,
Its a beautiful spring day in Baker, however I don't think winter is done with us, not by a long shot but it was a great day outside. Just a couple of photo's from today. The kids on the Honda have set a new record for me, all six were able to leave on the ATV and not a adult to be found... As I've said things are different here.
Take Care
CG

Proud to be Canadian?

Hello Everyone,

Recently we have all heard stories of Keesathawan where governmental incompetence resulted in contaminated drinking water in a aboriginal community. A friend of mine from Baker Lake was recently transfered to a small community in Keewaywin Ont. Upon his arrival he was warned not to drink the water. It seems a few years ago water tests found that the water table in this area was contaminated with Uranium. No attempt's seem to have been made to provide this community with clean water. The fish in this area are all contaiminated and shouldn't be eaten, which would lead me to speculate that all wildlife would share this assessment. The store provides pure water to the community but how safe can it be to shower,wash dishes or any of the other daily activities in which we need water. Why do we allow people to live in this condition? Because it isn't in the news? Because these people are less desearving than others who live in cities? When you turn on your TV your shown appeals from various organisations to assist providing water to african communities that exist where no water is found, and we voluntarily send money to assist these people when we have the same troubles in our own backyard and we do nothing. It seems growing up in Southern Ontario we were insulated against these realities by our own well being. We feel free to complain of wait times in hospitals and the state of our roads when we promote these conditions within our own communities.
I'm sorry for the preachy tone of this post but I wanted to express some of the shame I feel myself towards my own ignorance of the plight of our native communites. Sit back have a glass of water and appreciate it, not everyone in this country can.
Take Care
CG

Sunday Musings

Hello Everyone,
Another week has come and gone. Not alot has changed, which is why not alot of postings lately. As soon as something changes I'll let you know. the weather has been good, very sunny and temps between -30 and -40. There have been alot of visitors to town as the mines are reopening for the year. The gold mine started up for the year this week, there are also people up here prospecting for diamonds, emeralds and uranium frequenting town. The airport is busy with helocopters in and out throughout the day. This means added business to us as most of the camps get thier food and supplies from us.
I completed my firearms safety course and am now waiting for my PAL (FAC) to come back, net I have to take another course to handle restricted firearms, then at least that part of my training will be done. I think I'll put the course off till vacation though, its very challenging to get these courses up here.
The photo is of a couple of Inuk children sledding in front of our house.
Take care,
CG

Sunshine... and its effects

Hello Everyone,
Snowblindness is a phrase I had heard down south but didn't really understand. Up here its becoming a daily concern. Think of bright sunlight glaring off a window or mirror. That is what every suface up here is covered with, When you leave the house in the morning all you see is white, no trees, roads etc to break up the reflective surface. It also effectively removes your depth perception. I tried to take a photo of bright light across the lake, however the camera apature had trouble closing enough for the photo. I took a photo much later in the day to show you all the contrast that mother nature allows us. I have to take off my glasses and walk home wearing sunglasses, the polarization in my glasses isn't enough. I just wonder how bad it'll get as we are currently getting about 12 hours of sunlight a day and gaining about 13 minutes a day. By June 21 the sun will not set. I'm not looking forward to it. The light is so bright I gets in everywhere, You can't seal your curtains enough to stop it, we're going to be appling tin foil to our windows soon to stop the light. Here are a couple of photo's, Its the amount of reflection that allows the sunset you see, a thousand miles of white all around makes a exellent reflector.
Take Care
Cg

Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul

Well, I've spent the last seven months telling anyone who'll read this what its like up here. Last night laying in bed I realized some things I have completely failed to mention, I think upon refection that I've been missing the whole point.
In the last seven months I haven't:
been in a traffic jam,
had to wait at 1 red light,
cursed oil companies as I have to fill up,
heard a siren that meant anything other than curfew has started,
had to pay a bill,
had to stand in a line over 5 minutes,
had to deal with a bank cashier,
had to worry about locking my door,
had to worry about that new sound in the car.
I'm sure there are dozens of other things I could list here but its not nessassary, I think you get the point.
Take Care
CG

New Melissa photo

A photo i took today I like.

Afternoon Activity

Hello Everyone,
Just a couple of Photo's from this afternoon. The first one has a couple of caribou being dressed in the foreground and a dog team in the backgound, but you'll have to blow the image up.

Take Care
CG

Things I might have not explained well

Hello Everyone,
After reading Tracey's comments on the last posting, I feel I need to explain a couple of things a little more. First, life up here and family care is different than down south. Children freely roam the streets at about 5 years unnattended. This means that any wild animals that come to town are very dangerous. The day after Melissa saw the wolf, she saw two 7 year olds playing in the very spot wherethe wolf was, and today Christopher and I will be toboganning there. A couple of weeks ago in Ijuvuk a woman came out of the rec center and saw a polar bear atacking her child, she fought the bear barehanded while one of her children ran to the nearest house. When the child reached the house he just opened the door and yelled "Bear" and several people immediately came out with thier guns and were able to kill the bear before too much damage was done. Second, I hate to say it aloud but most of this community are dependants, the community really has no industry and produces nothing so most people are essentially wards of the state. A wolf pelt is worth $1,000, do the math, thats alot of money here.
This isn't Paul McCartney's world, Fur is the only real nature resource thats exportable here. Animals that enter town are begging to be killed, for both food and money. Anyways, thats my 2 cents, If Paul wants to help fur based communities, he can afford to adopt them.
Take Care,
CG

Hrmmm What to say

Hello Everyone,
Sorry I haven't posted in awhile. Doing taxes seems to take the life out of me and there really hasn't been that much going on. But lets see what we can come up with.
Melissa saw her first wolf on Wednesday in our front yard, the wolf just walked by our house then turned towards town. As I told her at the time the wolf wouldn't last 50 feet in town. I asked a couple of people around the store if they knew who got this wolf and no one seemed to know anything about it. Yesterday when I was coming home for lunch a old Inuk approached me asnd asked if it was my wife who saw the wolf. I responded affirmative and he handed me a bag for her. The bag was frozen and there appeared to be liquid frozen into the corners, I was nervous at this new aquasition and thank him and went home. When I looked in the bag there was a piece of wolf pelt covered in blood all frozen together. So we now have a piece of Melissa's first wolf and after alot of cleaning it is now streching and weathering in on our deck. Now we just have to figure out how to tan this hide with the resources we have available.
The weather has been great, Its -14 today and no wind so its a great day, We're going out sledding later this afternoon, so I hope to post some picture's this afternoon of our adventure's (BTW we'll be tobogganing where Melissa saw the wolf).
Take care and hopefully something interesting will happen soon.
CG