last Day

Well its hard to believe but 4 weeks has gone by already. Today is my last day here and I have to say I've thoroughly enjoyed the experience and I would recommend it to anyone. This morning I did my first and possibly last uniformed snow mobile patrol. We left just after 9:00 in -27 degree weather and a wind chill of -37. We headed west of town to an area where a number of locals including my co-worker Mike have cabins. It was small but cozy. We then looped around behind town and back to the office. Needless to say it took me a few minutes to warm up.

The last few weeks have been busy and I have dealt with everything from thefts to an attempt robbery so there is certainly enough to keep a person busy. The weather other than being cold has been great, clear blue skies everyday and lots of sunshine now that the sunrise is before 8:00 A.M. I can hardly believe that when I got here sunrise was around 9:30. In a month daylight has increased by three hours.

While groceries are on the expensive side I did not find prices completely unreasonable with the exception of pop which is now at $4.00 a can. The nice thing is you can actually get some fresh produce and fruit here and many of the locals get food mail from Quebec or Ontario on a regular basis. You order by fax and the food is shipped up. You pay approx $0.80 per Kg but it is still cheaper for many things than buying them here and it means you can get fairly fresh food. Last night I was invited to dinner and we had Pasta with fresh peppers and broccoli as well as a fresh salad.

The only real downside I've found is even with two you're always on call so you can't really take off on the skidoo for a couple hours as you need to be available for backup if required. For a month it wasn't too bad but after a few months I can see where that would wear thin.

I've taken a bunch more photo's and will try and upload those tonight or tomorrow before I leave Igloolik. After that I will be in Iqaluit for 4.5 days as I have arranged to instruct an interdiction course before I leave the north.

6 more days and I'll be back home. hard to believe