I feel a little out of place when I go for a run here. I get a bit of “what the hell is that guy doing” look from some of the locals. Or a “why are his pants so short?”.  In any case, I am sure it is a good way to make it obvious that I am new here.

Obviously there is nothing wrong with the sport of running, I just don't think people do it here. For starters, the hills are brutal, and is a good way to kill any new runner's ambition. Second, there are no sports stores, much less a running store, so you are either buying shoes/clothes online, or what you can find at the North Mart. Third, and the one that I hate, is there is no where TO run! With no sidewalks you are running on dirt, gravel, or sharing the small amount of paved roads with cars. I would guess there are less than 20km total of roads, so you run out of variety pretty quick. Oh yeah, did I mention there is snow on the ground 8 months of the year? I've run in -20s before, but it isn't something I look forward to.

That said, I still love running here. The hills are good for me, and the low altitude makes me feel more fit than I really am. There is a Terry Fox run here in September that I am going to make a point of going to.

As of today I have been up here for 2 weeks. Seems like I just got here still, but at the same time I am starting to settle in.  

I didn't realize that 'pop' had an expiry date. I had two diet cokes that were a few months past their date, and I guess its the aspartame that goes, and it looses its sweetness. What happens is you have places buying in bulk (due to shipping costs), and then sitting for a very long time. I am used to checking the date on bread and milk, but I suppose I need to start checking it on everything I buy now.

I was at the liquor warehouse today and found out why I can't seem to find a heineken anywhere in town.  Apparently the EU does not approve of the seal hunt here, and has banned the export of goods.  So no dutch/german beer for me.

Apex

Yesterday one of my partners in crime and I went to track down a building in the town of Apex. Its part of Iqaluit really, maybe 2km outside of town, and is a group of about 30 houses and a school. The trip included a bit of off-roading with the rental down to a beach to take a few pictures.

Windy city

Everything here seems to be a trade off.  The wind kicks up dust into your face, but then keeps the mosquitoes away.  Summer is warm enough to actually go outside, but the dust or bugs keep you in.  We have had amazing weather this weekend, sun and just below 20 degrees out, but the wind has been very strong picking up all the sand.  I guess its the Canadian way to always have something to complain about.

We found a place that served Chinese food and tried it for lunch today.  I guess you could call it 'the best in town', as its the only.  Lets just say I miss having options.

Around town

Figured I would try and get a few more pictures uploaded.  For what it is, Iqaluit is actually a very pretty city.  I will post separately on the architecture, as it is worth of a mention on its own.


Over looking the bay

High tide

Low tide.  Almost a full km from the shore it seems, the 2nd biggest tide in North America

The provincial flower, the purple saxifrage.  Some of the hills are covered in these.

Long day light means long sun sets.

what to eat

I was actually quite surprised by the quality of food here.  In grocery stores you can pretty well get anything you would get elsewhere, with maybe just less options and brands.  It really is about the same as you would expect in a normal store in a small city, just everything costs 3 times as much. 

Restaurants are pretty boring.  If you are looking for burger and fries, this is the place for it.  Granted, I haven’t been everywhere yet, but I was expecting a little more native food flair.  Maybe those places wouldn’t survive since most people here only want a burger and fries (especially my people!), but I want to try things I won’t get elsewhere.  Food is an important part of a culture and I wish I was experiencing more of it.

I have heard of a place in town that I can buy some things like Muktuk, Char, and Caribou meat, so I will have to track it down.

Last night was wing night though, and surprisingly inexpensive.  $5 beers! 

Where is...

Not that Iqaluit is large by any means, but when you are new here it is quite hard to find anything.  The problem is there is no address system in place, and everything is found based on a building name.  Even the residential addresses are just a house number, no street name or anything.  Since all the cabs know where everything is, it sort of works. 

Yesterday I was trying to find the pool.  The website says the address is “the apex building”.  Ok.  Luckily when I asked someone where it was, I happened to be 30 feet away from it in the same building.  Finding a restaurant is about the same.  “Follow the fence that way, and it’s the orange building next to the blue one” was my directions the other day to find Swarma (which is really good actually).  I think after a month you pretty well know everything anyway, but still is a pain when you are used to 123 fake street, and not ‘the brown building’. 

Oh, and Google maps pretty well gives up.  Pretty well any address you plug into it takes you to the center of the city.  Oddly they don’t have Google street view either...

Sun goes down

I had a brief spot of wanting to go home yesterday.  I wouldn’t call it home sickness, but more of a “ok, that’s enough” sickness.  It seems like the novelty has worn off quicker than I had hoped, but it was only matter of time.  I think it was the boring weekend that did it.  Back home, you look forward to weekends as it’s the time you see friends, go out, veg out on the TV, all that good time wasting stuff.  For me, I have none of those.  I watched all of Dexter season 1 and 2 last weekend, purely just to ‘kill time’.  Don’t like it. 

Running keeps me sane, and it brought me back last night.  The hills here are never ending so it is easy to get a good workout in a short time.  The views are unbelievable from up top too, and with the sun sort of in sunset for 4hours a night, you really get a pretty picture coming back down. 

Don’t worry about me though, I’m just whining.  Hopefully this project finds some direction soon and I can actually do some real work. 

“No TV and no Internet make Rob something something….”

“go crazy?”

some pictures

I wish I had more pictures to share, hopefully after today I will get some of the town.  Today the sun is shining and if it wasn't for the massive amounts of bugs, it would be a perfect day to wander around all day.


View from the plane coming in



Walmart of the north




Some of the costs of things...

Day 2 in Iqaluit

Made it here alive.  Flight was actually quite nice, and was uneventful coming in.  Once we got below the clouds, I could see snow on the ground still.  That’s nice to see in...July. 

Will update on the town later, hopefully with pictures.  I am still trying to track down a constant internet connection.  I can get a wireless modem and service for about $150/month, not bad for dial-up speeds and 3gb caps.  Maybe I can just learn to live without it...

A few things that have surprised me so far:

-no one wears seat belts, and if you do people will make fun of you

-produce was easily found, great selection, and not overly expensive (compared to other things)

-mosquitoes are the size of moths and never go away

I otherwise enjoy it up here.  The air is crisp and noticeably cleaner.  People are unbelievable friendly.  I wish I had brought my hiking boots with me, as the town is surrounded with large rocky hills that I would like to explore. 

Stop over in Ottawa

The flight from Kitchener to Ottawa today on BearSkin Airlines (doesn't get more Canadian than a name like that) was smooth.  Plane was probably the size that I can look forward to over the next few months, pretty well had to crawl out of it. 

Met with the client this afternoon to get into some of the technical details of the project, as well as some of the history.  The guys running the show have been involved with the infrastructure there since before the territory was formed (1999), and I can't imagine this project working without them.  It's less of a network 'refresh', as it is a complete rebuild.  As you can expect, things don't evolve the way things in your normal corporate networks do, and there likely will be plenty of things that haven't been touched in decades.  This project will be a massive leap forward from a LAN and WAN standpoint and will build oppertunities for the long term for them. 


Fly out tomorrow morning and hopefully will make it online to update with some pictures.  When I get there I am to leave the 'yellow airport' and head over to the 'brown building', and my apartment is "up the hill".  Those are my directions.  I'll have to see if the GPS will take it...

For now its time to try and sleep off all this sushi (figured I would get one last fill)

The day before...

The time has come.  Tomorrow I fly to Ottawa, then on Thursday its a non-stop to Iqaluit via AirCanada.  There are a couple of airlines that go up there daily, so there are a few options, however the cost is quite high.  A 2200km flight is nearly $1200 one way.  Compare that to the 3000km flight to Calgary for about $250 one way.  But what other options are there?  Plus you likely have the plane nearly to yourself, so the cost is spread less.  I hear jet engines don't like the cold up there (perhaps the fuel), and a lot of companies are flying DC-2s and older cargo planes, so that will be interesting to see.  


Iqaluit is on Baffin island, 63degrees North.  It is above the tree line, but just south of the actual arctic circle.  Roughly 10,000 people live there, many being involved with the government since it is the capital of the newly formed territory.  Between mining, politics, and possible new trade routes, it is a very isolated area that is growing extremely fast.  I will get into more on their culture and history another time.


For now, I have to pack!  Yes, I left it to the last minute.  I have been busy pegging my internet connection downloading every movie and TV show I could think of.  I have internet up there, but I heard it is painfully slow (think, 56k), and caps as low as 2gb, so what I bring is what I have for the next few months.  I also picked up a couple of books, one being "Journey to the Edge of the World".  Its about a guy who goes from NFLD, to NU, to the Yukon, then down through BC, basically going around the edge of Canada.  I picked it up due to the chapter on Iqaluit, but enjoy reading about people's adventures that I could only dream of doing.