Trip to Arviat

Monday January 16th, I had a scheduled trip to Arviat. I was going there for work, to review some mortgage files and conduct a meeting with front line staff to get some feedback on the development of a Collection policy.
On Sunday the 15th and Monday morning Iqaluit was under a Blizzard warning. It was cold and windy. There was some talk of the plane not taking off. At the scheduled flight time, 5:00PM, the visability was 1 KM, the minimum needed for take off.
The flight was delayed for about 45 minutes and eventually we took off. There were about 50KM winds and visability was questionable. The Schedule was to fly to Rankin Inlet, change plans and then on to Arviat. When we arrived at Rankin it was -48C with a windchill of -60C. It is the coldest weather that I ever remember experiencing. We had to walk from the plane to the airport and my nose was completely numb by the time we got inside the terminal. The terminal itself was cold and everyone had their coats, hats and mitts on.

Again, there was some question as to whether the conditions were safe enough for the plane to take off to Arviat. We got on the plane and waited for about 15 minutes. I think it was for the captain to gather enough courage to actually attempt the takeoff? Anyway, we managed to get off the ground in about 60KM winds. The difference here is that the plane from Iqaluit to Rankin was a large jet. This was a smaller short communter aircraft.
As a side note, the plane from Ottawa to Iqaluit on Sunday got to Iqaluit and couldn't land because of the blizzard, so it went back to a landing strip in Northern Quebec. There it waited for about 3 hours hoping that the blizzard in Iqaluit would ease up. Eventually the plane went back to Ottawa. The poor passengers were on it for a total of 9 hours.
Arviat is a very interesting town of about 2500 people located about 150KM north or Churchill Manitoba. This is a web link to the town> http://www.nunavuttourism.com/index.aspx?l=0,2,4,9,29
I stayed in a little hotel that was part of the co-op in town. It hosted the only restaurant in town. I thought the food was pretty good. The picture below is my room at the hotel.

Arviat is a dry community. There are no bars and alchohol is not allowed, even in personal residences, although I'm told that the odd beer or glass of wine does get consumed in some of the residences in town. Luckily, January is my non-drinking month, so a dry town in January worked perfectly for me.
Although there are vehicles in town, most people get around on snowmobilies as can be seen by the picuture below.

The land is very flat in and around Arviat. The local saying is that if your dog runs away, you can "see him go for 3 days." The terrain probably explains why there are so many blizzards in Arviat. The town closes quite often do to blizzards. Before Christmas there was one blizzard that lasted over 3 days and I'm told that's quite common.
The district director took me for a tour of town. He took me out to the dump, because there had been Polar Bears out there until about 2 weeks prior to me getting to town. My camera was at the ready but unfortuately no bears this trip. We did see some dog teams tied up out on the tundra. A number of people in Arviat still use dog teams for transportation out on the land. The teams from there always do very well in the Arctic games that run every two years and are in Whitehorse this year.
All in all, I had a wonderful trip, met some great people and had the opportunity to experience cold, like I've never experienced it before. Below are some pictures of the town.