Cambridge Bay

On January 27th I had the awesome opportunity to travel to Cambridge Bay. Now getting there from Iqaluit is actually a 2 day affair. The first leg of the trip was from Iqaluit to Rankin Inlet and then from Rankin to Yellowknife. Although I left Iqaluit at 5:00PM and its a 4.5 hours flight plus the stop in Rankin, I got into Yellowknife at 8:00PM because there was a 2 hour time difference.
The reason that's significant is that the liquor store and Walmart close at 9:00PM which gave me time to do a little shopping before retiring for the night. How pathetic has my life become when I was actually looking forward to going to "Walmart".

Sculpture at the Airport in Yellowknife

On Saturday (January 28th) I was back at the Yellowknife airport and on my way to Cambridge Bay. The hamlet which is the business centre for the Kitikmeot district of Nunavut has around 1500 residents and is situated 500 miles north of Yellowknife on Victoria Island.
It is known for its Muskox harvest each year. The harvest was to begin the week after I left. The governement is allowing up to 400 muskox to be harvested this year. I went to the Cambridge Bay meat processing facility. There were people vying for position on the harvest. They hire 15 or so hunters and 25 transporters with snowmobiles, since the muskox are killed about 15 miles from town. I purchased a muskox roast that we ate when we got home. It was a little dry and gamy tasting, however that could have been the way it was prepared, not having that much experience cooking muskox.

I worked in Cambridge Bay from Saturday afternoon until Thursday and was to fly out. Thursday the weather was forcasted to be iffy and although it started out Okay, it started to deteriorate by 10:00 am. My flight was at noon. At 11:30, we called the airport and was told that the plane was scheduled to land as usual. We drove out to the airport in very poor weather. The wind was 60 km per hour with gusts to 75km/hr. When we got to the airport, we were told that the pilot was still going to "attempt a landing". Lots of confidence in that statement let me tell you. In the last few moments prior to landing the pilot decided to fly by, therefore, I was stuck in Cambridge Bay for at least one more day. To be honest, I was relieved the plane didn't land since the weather was terrible and I would have been scared skinny on the takeoff.

I managed to fly out the next day at noon and back to Yellowknife. Since no flights go to Iqaluit on Saturday or Sunday from Yellowknife, I ended up being stranded there for the weekend.
Never having spent any time in Yellowknife, it was a wonderful opportunity to explore. Below is a picture of the old part of the city, overlooking Great Slave Lake.

I was able to do a little shopping in Yellowknife and all in all the Cambridge Bay trip was awesome. The next time, I'm hoping Jacquie and I can go together.