I think I know the meaning of a hard day's night now. I just came off of my first three night shifts this morning. Two new babies, one obscenely drunk man and a medivac later...
The plan for tomorrow is groceries, the gym and homework. How exciting.
I went over to the nursing residence and had dinner with Lynn tonight. I think I'm going to head out of town a little bit tonight to see if I can see the northern lights-I looked up a good place and it's about a five minute walk from my house.
I'll have some more pictures to post tomorrow!

Who needs a life when you have a gym?

Not much new today. I was at the hospital for my Neonatal Resuscitation course for the morning. It went well and I feel good about that. I made some dinner, watched t.v. and walked to the gym in -36 degree weather. It was -47 with the windchill. It didn't seem that bad until I had to layer up to leave when I was all sweaty and hot. That's about the highlights.

-46 is too cold.

Arctic Foods or V&S Options-this is the cheaper grocery store

It's been pretty cloudy and grey since I've been here. I'd like to get out to see the northern lights soon-I'll have to ask around about the best place to see them. I went out last Saturday to finish grocery shopping and take another look around. I was able to get some fresh fruits and veggies from the fruit truck. Apparently every few weeks a man (Tim?) comes up with fresh produce from B.C. and just sells it in his truck. It was pretty nice quality and not too expensive. Some of the things I think are most expensive are cheese ($17.99 a brick) and cereal ($8-14/box).I took a taxi home because I had a big box of veggies and the cabs are only $5!

I decided to treat myself to something at Cafe Gallery on Saturday too. Here is my delicious carrot cake and french vanilla steamer. It was so cold out that my camera fogged up when I came inside!









I also went over the the hospital on Friday and met the nurse educator. She set me up with some shifts starting Sunday. My preceptor has some time off so I was with another nurse for the frst three shifts. I started on Sunday and had three day shifts. Today I have a day off and then tomorrow I go in to do a Neonatal Resuscitation Program course. I took the course at McMaster in September so it will be a good review. I start on Friday, nights with my preceptor.

Last night I went to the gym here with one of the other nurses after our shift. It's nice enough and I walked over today to get a gym membership. I'm planning to go again tomorrow. Seriously though, walking to the gym and then downtown was the coldest I have been since getting here. My skin that wasn't covered on my face ached so much from the wind. I now know that it was -46 with the windchill so no wonder it hurt. I finally made it to the Cafe for lunch and my eyelashes were frozen to my face. It was not great.
I stayed there reading for a while while enjoying a cafe mocha, got some groceries on the way home and then came home to work on some homework and that's about the extent of my trip so far. I'm hoping that it will be more exciting in the weeks to come. Lynn and I are planning to go dogsledding if we ever have time off at the same time :)

How cold is too cold?

I wish that I had taken a picture at the Inuvik airport because they too, like Yellowknife and Norman Wells, have a stuffed bear (polar) at the airport. Is this some sort of northern thing? I've never seen a stuffed animal at an airport before and they ALL have them here. Weird-I'll snap a picture on my way out.

So I finally arrived on Thursday. We were scheduled to arrive around 1:00 and didn't make it up until after 3:00. I was actually just glad to finally land up here. It was not too cold when I arrived. Only about -16 celcius. The nurse that I'm subletting from, Paul, picked me up at the airport. He took some time to show me the major things around town (which I was very thankful for) and we went to home hardware to have a new key cut. I had a $5.00 bagel (are you serious!) at the Cafe Gallery and then came back to my new home until April.

The View from My Front Door

My House!

My New Bedroom

The Hospital in the Morning

I settled in that night and then I went out on Friday to check out the downtown and get some groceries. The hospital is about a five minute walk from my house. I have to duck under the utilidoor (where all the water and sewage lines run above ground) to get there-it's nice to be so close!

The Sunrise at 1:00 p.m.

The Silver thing is the Utilidoor. The houses are colourful!

Off to the Races...

Okay just a quick update...I just finished my first 3 shifts. They went really well and I'm starting to get back into the swing of things. I have my first day off tomorrow and I will update from my arrival on. It's also definitely time to do some laundry.

Yellowknife, NT

My days in Yellowknife were almost entirely spent waiting to hear whether I would be able to fly out the next day. Originally, they rebooked me for Tuesday morning, then Wednesday, and then finally I was able to fly out on Thursday.  I read a lot, watched a bit of t.v., spent a lot of time chatting and some time sight seeing with Judy.

Yellowknife City Hall

Most places have electrical outlets for people to plug their cars in. I think almost every car I saw had an electrical cord hanging out the front. It made me feel better about my car having trouble in the cold weather.

Arctic Ptarmigan

You can't see very well but the Ptarmigans were on the lawn across the street. They're really funny-when one decided to move, the whole group would waddle along too!

Just Another Manic Monday

Yellowknife 9:00 a.m.

At the Yellowknife Airport

My scheduled arrival time in Inuvik was 12:40 on Monday. I can see now that this was just NOT meant to be. I left my hotel and arrived at the Yellowknife airport with plenty of time to spare. I booked my flight with Firstair for 10:00 and around 9:30 they cancelled the flight. This meant I had to unload my luggage again, go get a travel voucher and recheck my luggage with Canadian North for their 10:25 flight. Okay at this point I've loaded or unloaded five times. No big deal.

Flight Take 1

Flight Take 2

We left the airport almost on time, everything went great except they weren't sure that they were going to be able to land in Inuvik. Lynn, my nursing friend from here, had said that they said the same thing when she came up and they landed well so I didn't think anything of it. We landed at Normal Wells airport where the plane stops to refuel and the pilot said that we were going to try to land in Inuvik. We made it all the way and had started out descent and then: "As you may have noticed, we have started to reascend..." With the winds and the ice, the pilot didn't think we could land safely so we turned around and went back to Normal Wells. At Norman Wells they made us get off, pick up all of our luggage, drag it upstairs, recheck it and then reboard (Times I moved my luggage: seven). Now, the Norman Wells airport is not very big as you can imagine. By the time everyone had their luggage and went upstairs, you could barely move. It was ridiculous. All for us to just get back on the same plane. Then we reboarded and flew back to Yellowknife. This whole journey took about 6 hours. And I ended up in the same place. You can imagine how I felt. 

The Second Stuffed Bear of the Day (Norman Wells Airport)

When I got back to Yellowknife, I had no idea what I was going to do for the night. I had basically blown my hotel budget staying one night (the Super8 was almost $200 a night). I planned to just stay at the airport because I was booked for the flight the next day. I got a not very good sandwich from the "cafe" at the Yellowknife Airport (this consists of a fridge with premade sandwiches and a fridge with pop and juice). Luckily, I spoke with Lynn (my friend who nurses here) and she said "My sister lives in Yellowknife. Let me call her." She called me back in no time at all and thankfully for me, her sister was willing to take me in and I was able to stay with her and her family for the next few days while I was stuck there. I am SO grateful to have been able to do that. Four days at the Yellowknife airport might have made me turn around and come home. It also meant that I was able to see more of Yellowknife!

Departure: 3:55p.m., January 15th 2012

I should have known how my trip would go when my flight from Toronto was delayed. It was like the beginning of my travel nightmare. More about that later.

The flight to Edmonton although long, was quite nice. I had a window seat with no one beside me and my own tv screen. I watched two episodes of SVU (be jealous Natasha). 

Flight #1

Goodbye Toronto!

Because we were delayed leaving Toronto by 20 minutes, my flight from Toronto didn't arrive in Edmonton until an hour after it was supposed to. Why it became an hour, I have no idea. That left me one hour to get off the plane, get my luggage, get upstairs to departures, go through security and make it to board my plane.

Anxiously awaiting the arrival of my luggage in Edmonton: 7:25, departure 8:00 (Edmonton time-two hours behind Toronto)

Hello and Goodbye to Edmonton.

I was very nearly having a heart attack about missing my flight to Yellowknife. My luggage finally came off the carousel and I basically RAN to the departure counter, where they told me "we don't check luggage after 30 minutes before departure time". I felt like leaping over the counter. Instead, I calmly (sort of) told NAOMI that my flight from Toronto was delayed and I literally got there as fast as humanly possible. She decided to check my bags. Then I sped through security and had to go to the very last gate of course, where I boarded the plane off the tarmac. Now I know at small airports they do that, but seriously Edmonton? Get some indoor ramps. I made it onto the plane with four minutes to spare.

Now at this point, I am sure that I'm going to die of hunger. I obviously did not have time to get anything to eat or go to the bathroom during my short stint in Edmonton and I was hoping that the Yellowknife airport had somewhere to eat (They don't). Then, out of the blue the flight attendant brings me the most wonderful meal I have ever had. Okay, okay, maybe not but it really felt like it at that moment. In case you were wondering, the thing in tinfoil is a WARMED UP CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIE. The woman beside me kept looking at me, I think because I inhaled my meal instead of eating it.

My flight to Yellowknife was uneventful and I arrived there around 10:00 p.m. their time. I decided after my day of travelling, a hotel room was definitely worth it and went to sleep thinking: Tomorrow, Inuvik!

So it begins...

I am currently in the Super8 Motel in Yellowknife. I was expecting it to be much sketchier than it is (My aunt will be cringing I'm sure). I just wanted to post a quick update about my first day at it-I'll hopefully be able to post about my travelling adventures more thoroughly when I arrive tomorrow!!
To summarize: Delayed planes make my heart race, it's currently -36 in Yellowknife, my luggage has made it this far with me and I am safely tucked into bed for the night!

AM I INSANE?

For those of you who don't already know, I will be flying to Inuvik, Northwest Territories later this month. I'm going to finish my integrated practicum for my nursing degree at the hospital there.
It is 2 degrees above the arctic circle. Summer is my favourite season. When I talked to the person I will be staying with he said "you're coming at a good time because it's starting to be light out again": I must have lost it.