back in the north

After spending the holidays in the balmy south (where there was more snow than in the Arctic), I flew back to Kimmirut on Jan. 3. Laurel took me to Toronto on Monday Jan. 2, and I stayed in a hotel and took the shuttle to the airport at 5:30 AM on Tuesday. It was great to be home and to be with Laurel and the boys for Christmas Day. We had to drive to Hamilton on Christmas day to pick up Matt who flew in from the west coast to pick up his car. Matt left on Wednesday Dec 28 to drive back to Vancouver Island and we had a couple of anxious nights while he made his way across the continent through a blizzard on the Prairies and a clogged fuel filter in Butte, Montana. We were proud of him for the way he handled the whole trip.
The trip back north was very pleasant and I had a window seat and was able to see a great deal of northern Quebec as we flew. Iqaluit was a shock with the temperature around -27 and a stiff north wind blowing. (No sheltered walkways to the plane here!)After waiting a half hour or so about 10 people loaded into a frigid twin Otter for the flight to Kimmirut. The plane was just warming up at the end of the 35 min flight. Kimmirut was not as cold (only -22) and Phil had snowmobiles waiting for us(Ron Bennett, the principal, and me) to take us back to our digs.
School has been rather relaxed this week as we did career planning with the students to ease them (and us) back into the routine. I found the re-entry a little more difficult than I anticipated, maybe because of the early darkness. I just seemed to be tired most of the time. Next week we will be back into regular classes.
I got out on the sea ice on my snowmobile today, and then because the ice looked good and there wasn't much wind, decided to go skiing for about an hour. I've included a picture showing the broken pack ice along the shore where it breaks up because of the rise and fall of the tide. Happy New Year everyone.