Baffin Island

...is no catagory specifically fpr Baffin Island. I will put in a request for this, but apparantly they take time. Please be kind to rate it as you would if it was in the completly correct catagory!! ;-) Tom xXx*******

I had a girlfriend from when I was between the ages of 13 and 18, and we honestly thought we would marry. She lived down the road and we spent every summer together horseriding, swimming, walking, enjoying sunsets, food ...
...2002. She moved to Baffin Island, roughtly the size of the U.K., which sits on the top of Hudson Bay. It is part of the newly formed Inuit continent, Nunavut, an icy land mass the size of Europe and host only to 11,000 people. Astonishing proportions.

As my plane left Ottawa for Iqaluit, the capital, I was full of aprehension. I had never crossed the big blue before, and to go to such a remote island was a little daunting and rather ... more

*****Before anyine reads this, please note that it is off topic as there is no catagory specifically fpr Baffin Island. I will put in a request for this, but apparantly they take time. Please be kind to rate it as you would if it was in the completly correct catagory!! ;-) Tom xXx*******

I had a girlfriend from when I was between the ages of 13 and 18, and we honestly thought we would marry. She lived down the road and we spent every summer together horseriding, swimming, walking, enjoying sunsets, food and stars. But all good things come to and end...
Just before I was going in to my final year in school, she tells me that she is moving with her family to Canada. Thus begins my first experience of a long distance relationship. But this review is not about that, it's about Canada.

I went to visit my love, 6 months after she had left, for christmas of 2002. She moved to Baffin Island, roughtly the size of the U.K., which sits on the top of Hudson Bay. It is part of the newly formed Inuit continent, Nunavut, an icy land mass the size of Europe and host only to 11,000 people. Astonishing proportions.

As my plane left Ottawa for Iqaluit, the capital, I was full of aprehension. I had never crossed the big blue before, and to go to such a remote island was a little daunting and rather overwhelming.

I arrived at 12pm and feeling a little jet lagged, found my way to my home for the next two weeks. By 3pm it was pitch black. Welcome to the North.

The first thing to hit me when the airport's automatic doors slid open, was a wall of ice. The air was so cold that I could not breathe. I had to wrap a scarf around my face and suck the air through it bofore it was warm enough for me.
-- I have seen some of the films with snow, Shackleton, or The Void, where people are faced with un-natural cold, but this was really cold.

I lived with my girlfriend's family in a notoriously dodgey area called White Row. Terraced, wooden houses share the shouts and screams of rowdy neighbours through thin walls and single-glazed windows. As the central heating was jammed on full, upstairs was oven-like and large clouds of breath showed how downstairs was somewhat cooler.... There is a waiting list for better housing, but that can sometimes take 2 years.

Iqaluit is best described as the smallest city I have ever seen. It holds 6,000 people, but as the capital, has government buildings, a cinema, 2 ice rinks, its own taxi service, (every second car is a taxi), several supermarkets, a college, highschool and kindergarten, and, of course, the R.C.M.P. The Royal Mounted Canadian Police, though their "mounts" can only be related to four legged beasts by their Horse-Power.

I discoverd the Skidoo. It is like a Jet Ski, but with catapillar tracks behind and skiis on the front - a motorized toboggan. As the machine has only a two stroke engine, the throttle seems to go on for ever and you can reach speeds of up and over 120mph on some of the faster models, ( mine did only a modest 90mph!!) I took my girl for rides along the wonderfully named, "road to nowhere"-- and that was just where it went.

On New Years eve, I took my girlfriend's brother in the anual Skidoo show. At about 11.30, all the skidoos in town met in the centre for a parade. Following eachother one by one, a mile long snake of light winding its way over the frozen Bay. Like a pilgrimage trail armed with torches, we blasted our horns at the jet-black sky and glistening street lamps some two miles away. A hundred machines killed their engines and, and in a command echelon, we welcomed in the new year with woops and beeps. Then, after a "three, two, one", we were racing back to the town at hair breaking speeds. ( hair braking because many of us had to get out the hair dryer to melt our heads when we got home!! )

The school is comprised half of Inuits, native eskimos, and half "white men", the southerners. The locals were all small, about 5 foot was large, and their technological advances in the last century is completely mind blowing. The grandparents of the friends I made, were living in Igloos as children and had no written language. Now they have to adapt to cinema, internet, T.V., junk food and all modern day life accessories. I find that inconceivable. ( It was hard enough coming back to Ireland and having to deal with a completely circulating Euro! ) As the days were so cold, you had to wear seveal layers and a parka jacket to survive. The school provides a bounty of extra curricular activities. Two youth clubs with pool tables, computers and TV's, kept young minds busy and out of trouble. There is the local cadets, where one could learn how to shoot a gun, survive in arctic conditions or even fly a twin otter. Music and drama is an important part of the school life and my girlfriend played in her Big Band and auditioned for, and got main role in, the anual musical of Peter Pan.

If you trace the lateral lines of the globe from North Scotland, Scandinavia and Russia, you will find Baffin Island sits on the same line. All these countries are heavy spirit drinkers, Whisky and Vodka. Drink is a colossal problem in Iqaluit and as the locals have very low tolerance for fire water, they become drunk easily and are very voilent. While walking the dog one morning at 6am - I was still sleeping western hours - I was approached by a couple of drunken men. As I am from Ireland, I am well used to inebriated people, so these two seemed like another harmless Irish couple. Oh how I was wrong. They grabbed the dog lead and one proceeded to split my lip with several pounds of eskimo fist. I did what I was good at, ran. In my school days I could do the 100 in 11.6. So I had no problem proving I still could. I went the same morning to the police and gave a description as best I could, but every one looks the same. You know what it is like when some one from Japan comes to England, every one looks the same. I got a lovely penetration into the life of the Canadian police man. Voilence is commonplace in Iqaluit, and my story was one of many. Drink-related incidences are responsible for 95% of the crime there.

My birthday fell on the 4th of Janary, and I was treated to a meal in the nicest restaurant Iqaluit had to offer. I have never tasted Caribau, but those of you who are fans of Rudolf the Red-Nosed one, will not look to kindly upon me. It was matchlessly mouthwatering meat!! I looked over frozen and snow covered rooves and I munched on my birthday steak.

I flew home on the 7th of January and that has to be one of the most incredalble, untenable nad outlandish experience of my life.

It is not a reccomendation, it's a Must.

Here's a useful like to the official site, have a look
http://www.city.iqaluit.nu.ca/ 

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