Barry and Victoria Head North

Right now our dining room table is full of audio cables, mikes, minidisk recorder, camera, laptop ... guess this is going to be our office for the week.

George, the person who hired us, came over last night for a visit. We talked for three hours, mostly about the town. George is formerly from Toronto and has lived in the north. His wife, Madeline, is Inuk, and they have three children. We met Madeline too – she gave George a ride over on their ATV – that’s the main way they get around town. Madeline has offered to let us use it too. Very nice of her—I hope we can take her up on it.

I think we have a slightly better sense of the community now, after talking to George. I think life up here is complicated and simple at the same time. Lots of problems, yes, but lots of possibilities too.

Sunday afternoon

The scope of the work here is getting clearer. We had a good idea what was going to be involved before we got here, but only in a very general sense. You never really assess what is going to be needed in a job until you actually get here and talk first hand (extensively) to the people you’re working with.

We spent the afternoon doing a tour of the town and then ending up at the radio station. They have a nice building with a decent amount of space. It appears that our first task tomorrow is going to be setting up their production studio. So we are now back at our little home away from home, drinking our last beer, eating overpriced chips (3.99 here, 2.49 back home), and reading equipment manuals. They have some really nice looking gear which I’m sure will sound as good as it looks.

So far, it looks to me that what they have are bits and pieces of a radio station. They have a sense of what they want it to sound like, but they need some help putting it all together. So part of the job will also be to go around town and talk to potential groups and people who might use the radio station (e. Youth groups, heritage councils, people at the local health centre, figuring out ways the high school can incorporate radio into its curriculum). The overall goal is to help the radio station group figure out how to best use the station to address community needs. Lots of possibilities for youth programming – most of the population of Cambridge Bay is under 24, and unlike a lot of other remote communities, they tend to stay here.

That’s really exciting. The “radio as entertainment” model that we see down south is far less interesting than the “radio as community development” model that can be developed up here. Down south, a radio station is just another radio station. Here it could be an essential service if developed with those ends in mind.

I can hear a lot of possibilities.

In general terms, I am having a really good time. There is so much space and so much clean air to breathe. I am feeling really mellow, which is a big accomplishment for me. I’ve been sleeping more in the last 24 hours than I have all month.

We’ve learned a few useful things – like, when you go for a walk you should figure out which way the wind is blowing so you can be upwind of the ATVs and trucks on the gravel road. If not, it can be dusty (no pavement). The other thing I learned is that we should have brought even more groceries with us. And I’ve learned that time is not as precise as it is down south. I can be ten minutes late and it’s no big deal. And the pace is much slower and less frantic.

Tonight I want to go out and see if we can see the northern lights. I also want to walk down by the water and just listen to the waves. Yesterday I went down to the bay and found some bleached white bones of either a caribou or a musk ox. The most interesting ones are now in the middle of the coffee table. They will find a home in my garden somewhere back home, along with some rocks that I’ll pick up. So even though we won’t be weighted down with groceries, we’ll likely be traveling as heavy if I bring home a suitcase of rocks. There are some really beautiful ones here, but I guess I should restrain myself.

Sunday Evening

Barry: Here are some pictures of our home in the Green Row Executive Suites. The place really is very nice.

Cambridge Bay has no paved roads, just dirt and gravel, but they were working hard this morning to grade them and fill potholes. Nearly everyone in town runs a around on four-wheelers, sometimes with two parents and two kids all riding together. In another month or so the ATVs will be packed away, and the snowmobiles will come out.

Across the street is a bicycle that a kid left sometime yesterday. Lots of other kids have stopped to look it over, but no-one has taken it. I'm sure that the owner will appear tomorrow and pick it up!

Every house seems to have a satellite dish for TV, except that this far north the dishes are nearly four feet wide. The other thing I see is that they don't point up to the sky - they point due south, to the satellite which is thousands of miles below us on the equator.

Oo whee, it’s cold out there. (If you could hear me, you’d be hearing the sound of me blowing hot air on my hands to warm them up and exhaling loudly while I watch the steam from my breath.)

It’s rainy, but cold enough that it’s almost snow. I am really glad I brought my fuzzy winter coat with me because I sure need it. Time to sit down with a hot cup of tea and enjoy being inside where it’s warm.

This morning, we set up the new production gear in the station. Other than having to have some cables air freighted from Edmonton, it’s coming together really well. I also got a chance to talk to Anthony Otokiak , their on air person. I think we’re going to have quite a few chats this week. Anthony is 25 years old and can’t see. When George told me that their staff person was blind, I was wondering how it all worked. I was very surprised – Anthony knows exactly where each of his CDs is, and he knows exactly which buttons he needs to push to get them out over the air.

Another priority for this week is to get together with other people in the community to talk to them about the station and find new people who want to get involved. What is evolving is an “asset mapping” kind of approach – we help the radio folks figure out where the resources are in the community that they can use. It will be a great opportunity to meet a lot of people in the community and really get the inside story on what this community is about and what makes it tick.

I like to think that our role when we go into a community, is to help them discover their own collective voice. Or, if they’ve already found it, help them deepen it to find new resonances, new ideas and new ways of expressing who they are and why.

Tomorrow, we have been invited to talk to the teachers at the high school about radio. We have also offered to come in and talk to a high school class or two. I was really impressed with what I saw at the school. Brand new building, computers all over the place, happy kids. And they call their teachers by their first names. Way cool. One of the reasons I never wanted to be a teacher is that I cannot endure being called Miss, Ms. or Mrs. Anything.

Despite the cold, I think we are going to have to venture out one more time tonight. We have been told that “The Barge” is in. I have to see this. The Barge (from NTCL) arrives in early September with all the major supplies for the winter. It’s huge, they say, and has everything from cans of soup to building supplies and even cars. It’s a lot cheaper to get stuff by barge than by plane. But they say it also requires a lot of organizational skills – the order has to be placed by early July, otherwise you’ve literally missed the boat. The barge carries supplies for a whole bunch of northern communities. I think I really have to find the barge operator and talk to him about his trip. Guess I’d better do that tomorrow since it only stays for two or three days.

Over and out.

Lots of things jump out at you when you're in a new place. Today it was all about transportation. Mostly up here you see - and hear - ATVs going everywhere. They make a lot of sense - small, tough, and can handle everyday tasks.

Walking down to the harbour yesterday we saw two wooden sleds, probably not much different than would have been used up here a hundred years ago. Then, a half a block further down the road we saw a sure sign that winter is coming - a shipment of Polaris snowmobiles, still all crated up from the barge ride.

Cambridge Bay has no physical connection to any other place. There are no roads to other places, no trains, and no wires of any sort.

In Cambridge Bay all of the electricity comes from the town generator - there are no hydro wires running to a dam or nuclear plant. And of course because there's no pipeline to Cambridge Bay, the diesel fuel for the generator also is hauled north by barge. While we were at the dock, we saw one of the reasons why the barge will be here for three days - a six inch pipe that is being used to pump enough diesel, gasoline, and I think heating oil to last until spring breakup. That's sometime around June or July. Even so, there are times when the dozen or so large storage tanks get close to running dry. That's when a specially equipped Hercules jet flies in with an emergency load of fuel.

All telephone and Internet goes though satellite dishes in town. TV of course is either from dishes outside or from cable. You don't see regular TV antennas because there's no signal within hundreds of miles.

When you look outside of town you realize that aside from wildlife there is nothing but rocks and water. No trees, no grass to speak of, none of the materials that we're used to having down south.

That means that if you want to build a house, all of the materials have to be hauled up from down south. If you want to heat that house, you rely on power or heating fuel that is hauled from down south.

It goes on and on - all food, furniture, tools, parts... anything that you might think of as routine... has to come from down south.

That means one of two things - either you plan carefully ahead and have it shipped up on the barge, or you spend a lot of money bringing it up by plane. All of this more or less adds a dollar a pound to the cost of anything that you need to buy. On a bag of potato chips that's not too bad. On laundry soap or potatoes the prices get big enough to frighten any southerner.

Here's a bill for a jug of milk, a tub of cream cheese, some soap and postcards.

So, if you're from the south you have to try and imagine this: every single thing that you buy depends on shipping from a long ways away. Everything - cars, snowmobiles, food, gist wrap, videos....

That's why when we heard that the barge had come in this week we knew that we had to go see it. Without the barge this town wouldn't be here, or at least it would be a lot smaller.

We headed out in late afternoon, walking through cold and wet wind towards the dock. We came around the corner and saw this most amazing thing - a giant tug boat with two barges.

The barges actually make three trips each summer - that's about between July and September - and that's when anything too big or heavy to fly in has to be delivered.

We walked over closer to see what was on board (I think that most of the local containers had been pulled off already). Most of the remaining cargo was for other towns farther up the way.

We saw heating oil tanks roped off on top of dozens of wooden crates. Actually you see those crates - some as big as houses - all over the place since that seems to be how most large shipments are delivered.

That's not surprising I guess. Down south everything travels inside semi-trailers or rail cars, so you don't really need to protect stuff to much. When it's going to spend days or weeks on a barge in the Arctic Ocean you need to plan a lot more carefully.

The other thing that arrives by barge are cars and trucks. Well, I guess it's accurate to say trucks and ATVS, since (despite legend) there seem to be no passenger cars.

Sure enough, lined up across one end of the barge were a group of new vehicles heading somewhere north.

If you look you'll see that one of these is a tanker truck. Probably because of permafrost as much as anything, Cambridge Bay doesn't have the kind of sewer system that you have most places. Instead there is fleet of tanker trucks that circulate through town emptying septic tanks at homes and businesses and hauling the waste out of town where it is spread and allowed to biodegrade naturally.

Somehow, even though people in Cambridge Bay seem to have the same lifestyle as people down south - washers, dryers, big screen TVs - I feel that it must make some difference that you have to take the time to plan for big purchases. I think that's good.

I'm wrapping up today's log with a picture taken this afternoon down at the water's edge. It's cold, and dark, and incredibly beautiful.