Of Arctic adventures
So, I'm back.

I had a fun trip. It meant that work has backed up like no one's business, and I'm ridiculously behind, and have worked extra hours many days - I've been in the office for 5 hours the last two Saturdays, on Tuesday I worked from 7 a.m. to 6:30 p.m... Hence the no blogging. I escaped early today to go to a Dr's appointment. It was pretty exciting. No, I'm serious. I left work ON TIME. I haven't done that since before Christmas, I don't think.

Anywho, the Arctic was pretty nifty. I don't think I could spend any length of time up there. Well, maybe Yellowknife, but not Iqaluit. When we got off the plane and went into Iqaluit, it was so cold, so isolated, so desolate... I looked out my hotel window and was about ready to cry for a bit. But I got over it. The office was small and cute, the people friendly, and the culture amazing. In the airport in Rankin inlet, you saw women carrying their children in the oversized hoods of their beautifully embroidered parkas...

But I leave you with some photos...

Interior of Bullock's Bistro in Yellowknife. A teensy place with seating for maybe a couple dozen people. Great, locally caught fish, though.

Iqaluit from the hotel window. Or at least part of Iqaluit from the hotel window. For a town of 6000 people, it seems to sprawl all over.


Fresh fruit and veg are flown in - there's not enough sunlight in the winter to even greenhouse it, and the cost would be prohibitive. So you get $27.29 jalapeno peppers instead.


View out the window from the office. Showing a raven and a typically dressed Iqaluitian. :)
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Of Performances
08Feb09

So one of the programs I manage at work requires that our department give information sessions to potential stakeholders at least once in each federal electoral constituency. Which is fine, you'd think. We've got staff everywhere, right?

Except this program is centralized here where I live and we cover all of AB, the Northwest Territories, and Nunavut. Staff in those locations aren't up to speed on the program and don't feel comfortable giving information sessions, which necessitates someone from my shop going out and delivering the sessions. And to top it all off, they need to deliver these sessions in both official languages. The nominee to deliver them all? Me. I literally have no one else.

Not too worried about the English Sessions, but the French ones have me a bit worried - it's been forever since I've used my French in any sort of public setting.

So I'll be taking off and travelling all over AB/NT/NU for the next week or so - here's the schedule:

10Feb09 - Fly up to Yellowknife. Deliver information sessions in the afternoon.
11Feb09 - Fly from Yellowknife to Iqaluit.
12Feb09 - Deliver info sessions in Iqaluit.
13Feb09 - Fly from Iqaluit to Ottawa, Ottawa to Calgary (yes, that's the shortest and most direct way to get from Iqaluit back out here to Alberta).
14-15Feb09 - spend the weekend in Calgary with the boy (yay!)
16Feb09 - Deliver info sessions in Calgary, have lunch with a former coworker (yay!)
17Feb09 - Deliver info session in a small town outside Calgary, fly home.

Not going to lie, I'm pretty excited to see Yellowknife and Iqaluit. I mean, they're not exactly your average tourist destination. It'll be pretty nifty to put those pins in the map, and to say that I was in Iqaluit in February. I'm just hoping it's not -47 degrees up there while I'm there, the way it was a couple of weeks ago when a coworker emailed me from there. So far the weather forecast is showing only about -25 or so, so I'm ok with that. After all, that's what we really should be having around here at this time of year, not these crazy +3 temperatures (not that I'm complaining, really).

I'll try and take photos, but this is a working trip - not sure how much I'll manage to see.