This weather is not just changing for us ( or U.S.)  We have talked with people who have seen the changes in weather from the Equator and now to the Arctic.  Below are the links to two web pages which illustrate the changes in weather way up in the Arctic.  Even in their winter, LESS bitter cold weather brings them more snow than used to fall in this "Arctic desert."

 

 Effects of global warming clear in Canada Arctic - Planet Ark

http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=6428

 

AND

 

Arctic Heat Breaks Records in Nunavut | The Dominion

http://www.dominionpaper.ca/canadian_news/2003/08/08/arctic_hea.html

 

Back to Cambridge Bay, Nunavut.

(BEST SEEN FULL-SCREEN-SIZE)

 

Spelling correction:   The language of the Inuit is Inuinnaqtun.

The only three vowels are a, i, and u.  The "k" and the "q" are not

the same, and are spoken from different parts of the palate.

The Inuinnaqtun word for Cambridge Bay is Iqaluktuuttiaq which means,

“a lot of big fish.” It has been simplified to "Ikaluktutiak."
 

 

 

We started off exploring the town.  Not easy to get lost, because

Cambridge Bay (Ikaluktutiak) is pretty small.  I'm sure there is an "upscale" section

of town, but we didn't see it.  All the houses are pre-fab, with mildly sloping

roofs (not much snow, remember?)  The houses don't have many windows,

since half of the year it's dark a lot of the time and another third of the year

 they want it dark when they sleep.  And more windows will leak more heat

away.  We noticed that all of the houses have open space underneath.

That is because they are all built on permafrost - ground which is permanently

frozen year-round two feet down.  Building a house to the ground would enable the

heat from the house to eventually melt the permafrost. 

 

The Kiilinik High School is a very attractive building, only a few years old.  The younger grade

school is right next door.  Mark Blazis, a retired teacher, and I went in and visited with one

of the administrators and one of the students showed us around the building.  They are fully

connected to the Internet, and the town's public library is also in the building.

 

Cost of education, as well as all social services, is paid for by the Canadian Federal Government.

Great effort is being made to bring up the quality of the secondary education, but any students who are able to continue their education in the southern provinces of Canada find that their

education is not up to the standards required in the south.

 

 

 

Until recently, this was the building of the Nunavut Arctic College. Regretfully, I don't have

a photo of the new facility.  The college provides post-secondary education in teaching,

nursing, environmental studies, language and more equivalent to our junior colleges.

You can view the college at: http://nac.nu.ca/ . 

 

 

 

There are Arctic College locations all over Nunavut.  Students wishing to advance from there

would need to move to more southern provinces.

 

 

 

In every back  yard there sits one or more snowmobiles in various stages of repair/disrepair.  They are the

primary mode of travel for nine months of the year when the ground is frozen.  Sitting in front of

the snowmobile is transport which runs on meat not gasoline.  When I sat down next to him

he was eager for my attention and was very friendly.

 

 

 

The license plate says it all.

 

The Dewline (DISTANT EARLY WARNING SYSTEM) from the 1950's was intended to give the U.S. early radar

warning of invading Soviet bombers coming over the Arctic.  Ballistic missiles made much of the radar

system obsolete, but it is still fully operational in northern Canada.  American personnel and equipment

needs help the flow of money to keep people employed in the Arctic.

 

Back to our hotel and early to rise for our trip out to the cabin.

 

More soon,

 

Larry Reich