John says "I really hope all this stuff gets to from Ottawa to Iqaluit without a hitch."
by Tyler Fish
Location: Iqualuit, Nunavat, Canada
Audio blog: Pack up gear/food, airport, delay, Canadian North flight, cold welcome, horizontal snow, glad to be here
Audio transcript:
Hello, it's Tyler Fish calling in. It's February 12th. We woke up today at 5 am to pack everything up. We packed up our gear also all the food we purchased in Canada: bacon, pemican, butter, chocolate truffles that everybody loves to hear about. We weren't sure how would it all fit or if it would fit in all the bags we had with us. And we had to get the food out of the freezer, pack the food, weigh the bags with the doctor's office type scale that usually lives in the hotel gym. We had to get out the door, load up the van shuttle, gas up the rental car, get to the airport, unload the vehicles, roll into the airport and our flight was delayed!
Well, it seemed like hurry up and wait. We quickly saw and seized the opportunity. Calmly check our 16 pieces of luggage, bought a little breakfast at Tim Horton's which is kind of like the Canadian Dunkin' Donuts and returned to our hotel room not quite sure what to do. Should we nap? Should we get on the internet? Should we watch television? A little of each? Turned out there were plenty of things to keep us busy.
John says "I am so relived that all of our equipment arrived safely!!"
It was pretty nice to slow down, actually, to be forced to do that.
I think the hotel staff was pretty glad to see us, honestly. By this time most of them knew who we were, some were pretty excited about our journey and certainly more than a little thrilled that we are staging out of their own Holiday Inn Express.
We walked out on the tarmac under dripping gray sky...eventually. And we boarded our Canadian North Airplane. The plane ride was divided between work and a little bit of napping for me. Goodbye land; we watched Ontario and Quebec disappear below us and eventually into the darkness.
Tyler reads a book in Norwegian about a 2006 unsupported North Pole ski expedition. Frobisher bay is out the window.
The Canadian North plane is only half a passenger plane. The front part is for cargo going to Baffin Island and all points beyond. The Canadian North motto is, "Seriously Northern". Well we sat up by the door to cargo, the cargo compartment, and as we descended into Baffin our feet got colder. When we landed it was seriously northern outside. It was really windy. We could feel it as the plane tried to slow down after it landed. I felt the excitement in my body. It was really fun.
John and I walked out onto the tarmac and this time we were greeted by horizontal snow. It was really windy and felt cold. We're staying with friends tonight and we're really glad to be here, in the north!