MV Gjoa: Parade and Bazaar

Wednesday, December 3, 2014.

The sun left a couple of days ago and won't appear above the horizon again until January 11. We have a few hours of twilight around midday now and this serves to give some structure to the day. Temperatures are continuing to drop and are currently averaging around -28C. The absence of the sun means that there is very little variation in the temperature throughout the 'day' and night. Even a short trip to the shops means putting on full winter regalia. We'd brought our ski wear aboard Gjoa, but, even with multiple layers of fleece and down it was still a challenge keeping the cold out. Luckily, we've made some new friends who have loaned us proper winter parkas and this has made all the difference.

Shot at 12 noon, this is as bright as it gets now....

The very large hood with fur trim is the key as it keeps the wind and blowing snow off your face. We are totally opposed to using fur for frivolous or fashionable purposes, However, in this environment, it is fit for purpose and nothing else will do the job as well. The parkas are 'Canada Goose' brand, but, these older, heavy-duty models are nothing like the popular, slimmed-down, expensive ($800) fashion versions being sold in the stores now.

Last week, there was another outage of the town's power supply and there were rotating blackouts for about eight hours. We were the only people in town with lights and heat as we are still running on our own generator power aboard our tugboat home. At one point our generator did stop generating power even though it continued to run. We never found the cause, but, were able to get it going again. Relying on generators is a continuing worry that we're just going to have to live with. If we do totally lose power, there is a company in town that should be able to rig us up with some large standalone heaters. These will probably only keep the boat just above freezing, but, enough to prevent any damage.

I think I previously mentioned that the ice had started to lean the tug over to port. The lean has been increasing and is now significant. Things are sliding off tables, the stove is not gimballed and oven cooking has become a bit of a challenge with everything coming out lopsided. Doors are hard to close and it's become an uphill climb from one side of the boat to the other. It took four tries to get over the rail and out of the bunk this morning (but better than leaning to starboard which would mean we'd have a hard time staying in!). As the ice is still moving, we're hoping that there will be some improvement in the situation. At least we're not heeled over and pounding into waves as well, a small mercy.

This past Saturday was a highlight as it was the date of the annual Cambridge Bay Santa Claus

Guess which way the freezing wind is blowing?

Parade. It was a bitterly cold day, with high winds, so, most of the parade viewing was done by people sitting in their pickup trucks with the heater on. There were a few diehards outside including those without a vehicle (us) and on the floats. It was a small parade, just three floats and the fire truck, but, the spirit was there and everybody piled into the community centre after the parade for a 'Coffee House' with all proceeds ($3,100 raised!) in aid of the Food Bank.The donated baked goods went quickly and we purchased a delicious homemade lemon meringue pie. We decided to pass on the candied Arctic Char though.