Little Over Night

Well I decided to write about my nice little over night trip this weekend, since I missed writing about my last two trips - whoops.

Yesterday four of us headed out overland to Berry Hill to spend the night at the Ski Club's wall tent. 

We really lucked out, on saturday night it was a balmy -22c but when we finally headed out on Sunday morning it had warmed to -10c! and only got warmer. I don't think it got below -7c today actually. 

The walk was really nice, I wasn't sure what to expect as I have never gone overland from Vee Lake before... but there was a road from Vee Lake to the abandoned Ryan Mine, followed by a well used (to my surprise!) quad trail the rest of the way to Berry Hill. We contemplated walking over the lakes, I had been skating on Frame Lake on Wednesday.... good thing Daniel talked us out of it as the ice at Banting was only two to three inches max, creaked and cracked when we stood on it.

The tent frame was just great and we got it super warm! Took us about three hours to get there, we managed to cut wood, get water and heat the tent up within an hour then spent the rest of our day light target shooting. Great fun.
The night consisted of eating, playing various card games, including an Ontario vs. NWT cribbage tournament - NWT lost to Ontario like in most match-ups - and setting off our Chinese lanterns. 

The lanterns made for a fun time, it was super windy last night so lighting them was an adventure. Trying to find a non windy location was impossible, lighting them inside seemed logical. 

And it was, until we needed to get them outside... they either blew into the trees, back toward the tent or just engulfed themselves in flames. Right before all of us settling in for the night Daniel and Blair went to get water and came back with a massive Giant Water Bug that Daniel accidentally scooped out of the water hole. It was massive! We spotted swim by the next day too. 

Woke up to the sound of the ice freezing. Most interesting sound, a warping noise like when a saw is wiggled. It sounded like things were flying over the tent, mixed with deep growling noises.
We took our time leaving, playing frisbee down the trail, but with a goal of making it back to the truck before 4:30 when we loose the light. 

Great trip, but I wish I had dragged corona off with us. 

Iqaluit long weekend

For August long weekend I treated myself with an aeroplan adventure to Iqaluit.
What better way than to use up my aeroplan point which were expiring (recent changes to the programme no longer allow for the expiration of points... ). It's really quite a deal. While nearly impossible to get decent trips out of YK south, the north is your oyster as both Canadian North and First Air qualify for redemptions! I cashed in my 25,000 points and flew over to Iqaluit.

The reason you might ask, as everyone else and their dog has been, was to visit cousins and my newly minted cousins, harass my anaana for sewing tips and just wander the tundra is all its summer splendour. Something I haven't experienced since I was... five!

Went over on Friday and visited cousins. Wandered around Saturday in the terrible weather then had supper with my cousins Thomas and James and got to meet their new babies!

Sooo adorable. I told Thomas spending the weekend with is panik  was really making me want one. Eep! Baby fever. Oddly enough that ended on Sunday night when I spent the evening with James's older panik Jane and Allison's panik Veda. So many questions! Fun none the less :)

Sunday was actually a fantastic day. Went out to Sylvia Grinnell park for the day to wander around. Beautiful. Not to mention the weather was gorgeous as well. Hiked as far as my converse shoes would allow (I couldn't find my hikers, need to find them before next week!) Made my way back along the river out to the coast where I met up with Thomas at their tent. James, Jane and Aunt Jukeepa came out and went fishing for Char.

The tide was on its way in, James explained that was a bad time for fish - hence why none were caught by any one out there! So we dined on s'mores and hot dogs.

Went back into town and meet up with my anaana Meeka and John from YK. It was great to catch up! He's my newest hook up for passes east ;) 

Today I spent all day with Meeka sewing. 

I loved it. If only she came here more, or better yet, I went there more! She helped me figure out why my kammik weren't working, gave me a little scolding for them being Western style instead of Baffin style, before acknowledging that in fact I do live in the West. She also drew me out some patterns for mittens. Ah new projects for the winter! 

The day ended with Nathaniel and Braeden taking me to the aeroport to return home - where it's been over 20c! Ahhhhh! I could have got a tan! But... visiting was much more worth it :)

Pensive Lake Wilderness Tour

This past long weekend I headed out on the Pensive Lake Wilderness Tour with Daniel, a bunch of his friends and Kelly and her friend Jill - total of eight paddlers split between three canoes and two kayaks.

This had been a week in the planning, and all started to fall apart on Thursday night when people began to bail, leading to the invitation of other, and then even more so on Friday night when two key people were forced to bail at the utter last minute. Still, we forged on and met out at Tibbett Lake early Saturday morning! 

The first day of the trip was a scorcher, probably close to 26c out. Definitely was in the 20s when we left that morning at 8! We set off from Tibbett Lake and crossed Goop Lake (waist high goop at the shore) on to Upper Terry Lake where we stopped for a snack break and a swim - best idea ever. It was sooo nice and this is really where we actually all interacted and met each other in the group - Blair, Daniel, Garish, Jill, Jocelyn, Julian and Kelly - and swam in the unbelievably warm water! It was also after this stop that I realised my paddling partner had never steered a canoe before, and wouldn't let me.
We continued along with a bunch of tiny portages on to Saunders Lake where we stopped for lunch. Almost as bad as Garish portaging bottles of wine in!
This was a really long and narrow lake, and I dont know if Julian was genuinely offering to let me kayak, or if he was trying to commandeer the canoe to get some straight paddling on the go. Either way, he offered to let me try his kayak after. Super exciting. I had only kayaked once before - sea kayaking at field school in Fleur de Lys. Jocelyne said I looked like a natural, it was so fast, and I really enjoyed it. Sort of confirmed my desire to rent a kayak in the future! The only trade off was that I had to then portage the kayak, which he had full of beer.

The rest of the portages from here onto the Ross River were small, or we skipped completely with lining up the little portions. It was like wading in bath water while we went up river. 

We made it to Ross Lake after 28km of paddling/portaging and found ourselves a little island where we set camp. We spent the night swimming, dining and enjoying wine. Daniel and I smartly brought it in platypus/wine bags, though Kelly didn't agree, she thought bringing wine to begin with was a ridiculously useless thing to portage. Meh. Watched the sun set and headed for bed. 

The next morning started off with a swim and it was another glorious day! Jocelyne paddled with me and we decided all we wanted to do was float with our feet in the water! That didn't fly, and we held the group up quite a bit (but not really, we had all day!)

We portaged over to Pensive Lake - one unbelievably hard, the other super easy because it was the winter road.

Once on Pensive I kayaked for a bit, we stopped for a break in the sun. Daniel and Garish caught some fish and we all relaxed. Here the winds picked up and we ended up paddling into the wind for the remainder of the lake. HARD WORK!

We camped at the head of the Cameron River on Sunday night and became engulfed in smoke! It looked pretty cool. We camped at a place where I am certain is a potential archaeological site. Mind you we didn't see anything on the surface like tent rings... but it's location and the fact that it was cleared just jumped at me. That night we enjoyed gin and tea courtesy of Jocelyne, which made for a late night. A litte too late for Jill and Kelly, I got up at 9:30 to see them setting off down the river. We were down to six. 

Our group didn't set off until around noon, and with them gone, meant I had to paddle with Garish still, who wasn't letting me steer yet. This is where I got worried. The rest of the day was white water. Him never steering before, let alone doing white water in a canoe, and me never doing white water before. We made for the worst couple ever and got stuck in the first major rapids. This scared me for the remaining ones after we had to be rescued by Daniel and Julian, lost our paddle and almost the canoe. Unfortunately the experience didn't deter Garish even though I was only using half of an extra kayak paddle, I had to plead with him to portage other rapids, which I only won out on one set. I was so scared he would not line up and we'd get stuck/flip again. 

But we made it out alive, our casualty list was my paddle, knee pad/chair, camera and Garish's phone and packsack which had its straps cut so Daniel could lighten the canoe to get it out. 

It was a fantastic weekend, so much sun, amazing weather, and just to be out in the city was magnificent! We paddled/portaged of 60km and I can't wait until Daniel plans the next trip :D

Reunions

Well I have been on two weekend get aways in the past month. Both were a sort of reunion.

I spent May Long in Calgary, reunited with my two housemates from when I lived in St. John's. They both are now living in Alberta (surprise?) and so we finally got our acts together for a meet up!

It was pretty much what you would expect as an "East Coast Reunion", copious amounts of fun!
I flew in from here, Jess and her BF drove down from Ft. Mac, Ashley is living in Calgary, plus their friends Trisha in Calgary and Meghan who flew in from Halifax.

We initially had grand plans of hitting up the mountains, but sadly that fell through, and we were stuck in Calgary :( We made due. And really, the whole trip was to hang out with each other, which we could obviously do anywhere. Plus the weather wasn't the greatest (that is my excuse to get over missing the mountains). And the one thing I could take away from the weekend - nothings changed! Hahah those girls are a riot.

Reluctantly I returned North, only to have fantastic weather. It's always a let down to go South and then it be nicer here. One of the biggest issues I have with travelling in the summer - it makes up for our ghastly winters.

This past weekend I went on a whirl wind trip to Vancouver. My friend Peter (and old neighbour) got married this weekend! I headed down on Friday for a day of shopping, and the big city experience of getting my nails done. My past three trips South have included getting my nails done. 
When I got downtown it was this awful mist, but not quite rain. Thankfully after lunch and my nails it cleared off to a sunny evening. Walked along the seawall and tried the delicacies only found in cities: fine dining combined with foods not available at home.

Met up with my parents for drinks and snacks of Oysters and stuffed yorkshire puddings. The former was great, the latter, meh.

Saturday morning was spent on Granville Island in the shops, took an aqua bus back across then out for a Korean BBQ. It was good, but I have had better, and am a little disappointed it wasn't what I was expecting as my parents had never experience on before. It could have also been whenever I've had them before, it was with others who ordered for us... it was still satisfying.

The wedding was over on the UBC Campus, in a beautiful park area. The sun was hot, really it couldn't have been any nicer. Cheryl was ecstatic throughout the ceremony, and really the whole night!
Met some really cool people - they are both doctors, so there were some interesting specialist there, and Peter's undergrad was in engineering, so they added some flare to the group. Hahah, every engineer I have met since finishing school fits the stereotype.

Partied until the wedding was over and we had to leave. I had wanted to go to the Museum of Anthropology on Sunday morning, but that didn't happen. I didn't get out of bed until 10... and was really not feeling it anymore. Serves me right. I think it was worth it though.

That ended my whirl wind trip as I flew home that late afternoon.... almost solstice time! Landing at home at 11 and the sun was still high in the sky!

My next trip will be out to Jean Marie for 10 or so days for work. The bugs better be under control this summer! That or not one day of rain. I think I would actually take the bugs over rain... then off to Iqaluit for a weekend, followed by another 10 or so days of field work.

Hooray for summer!

Worlds recap

Well... skating withdraw has begun. I am so saddened that this week is over :(
This was an amazing week, I am so happy I decided to do this... all in all it was well worth the cost.

Definitely lucked out that I had a place to stay so I didn't need to pay for that or for most of my meals. I would love to go to another event like this - be it the Skate Canada, Skate America or worlds again. Nationals next year could be cool considering it's a big anniversary year in Ottawa. But staying in Ottawa would mean I have to actually pay for a place to stay, mind you the tickets would be considerably cheaper.

Yesterday, Lisa and Nicole brought back our tickets, all full of skaters autographs! Now I feel bad not getting Kurt Browning's, Mao Asada's or Liz Manley's to fill out the book. Shoot. That afternoon we headed back to the arena for the Champion's Gala. Super cool. All the winners came and stood in the audience, the bronze medalists were all next to us in the aisle. Hah I dont know if I have ever been so "star struck" before.

Kirsten and Dylan

The gala ( I think you can stream it on CBC)was so much fun, there were serious skates and fun skates like Javier Fernandez's and Moore-Towers and Moscovitch. Patrick Chan's was appropriately done with a hat.
One thing that stood out to me was that all the Canadian's except Andrei Rogozine didn't skate even though he placed higher overal than Gilles and Poirier. Don't get me wrong, Gilles and Poirier are delightful to watch! I just was curious how all the Canadians except him.
No matter, just an observation.
At the end Scott and Tessa thanked everyone for coming, and all the volunteers for their hard work. I thought that was really nice. After they all skated around and high fived and autographed the audience. If I was younger, I would have been right up there! But, meh. I might regret it later... but right now I'm not concerned.

All the champions!

Heading home today, sat next to a really nice lady on the flight from London, she was a coach for 33 years and had been asked to come coach in Yellowknife with a bonus isolation pay. She said she came up for a week during caribou carnival to check it out... but decided there was no way she could live there. hahaha. Now my flight to Edmonton is delayed, so I am sorting through the thousands of photos I took :)

Until my next trip - Wexford St. reunion in Calgary!

Last day of worlds :(

Hometown hero Kaetlyn Osmond

After the high of yesterday, I slept in this morning! Granted, the skating also started at a later time today.
I wanted to watch the women skate their practice sessions this morning because I gifted the tickets for the finals tonight to my cousin and her young daughter who is just starting to skate herself.
So, I really wanted to go this morning to see Yuna Kim, Kaetlyn Osmond, the three Japanese girls and the wildcards. The practice was everything I was hoping it to be, plus no one was in the front row!

We showed up when the ice dancers were still practicing so I went and snagged the first row seat in our section to watch Weaver and Poje finish the programme. Then came Virtue and Moir, Davis and White, and Pechalat and Bourzat! Watching in the front row was even more amazing  though I admit, ice dancing needs to be watched from afar to get the full affect. Sure it was grand to be right next to these amazing skaters - I could have high fived each other them when they passed by. The dances were fantastic, considering it was just practice.

The ladies practice was good, and the Italians skates were a thrill to see... if I was landing triples and made of money, hers are the skates I would have.
Watching Yuna, Mao Kanako and Carolina was great... and I am not a huge fan of the ladies skating... but the practice sure brought me over to their side. I will definitely following them leading up to the Olympics.

We had a little break between the practices and the beginning of the ice dance competition. The comments from the crowd around was was a litte more subdued, though still entirely on the negative side. Gilles and Poirier were doing supurb until there was a stumble in their twizzles :( They are so much fun to watch!

Weaver and Poje :)

Followed by Weaver and Poje, who also just had a great performance, mind you I heart their short dance, sooo much more than this long.
Virtue and Moir skated, phenomenal. Davis and White, phenomenal.
Sadly, the falter on Thursday prevented Virtue and Moir from being able to move into first, totally understandable though, the only real way would have been if Davis and White messed up.
I would like to add through how I HATE that the media is trying to make a big rivalry between the two teams. They train together all the time and are friends. Get over it.

Welcome to the ice!!

After we handed off the tickets to Lisa and Nicole at the Skate Canada tent, Kevin Reynolds, Duhamel and Radford and Moore-Towers and Moscovitch showed up for an autograph session, so not only did they get tickets to skating, but they also got all the autographs :) Mum and I stayed for a couple drinks there, but it wasn't what we expected. We thought we could watch it live there with commentary (which we were so dearly missing) and instead were treated to traditional Chinese dancing with the screens muted in the background. We decided then to go back to my Aunt and Uncles to watch in the comfort in a house, with wine, cookies and commentaries :)
Super impressed Yuna Kim pulled off the win, but not entirely surprised... more so surprised by how amazing Canada did in earning herself a top 10 finish at her first worlds and Canada achieving 2 spots at the Olympics!  If only nationals was in Western Canada next year... I'd definitely hit it up!

Two medals

Well yesterday was just insane.
In the morning we went to the rink early enough to catch the last flight of men practicing - super cool. Everyone warming up their quads and routine run throughs. It was sure getting us eager to see them skate that night.

The first event was the pairs finals. Such energy! The Canadians blew me away. They were grand. Sadly it's all sort of a blur. I cannot really remember what happened - other than I was thoroughly in awe of Moore-Towers and Moscovitch and Duhamel and Radford when they skated.
Then came the defending Germans who fell and poped their jumps.

World Champions triple twist

Wow. The crowd around us (myself included) was convinced that Radford and Duhamel had it. Not so, apparently the technical levels were higher for Savchenko and Szolkowy... the judges got booed quite loudly.

Interestingly enough, everything the judges score is immediately online after they are announced so the lady next to us would pull it up on her phone and tell everyone in our area what the downgrades were and why they were scored the way they were.

The last pair was fabulous, minus the trip after the throw schow. And they rightly won! It was fantastic.   And their reactions were just as great to watch! Duhamel and Radford came third! Some would ask why they came third... and would question the judging. I however, am over it.

We finally left the arena for the break between events. Before we hadn't had enough time to leave, and mum found a restaurant review in the county museum that peaked in her interest. Seems that place was super swanky as all the big wigs from US Skate were there for lunch, as well as Toller Cranston. We met up with Uncle Ron and Aunt Maureen at the Skate Canada tent. Seeing it convinced us that's where we should watch the ladies tonight - I donated our tickets to my cousin and her daughter for the Ladies finals tomorrow. I don't follow the ladies enough and both of them are involved in skating... perfect match. The daughter is who we gave our practice tickets to on Tuesday.

We went back into the rink for the men's finals. What a night. We were surrounded by former competitive skaters,  data specialists and other experts who provided their "expertise" comments - what was done, what level they were at, whether they were nice people, blah blah blah. Actually I wanted to ask the girl behind us to zip it because she was being so negative. No matter how well someone skated, she had something to say. Javier, Denis, Yuzuru, Misha, don't even get me started on their criticisms of  Aaron, Chan and Joubert. They all had personal vendettas against Joubert.

Kevin Reynolds entering the ice

The skating was great to watch, and Max Aaron, despite his lack of footwork (when he gets that I think he'll be a great skater) was thrilling! I loved his "clean hit"call in the kiss and cry after he hit the boards. Then Patrick took to the ice. The arena roared! Then he fell, and fell again, and the arena went silent and the energy was sucked out of the place. Honestly, I thought he was done. His astronomical score in the short saved him. And had Denis Ten not doubled his triple flip he would have passed Chan. Not taking anything away from either of them... but Ten's performance was just so entertaining! But, being the great Canadian that I am, I am thrilled Chan won his third championship.

Worlds Comp Day 1

Holy. 

I cannot even begin to explain the overwhelming impressiveness of watching today. Watching live is such a different experience... than any skating I've ever seen. Practices the last couple days were unreal... but competition days! Oh my'lanta.

The energy in the rink when the Canadians skated was amazing.

The warm up session of the last two flights of men were just a billon quads, which are so flippin cool in person, especially right in front of you. Then Patrick Chan had to go and skate a near perfect short program and get 98 points! What!
The crowd was insane. What will tomorrow hold with Tessa and Scott skating?
It was just so intense that I am just going to post photos.

Oh and the opening ceremonies were neat, they had precession teams preform. It made me really miss syncro...

World Figure Skating Championships

So, big trip of 2013 - World Figure Skating Championship in London.
I bought tickets to this a year ago and forked over big money. There was no way I was letting going to Worlds pass me by this year with such great talent! Top ranking Canadians in every category... eons since thats been the case. I have a place to stay and company to go with... so why wouldnt I go, right?
To make it even more enjoyable, I spent the past weekend with Jane and Eric before coming here. Very relaxing, a nice change from -30... and as always, great foods :)
Arrived in London yesterday and went straight into the arena - walking in to hear Kevin Reynolds short programme (love the music!) over the speakers. No way. Made out way to the ice to see Kevin, Patrick Chan and Max Aaron (also like his music).
I was sooo excited to make it to see them, totally unplanned as well. Mum and I then decided to scope out our seats for the rest of the week, I knew they were in a corner section of the lower bowl, but that was it because I didn't get to pick them, they were assigned. We started walking up the stairs and realised the alphabet was going the other direction... turns out we are in the 3rd freakin row!!!! Seriously. I cannot even being to explain how elated I am.

Duhamel/Radford twist lift

We spent the next few hours there ooohing and aaahing over the men's and ice dancing competetors, though exhaustion won over and we left early... also because word around the rink was none of the Canadians or Davis/White would be be practicing that night - I was really excited to see Gilles/Poirier. But we did see Tomas Verner, Brian Joubert and Plutawska/Gerber who I thoroughly enjoy.

Savchenko/Szolkowy death spiral

This morning I gave our tickets to my young cousin and her best friend to spend the day there while mum and I were off scoping out this house that they are eyeing up for a potential relocation down south. Beautiful house, in Woodstock? I find it an odd location, but great house! Once that was over with, we headed back to the rink to swap tickets with my cousin.
Perfect timing again! We showed up just as Canadian super stars Duhamel/Radford and Moore-Towers/Moscovitch took to the ice.
Wow.
Watching skating in person dosent compare to tv (mind you the commentary is great and seeing different angles is grand). Being right next to skaters landing triples is amazing. Let alone watching them do throwing jumps and twist!

Mao Asada entering triple axel

The Germans came up next and.... ahhh just amazing.
Our night ended after watching Kaetlyn Osmond, the American and Japanese women.
So far, after two half days of practices.... the tickets have paid for themselves in experience alone. I cannot wait until competition commences tomorrow - Pair's and Men's short programmes. Eep!

NWT Road Trip

Well, it's been forever since I wrote... I haven't really travelled since coming back from Finland (which I never wrote about - whoops).
And I have  travelled, I was in St. Thomas for a week right before Christmas followed by a weekend in Calgary to see Blue Rodeo.

Anyways, Patrick's home for a week and mum has been on for a while about driving up to Whatì... so we decided to go! I took off yesterday, we packed up the truck with lunch and snacks, gassed up and off we went! We made it to Edzo and turn off to the winter road. When we scoped out the DOT website, the road was open only as far as Whatì, that's where we planned to go but the sign at the turn off indicated that the road to Gamètì was now open... the first part of the road was in great condition so once we reached the junction, the decision was easy to continue the 120km north to Gamètì and add another NWT community to my list!

Just after the junction we stopped for our picnic lunch and were so intrigued by the lack of wildlife on the way. Really. We saw a grouse just after Marian Lake and that was it. Luckily us bringing that up must have convinced the animals to come out cause then we saw a bushy little red fox!

The way to north was much different than around here - really hilly! Not mountains by any means, but not flat either like the drive to Providence. I'll have to ask Tom about the storys around there. Ton of massive boulders too! I'm sure there are some great Giant Beaver explanations for them.

We reached Gamètì around mid afternoon. (We had stopped a lot for photos and to change drivers), drove around the community, then headed back to make it to Whatì so Patrick and mum could add that to their list.

Sadly by the time we made it there it was dark :( so they couldn't see how pretty it is - I think Whatì is a wonderful little place after my week there.

All in all it wasn't an exciting trip to go on and on about, but it was a nice way to spend the day, and show Patrick some NWT he's so greatly missed out on. Plus I am now at 19 NWT communities. Whoo!