Today I was invited to dinner by one of the docs at her house. I think she hates me cuz I said something about Quebec French and how it's a "not evolved" version of France's French. That's not even my own opinion! I'm merely repeating what this guy from France said to me last month.This doc isn't even French!! She just likes speaking French, that's all. Anyway, I think she was being mean by reacting that way. She could have been a lot nicer but she absolutely was NOT. That was a really bad experience. I'm assigned to go to one of those 3 day expeditions with her too, so I'm really NOT looking forward to that now that I am in this predisposition.

Although it was a cold minus 42 celcius yesterday, we were all anxious to get out of the residence on Friday night. So we all headed off to the MacKenzie Hotel for some dinner.  A bunch of the girls shared the biggest plate of nachos I've ever seen, bruschetta, and spinach-artichoke dip. The food was really tasty, but we all had our jackets on cuz it was absolutely freezing in the restaurant! One of us checked the thermostat and it read 13.9 degrees celcius we couldn't believe it. We asked the waitress to turn up the heat and she said she couldn't but didn't explain why. Not able to withstand the cold any longer, when nobody was looking, one of us got up and increased the temperature of the thermostat. It didn't warm up even 20 minutes later, so I guess it was just too cold or the insulation in the restaurant really sucked. We decided to leave. That guy in the middle is an RCMP officer (equivalent to the American FBI agents). He was cool, even danced and sang a karaoke song with me! haha

Next stop was Jenn's house, for karaoke! I never had that much fun singing karaoke before. One of the nurses owned the karaoke machine and all the CDs. She had them organized so well I was a bit afraid to touch them. Her song selection was really fun too.

After warming up at Jenn's, we headed off to the infamous Trapper pub/bar downtown. They had the best music ever!! I never would have thought that listening to a fiddle in a bar would be cool, but it ended up being so much fun! All of us danced, and just had fun watching this little man strutting his stuff. Kind of reminded me of the music I heard in Newfoundland!

Labels: MacKenzie Hotel, Trapper

Today, I was on-call at the Emergency at the only hospital north of the Arctic Circle. 

Labels: frostbite

I was soo sad to leave my fiance yesterday. He is my most favourite fiance ever and I love him to bits! He knew I hated Vancouver for the trouble it gave me in the past. By this, I am referring to being stuck there for 4 days during 9-11, repeatedly being harassed by customs, and the fact that my fiance is M.I.A there. Anyway, I never thought I would say this about Vancouver but I really enjoyed my time there and wish I didn't have to leave. We didn't really do much, but I guess now I really understand it when people say that you can grow to love a place just for its people. In this case, my opinion changed for Vancouver because of my fiance. I can tell he tried so hard to make me enjoy myself there.. by renting a car, making me feel comfortable in his tiny place, and just giving me a really wonderful experience. 

My flight out of Vancouver was pretty good, except for my experience in "Deadmonton" airport. First of all, our flight out of Vancouver was delayed for 4 hrs. I loved this because it gave me an extra couple hours to spend with Michael! But AirCanada could have notified us to check in an extra 2 hrs later because we ended up wasting 2 hrs on the plane waiting for it to take-off, which was super annoying. Deadmonton was the first stop. We waited 45 mins at the luggage carousel, and our luggage was nowhere to be seen. Then, our flight number disappeared from the luggage carousel and everybody freaked out. But what pissed everyone off was that in the minutes following, we went to the AirCanada baggage information desk to find NO ONE there! Another victim of the AirCanada baggage disappearance told me she heard that the luggage compartment door of our plane was iced shut. Anyway, we eventually got our bags.. but I have to say that AirCanada has really bad service!!

The flight out of Deadmonton was via Canadian North Airlines, which is fantastic. If more people knew about how good their service was, I am sure they would win a prize for it. I got 2 breakfasts, and snacks which were all yummy, for a 5 hour flight. The flight attendants were very friendly too. We stopped by Norman Wells. It was so cold there that even with my Canada Goose jacket on, I could feel myself beginning to freeze. I learned later that it was -48C there at the time!

After almost 18 hrs in transit, I am now in the town of Inuvik. It has a population of 3000 including surrounding remote sites: Aklavik, Tuktoyaktuk, Fort McPherson, Sachs Harbour, Paulatuk, Ulahaktok, Tsiigehtchic, Fort Good Hope, and Colville Lake. Its inhabitants are comprised of 60% non-native, 25% Inuit, and 15% Metis. This town has the only hospital North of the Arctic Circle.

Labels: Arctic, Arctic medicine, Inuvik