Trapped in Resolute by snow...

We awoke to find that the snow had drifted in around the South Camp Inn front door. The door could still open a bit but the walkway had snow drifts as deep as my waist. It was quite warm (-11 C) but the winds were about 50 km/hour gusting to 70. It looked like we would have to spend the day waiting to see when or if we could get out. A little while after breakfast, it was decided that the jet would go from Iqaluit to Nanisivik first then come to Resolute Bay.

When I asked if this was a big storm, I was told about the blizzard that happened in November. It blew for 3 days and there was 15 feet of snow on the dining room solarium roof. The roof had started to cave in and they had to put in extra beams to support it.

The military Twin Otter crew had returned from their trip to Isachsen last night. They were quite antsy to get home as they had been at the South Camp Inn for over a week. One of the pilots was so bored and fidgety that he volunteered to shovel snow for Aziz just so he could get outside and do something!

Keeyoon and I were in good spirits until about 11 AM when it was determined that the plane would not be coming in from Nanisivik. I had the fun job of telling Keith and Annemarie the good news when they got up. It looked like we were going to have to spend another fun day in Resolute.

When the wind died down a bit (40 km/hour), Keith, Annemarie and I went out on an expedition to the Co-op to do a bit of shopping. We needed some packing tape to make sure that the projector we borrowed from Jim got back to U of T in one piece. The blizzard had turned the stairs out in front of the Co-op into more of a ramp coming out of a snow bank. Annemarie and Keith got some snacks and I got some cough drops. I was happy to find that we could get Viva Puffs (chocolate covered marshmallow cookies) in Resolute and I decided not to look at the price when I bought them. The Co-op seems to be the place to meet everyone in town on a Saturday afternoon. We saw Earl (the science teacher) and several of the students we had talked to in the previous days. One tried to convince us that we were still in Resolute Bay because she had jinxed our flight.

For the rest of the afternoon, Annemarie and I worked on updating the website. We were assisted by our two "webmistresses-in-training", Beth (Aziz's daughter) and her friend Lillian. They were a great help in coming up with captions for the pictures!

We also heard from Jennifer and Clive that they had arrived home safely. We are hoping for a better experience than them but we will have to see what happens. Below is the letter from Jennifer explaining their arduous trip back home. It seems to really pay to be able to look sad and desperate at a WestJet check-in desk!

Best regards,
Kaley.

"Hi Kaley,

Here's the story of our loooong journey home:

On Thursday the Hawker plane was sent up to Resolute with the passengers from the Wednesday flight along with their luggage, after their luggage had been inspected by the Haz Mat guys to make sure that it hadn't been contaminated by the radioactive spill in the jet. Clive, Richard, Michael and I went out on the flight to Iqaluit that evening, departing at about 6pm. What would have been about a 3 hour flight on the 727 took us 6 grueling hours on the "low and slow" Hawker, including a one hour stopover in Nanisivik to pick up passengers and refuel, where we were all crammed like sardines in a can in the tiny portable that serves as the airport there. In addition to being almost as noisy as the twin otter, the Hawker also seemed to have optional heating - even wearing my parka I was still freezing for the first several hours of the flight, and the others who'd stashed their arctic gear in their baggage and were wearing their light jackets were even worse off.

We landed in Iqaluit around 12:30am and were greeted with surprisingly warm weather - I think it was even a few degrees above 0, and really humid (at least compared to Resolute). It felt like some sort of balmy tropical paradise, and even just during the minute or two walk along the tarmac from the plane to the terminal, I could feel my skin blissfully soaking up the moisture from the air.

We spent the night at the Discovery Lodge hotel, sleeping in the strange trapezoidal beds which were wider at the head than at the foot of the bed. On Friday morning, we made a further attempt to sort out the travel plans for the last leg of our journey, the flight from Ottawa to Toronto, but the sudden bankruptcy of JetsGo that morning made things very challenging. All the flights were filling up with stranded JetsGo passengers, and trying to get through to any airline on the phone required a half hour wait on hold. When we checked out of the hotel at 11am, our travel plans were basically a big confusing mess and we had no idea what would happen when we arrived in Ottawa.

The flight from Iqaluit to Ottawa that afternoon was on time, smooth and uneventful. We arrived at 4:15pm at the Ottawa airport. Clive was all set to go because back in Resolute he had managed to book the last seat on that evening's West Jet flight to Toronto. It turned out that Richard had an Air Canada flight to Toronto for that evening as well - a First Air agent had tried to book it for him back in Resolute and said that it didn't work, but when we checked in at First Air in Iqaluit it seemed as though the booking had mysteriously gone through after all. So that left me and Michael, with Toronto flights booked for the next morning but hoping there was some way to get back home that evening. Unfortunately, the Air Canada agent was extremely uncooperative with Michael and refused to put him on standby for an evening flight without charging an addition $250, so he was stuck overnight at Ottawa. I was much more lucky, and my pleading, cajoling and puppy-dog eyes worked on a very sympathetic WestJet agent who got her manager to put me on standby for the flight that evening, and even more lucky when a seat actually came available 5 minutes before boarding time. So Clive, Richard and I managed to fly out last night, and Michael flew out first thing this morning.

Finally, on Saturday morning, we are now all safe and sound in Toronto and very glad to be back home again!

I hope that you and the others have a much swifter and less eventful trip home!

Take care,
Jennifer"