In-laws at the Frob, May long weekend

I don't think I've told you all about the restaurant at the Frobisher Inn, and I wanted to show that it is possible to have a nice meal here in Iqaluit. We all went to eat dinner at the Frob on Monday night with NJ and Marie. (Remember, its "Frob", rhymes with "robe".)

Frob menu.

While we were there, NJ and Marie got all their souvenir shopping done.  As per usual, various artists walk through the restaurant hocking their wares.  I have actually come to appreciate this way of buying art: you get to meet the artist, the money goes directly into their pocket as opposed to a shop, and the consumer gets a better price. The first artist to stop by had jewelry. Marie picked up a pendant.

Marie looking at the jewelry on offer.
(What is the lady in the background doing? Charades?)

She also picked up a sealskin broach.

Decor at the Frob.

Coraline's Froburger.

My beef bavette with mashed garlic potatoes.

Then, along came a carver from Cape Dorset.

Carving of four narwhals from a single piece of stone.

When we got home we realized that after looking at all the artwork and enjoying our meals, we had forgotten what Marie's pendant was made of. Facebook to the rescue!  I took some photos, posted, and had a bunch of answers within minutes.

Got answers from 5 people: muskox horn!

A closer look at NJ's carving: Serpentine stone with caribou antler carved into narwhal tusks.
Carved from one large piece of stone.

As we do with most visitors, we also took JJ's parents to the visitor's centre. JJ is a map aficionado, he always has been.  At our house in Thunder Bay he has a large map chest where he stores his collection of antique and current maps (he is mostly into topographical maps as opposed to road maps, but he collects both).  He had a blast discussing the maps with his mom and dad.

Showing his parents a map of Baffin Island.

Getting into more detail with NJ.

I thinks maps are sort of interesting, in that they tell you how to get from place to place. I don't find them magical the way JJ does. What I did find interesting on this trip into the visitor's centre was this diagram of the "seasons" in the north. (You don't need to do what I did and try to also look at it upside down, I flipped it for you guys! Just keep scrolling.)

Right-side up.

And upside-down.

In the far north, seasons don't happen the way they do elsewhere in the country (for one thing, the Inuit have six seasons rather than four).  A lot of people from "the south" talked about Toonik Tyme as a "celebration of spring", but it really wasn't.  Spring certainly had not yet arrived (seriously-- the activities were dogsledding, skijoring, snowmobile races, etc.). It was the celebration of the return of the sun. Up here, those two things are not the same. 

In late May, (now-ish) as you can tell from the diagram, leads should be beginning to form in the sea ice. What is a "lead"? I first heard this term while watching "The Terror". For those of you who don't know, The Terror is a new TV series following the fate of the crews of two ships: the Erebus and the Terror. These ships were lost while looking for the famed "Northwest Passage" during the 1840's. The hunt for the Northwest Passage is of particular interest to JJ, he has been reading about it since he could read. When we saw this TV show was coming out I made sure to download it when Coraline and I were in Ottawa a few weeks ago. (Yes, even though we are here IN the north, JJ still wants to watch TV about it.) The ships became stuck in the ice, and after awhile (2 years?) the men attempted to walk to a settlement but never got there.  Scientific evidence shows that due to the cold and gradual decline of supplies (not to mention their canned food going bad), some of the men were forced to...ahem....eat each other.  (As if that weren't enough for suspenseful television, AMC has thrown a giant, evil, polar bear villain into the show as well.  Just because.....they can.) At any rate, in the show the men spend a good portion of time waiting for "leads" that aren't showing up in the ice.  I didn't really pay any more attention to the term until I saw it again at the visitor's centre on the diagram above.

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Diagram showing how leads form on sea ice.
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While we are not even close to eating each other, like the crew of the Erebus and Terror, spring can't seem to come quickly enough. There are signs of it: the crazy early sunrises (2:30 in the morning!), and the kids have switched to their regular winter coats instead of parkas when they go to school. We still don't see much sign of the ice breaking up in the harbour, and I'm eager to see icebergs floating around out there. 

Not too warm for snowmobiles yet.

NJ taking a photo of the sea ice in the harbour. If you squint you may
be able to see the city in the distance.

JJ and NJ walked up the hill behind our place one afternoon.

Although still cold, you can see that the sun has evaporated/melted snow from the top of the hill.
Spring is definitely coming.....

.....even though in this pic it still really looks like winter.

Most ice on large bodies of water (even the lake in the backyard) appears to still be solidly frozen. This doesn't mean the city isn't preparing--the thaw will come eventually, and with all this snow, the water needs to go somewhere. If the city didn't start digging, all of Iqaluit would end up a muddy swamp for much of the summer.  As it is, it is supposed to get so wet that there is a huge mosquito problem when the temperature rises. (Ugh!)

Front loader digging trenches for melt water.
Without these the whole city could flood.

Three days later: Once again it felt as though things were really warming up.  We even put the car windows down one evening so it wouldn't feel "stuffy" inside.  Turns out, that was premature.  When I got in the car the next morning blowing snow had covered the upholstery.  And the puddles had frozen over again. But, baby steps!  We're getting there!

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Just in time for the May long weekend (aka May 2-4, or Victoria Day) we have FINALLY seen a real sign of spring.  We spent the weekend playing outside, walking the dog, ordering pizza, and enjoying the milder temperatures. 

I never thought I'd be so excited to see mud.

Captain Jack walking Buffy.

And then bigger, more impressive puddles.

These kids have hip waders on. They are in the ditch across the street
from our house.

A look at our street, plus Coraline! The sun is reflecting off the snow,
so even though it isn't that sunny it still hurts your eyes.

One of Captain Jack Sparrow's friends (that's our house behind him with the red roof).

For the first time in many, many months, the temperature is expected to go above freezing by the end of the week.  That would be amazing.  Its calling for 1 degree on Friday.  Woot!

Up next: we are traveling again!  Or are we? I don't know yet! Stay tuned as we figure it out.