Blogs from Inuvik, Northwest Territories, Canada, North America

My inspiration for this blog entry came from a very interesting article I read on my flight into Inuvik. Inuvik sits right on the Arctic Circle and I will be doing a circuit with the Territorial Court here this week. The article is entitled, “My Conversation with Ezra” and it discusses some of the problems local aboriginal groups have when it comes to protecting their hunting rights with regard to environmentalist pressure. It is by Terry Audla. Some of the more interesting quotations from the article include: “ ‘Fight them with facts!’” That is exactly what Inuit have endeavored to do in our legal attempts to overturn a law banning the export of seal products to the European Union. And when it comes to firing back at jet-setting activists who fly into remote communities, destroying industries ... read more

Two more sleeps and snippity snap we're on our way!... read more

The perennial sunlight is wreaking havoc with my internal clock. It's really hard to tell what time it might be. So my sleeping time is moving gradually later and later. I ended up getting up around 9, but I really had no idea what time it was until I found my watch. The mozzies that had chased me into my tent the night before were still about and caused a hurried pack up and into the car. That accomplished, I headed down to the interpretive centre and had a look through the displays. It was quite intriguing. I heard a lot more from my friend in the centre. He told me more about the old days and how things had changed, mainly because the government had spoiled the people. The government gave the first peoples so ... read more

Ok..........Phew that was tough! Quite possibly the toughest ride I've ever had to do on a motorcycle. 380 kilometres of mud. It seems so easy to just type the word out....mud.....but it posed quite a few problems. Basicallly, Adam and I were the only 2 idiots on the Dempster over the last 2 days riding bikes north. In fact, we only counted a dozen cars or so over the entire 380 kms. But we made it after 81/2 hours of battling the elements to a hotel room and a hot shower. We had to stop at one point to unclog Adam's radiator. Basically his bike was no longer being cooled efficiently and so we used a camelbak bladder as a "pressure washer" (Nevil squeezing the bladder and Adam squirting water into the radiator) to clean everything ... read more

We made it back to Fairbanks for a couple days to recoup. We wanted to get to the Great Northern Arts Festival in Inuvik, so we drove like crazy to get here.... We went almost 400 miles the first day from Fairbanks to Tok, over the Top of the world Highway To Dawson City. Took the ferry across the river and spent a night in Dawson. We got on the Dempster highway, unsure of what to expect. After the experience on the Dalton Highway, we got new tires and hoped for the best on our next 500 mile dirt road. The roads were in very ggod shape and we made good time. We spent the night at almost the 1/2 way point in Eagle Plains. What a great surprise! The food was very good and the ... read more