Thankful

Today was Thanksgiving and I sure was thankful. Thankful for having the opportunity to be able to come to such an amazing community such as Rankin Inlet. Thankful I have enough sense to see myself through to obtain the right career while here that will be new, exciting, interesting and worth it. I am thankful for meeting new friends and sharing our stories about our lives amongst one another. I am thankful for the newly acquired family I have in the Dunphys such as Jocelyn, my future mother in law who is a dear and shares her great hospitality with me when I was there. Gord my future father in law who I can ask questions of things I am not sure about when I need an experienced answer. Lori & Allison the future sisters I have always wanted but never had, now I have two. I am grateful to have them in my life now. Mark who will be my brother in law. One of the smartest young lads I know.

Most of all, and above all.....Melissa. I can come to near tears when I think of her because I realize how lucky of a person I am to just even know her. Let alone to have the utmost wonderful opportunity to marry this spectacular woman puts me beside myself at times. I love her with everything that I am. She doesn't know, but when I look into her eyes, it's like tunnel vision with her. I see, nor hear, nor feel anything else at that moment but her. My life would be dull and void if she were not in it in some way, even in the smallest. Thank you Melissa.

On another note, tomorrow I start my new job and I am ready to take it on. I will keep you up to date what it's like to work in a bank.

Another Usesless Blog

So Halloween is fast approaching and I have a part of my costume here with me, as you can see from above. It's my Vampire contacts. To complete the costume, I have the modifiable teeth coming and a full ensemble for a male Vampire from the 18th century. As well Melissa will compliment me by going as my Vamprira. That's the female vampire terminology. Or so I have read as I am not into the whole Vampire genre and vowed to never go for Halloween as a Vampire. But alas, here I go. We have been invited to 3 separate parties on that night and it will be a challenge to do them all. But I look forward to it.

On a more exciting note I have finally landed the big career. For years I thought I would be constantly doing hard labour work with my hands and back. Now I get a chance to give those things a rest and exercise the brain as a CSR (customer service representative). A bank teller should be a new exciting role for me at this point in my life. As well, there are some phenomenal benefits to boot. I won't get into them here, but worth it enough to take a try at this position and give it 100% of my best. I hope for my sake, it works out.

The weather here in Rankin Inlet is certainly getting colder as well as the days getting shorter & darker. Good thing for us we have a seasonal disorder light put out in the living room which we need only 15 minutes use of in the mornings to fight the winter blahs this year. We have lot's of vitamin D to boot as well. We have at this point befriended some really nice people up here who we call our friends of the North. Kugluktuk had nice people, but no one I would ever converse with again. This Thanksgiving weekend we have a nice couple with their 4 year old coming over for a turkey feast and spend time with us over this weekend. I couldn't ask for better people, nor a better fiancee to spend it with. For this I am very thankful.

All in all my time in Rankin has been pleasant and fruitful. I foresee us staying here for many years to come. Now I need to get my best friend up here, Lexus my cat.

Is It Worth It?

It's been a few weeks since my last blog. I have found myself very busy with work in town. The construction company, the middle school I been substituting at currently and soon, Canada Post. I have had other offers as well, the library, two other schools who want me to substitute there, the Northern for meat manager and the local daycare centre. My highest hopes is for the CIBC bank which I had a good telephone interview with nearly one week ago. The perks are excellent and the location is great. The aspect of being able to be trained and learn as I go is appealing as is the fact I can take this with me back to the south and find work with CIBC in Ontario years down the road. Rankin Inlet has been very good to me thus far with employment being steady and the constant flow of offers for further work.

I have not had to put out ``300`` resumes just to hear back from one place. Roughly ten resumes and some patience is all it took to start receiving the calls. It has definitely been worth the work and the time.

Bang, Bang!

I wanted to blog for Friday, yesterday, but seeing as how I was too tired, I thought I would bring you up to speed on the better half of my day. Right to the point, after work yesterday the guy whom I work with knowing I have never shot a firearm before decided it would be a good idea to take me out to the shooting range with his custom built 22 rifle. He couldn't have been more right in doing so. I had a blast. I think it paid off playing shooting video games over the years because I felt comfortable holding and squeezing the trigger and waiting in much anticipation of hearing that muzzle fire off a round and the bullet zinging off a metal pole I was aiming for about 75 feet down the range.

The scope makes a huge difference of course being able to see what it is you wish to hit up close. The trick was trying to keep the thing steady. After the pole, Dave set up some empty 12 gauge shot gun shells down range standing them up right. I believe I hit two out of the 5 or 6 he had. He managed to finish off the rest in single shots. All in all I had a great time and have really seen weaponry in a different light. I can see how it can be a fun hobby or how it would definitely do you a world of wonders if your out on the land by yourself and ever got into a situation where your life depended on it. Because of yesterday, I am now pursuing all the necessary routes to go in order to get licensed to own and shoot a gun. Of course, I am also looking at rifles now.

The rifle at the top of the page is NOT the rifle we used. It is a rifle however I am keen on. Pretty deadly looking if you ask me.

The History On Rankin Inlet

Ok, so I have a decent blog page going now and thought since I am absolutely enthralled with the beauty and the people here, I should do my homework and research a little more about the second largest Nunavut community I am living in. So here goes my homework...

Rankin Inlet, known as Kangliqliniq in the traditional language of Inuktitut is a fjord (pronounced like Fiord). We are located on the northwestern side of Hudson Bay and was discovered by Lieutenant John Rankin. Try as I did, I could not seem to find a date of when this happened. However, the Thule people (pronounced like Tuli) inhabited the area around 1200 A.D.



They hunted for bowhead whales until the 1700's when caribou Inuit hunters arose and hunted in land and for arctic char fish. To speed us up a few years, in 1928, ore was discovered in Rankin Inlet by R.G Johnston which then started the drilling for diamonds by Knight Prospecting Syndicate and Nippising Mines in the 1930's. Still home to the caribou Inuit, or the Padlimiut as they were known, starvation had begun to set upon them. The federal government decided that a subsistence economy was no longer making any sense for the Inuit. During this time there was an increased use for nickel during the Korean war and nickel became high priced. Thus the Nickel Mines of Rankin Inlet were born. Inuit became employed at the mine during the early 1950's and came from Eskimo Point and Chesterfield Inlet. By 1959, 107 Inuit were working in the mines. By 1962, 500 Inuit now lived in Rankin Inlet. Today, I would personally surmise according to the 2006 census, which there was then a 2,358 population could mean today it may be near 2700 approximately.

In 1991 Joe Nattar built the now famous Inukshuk, meaning "Likeness of a man", that stands on a hill over looking Williamson Lake. Rankin Inlet is filled with hotels, stores, and small locally owned businesses alike. We even have a KFC and Pizza Hut along with two banks, RBC and CIBC. Three schools, a junior, middle school and a high school. My fiancee works at the middle school. There is even a pharmacy here.



The temperatures here can be as high as +30 or as low as -60 in the dead of winter where it will get very dark for weeks on end. We have a few paved roads and most are still gravel. The paved roads are the torn up, recycled pavement from the airport here when they repave the airport new, they take the old pavement, grind it up and use it to pave some roads as I have been told. Whale hunting is still on going on here such as Beluga, bowhead. Seals and fish are hunted as is in land foods, caribou and at times, bear.

Last but certainly not least, is this is the home of NHL star, Jordin Tootoo. He plays for the Nashville Predators and still comes home for a visit each year.

New Chat Service Installed

This is more of a notice for new chat users that you will have to sign up first in order to use the chat I installed on the blog page. It will help me keep spam away and from filling up the chat box. As well, it will allow me to see who I'm talking to otherwise it will just say your a Guest. That's no good to me now is it lol? Thanks everyone.

Thar She Blows!

Wow. Talk about a wind warning. Yup, a wind warning was issued and boy they weren't lying about how windy it was going to get. It was at most, 80kmp/h and with the rain at times, made it hard to walk in. Nothing in town as far as I know was damaged, other than my building lost power this morning and was running on the back up generators until the electrical truck got out here and fixed us up. I wouldn't be surprised if damage was done else where in town. As of right now, the wind is still howling and the building is actually swaying so much, you can feel your body rocking back and forth on the couch. The plate glass window in our living room is buckling.

I can definitely understand now why the locals here say that when we get snowed in by a storm, we get SNOWED IN permanently! Up to a week is nothing unusual here. Kugluktuk got snow, and some wind, but nothing like what we are in for this year. My boss says as it is, this town has had it easy the past two winters making us due for a big one. I'll have the camera ready.

On another note, my birthday was today and I really was not looking forward to turning 35. Why celebrate getting old? I would like to start celebrating getting younger lol. Maybe next year, maybe next year.