This was a day, as my wife charmingly put it, where the little hamster in the wheel inside my head never really got going. I'd argue the point, but she's right. It was a storm day here in Iqaluit. Not a lot of snow, probably only 5 cm or so. But once you throw in sustained winds of around 90 km/h and gusting to well over 100 and then add a windchill of below -30, well, it's enough to shut the place down. Schools closed, government closed, pretty much everywhere closed.
So apparently some part of my brain went "Yipee! No thinking for me today." And so it was. A pretty slothful day of watching TV and reading comic books (I reread the excellent, and highly recommended, "Fables"). Thus, there is not much to report. I had something brewing on the election, but that's for a day where the thought process is a little more focused.
So I shall give you these two new facts about Nunavut and Iqaluit that you may have not known.
1. Technically, Iqaluit is not in the Arctic Ocean. I thought I had my third ocean when I dipped my hand in it back in September, but no. It is, geographically speaking, next to the Atlantic Ocean. However, since Newfoundland is located in the North Atlantic I feel Iqaluit should get the designation of the Very, Very North Atlantic Ocean.
2. All of Nunavut is located in one time zone, that is, Eastern Standard Time. If you look a a map, Iqaluit is actually north of New Brunswick. We should be in Atlantic Time. If you look to the western region of the territory a community such as Kugluktuk should be in Mountain Time. It's a big territory. I'm not 100% certain of the reasons behind it, but I believe it makes it easier for government to function if all the offices operate on the same time, rather than across four time zones.
One last thing, completely unrelated to Nunavut, but I skipped my first curling game in about 18 years last night. There are a number of reasons why I stopped being a Skip. I was too competitive. I tended to curse a lot and generally became a jerk. None of which (well, except for the cursing) are qualities I particularly enjoy.
However, I like to think I've grown up a bit in the last two decades so when all the games were cancelled last night because few people showed up, we had enough for a pick-up game. And I skipped. And my team won. A nice, back-and-forth, fun game against a good team where we won 6-5. I wasn't shooting my best, but I was still happy. I genuinely would have been happy if we lost, the game was that much fun.
I'm not sure I'm ready to be a skip again full-time, but it was nice to see that no bad habits (well, a bit of cursing) reemerged. Of course, that was a scrap game. Let's see if I'm still well behaved if I'm in a competitve bonspiel.
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2 comments:
'Bonspiel'? Good heavens. That's either a technical curling term, or you've got more rodents running cognitive wheeels than you say.
"Bonspiel" is basically fancy curling speak for "tournament." Even if I haven't been curling much in the past few decades, I've still watched a lot of it and was fortunate enough in '95 to go to the Brier (The Canadian Men's Curling Championships, in case you're not familiar) and cover it as a journalist. I had a blast.
Anyway, bonspiel is just part of my language now after 25 odd years of watching and playing the game. The hamster doesn't need much of a work out to conjure up that word.
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