Complaints department

Here’s one of the things about living in Iqaluit...I can’t complain about the little things that occasionally bug me about the north.

Oh, don’t get me wrong, I can still bitch and moan like nobody’s business. I excel at it. But I am now part of a small, but nice, northern blogging community. I visit their blogs, some of them come here. It’s quite nice.

But I can’t complain about things. For example, it’s gotten cold this week in Iqaluit. Not that unusual, it’s December near the Arctic Circle. It should be cold. It’s about time it was cold. Hell, we’ve been warmer than Edmonton in recent weeks. But for awhile last week, it’s dropped down to around -25 with wind chill rattling things around -40 on a couple of occasions. It’s our first time dealing with temperatures this cold in about seven months. So a little “fuck it’s cold” would not be inappropriate, especially since the starter in our car froze last week (with an able assist from building management who have finally turned on the electricity for the car plug-in slots. They ignored me so my wife went to have a chat. Voila. Fixed in a few hours. She used the teacher voice. It always works).

People in Newfoundland read -40 and go “Holy shit, that’s cold.” Someone in Rankin Inlet is going to read that and laugh. “What are you bitching about? It was -40 this week before the wind chill.”

I could complain about the food prices and selection and people down south would agree. “$10 for a honeydew? Wow!” Except that Iqaluit has the best selection and prices in Nunavut. Someone in Igloolik would murder to have what we do in town. “I dream of being able to buy a honeydew.”

Same thing with the amount of daylight. The shortest day of the year is a scant 10 days away. At that point we have about 4.5 hours of direct sunlight (sunrise today is 9:09 am. Sunset is 1:45 pm) and probably six hours total of daylight. Again, harsh if you’re down south. Some people can’t handle that little daylight. Then again, in Arctic Bay, if they get an hour or so of the horizon lightening up, they’re happy. Only another six weeks or so until they see the sun again!

So yeah, it’s hard to complain. Kind of frustrating, really. I’ll just have to try harder to find things to complain about in the entertaining manner to which my friends have become accustomed to.

Oh, one last thing...I've discovered recently that when feeling the urge to bitch and moan, or a touch down, that what cheers me up is the new Me First and the Gimmie Gimmmies CD called "Loves their Country." Twenty-eight minutes of punk rock covers of country songs, especially "Eastbound and Down" the theme song from Smokey and the Bandit. Man, if that song doesn't put a smile on your face, there is no hope.