Waste of a day

People thing when you live in the Arctic you must get all kinds of days off for bad weather. Raging blizzards, wind chill warnings and whatnot.

The fact is that so far this winter we haven't had one day off for weather related issues. Yes, it got down to -52 or so a few times the last week, but that's not cold enough to make things close. And we haven't had one blizzard yet.

Well, until right now. As I speak I'm looking out the window and I can sort of see the Nortwestel building, which is about 200 feet away. And it's cleared up a bit. Last night I couldn't see that far, but I could certainly feel the building move.

Remember all housing in the north is built on stilts to compensate for permafrost shifting. It means it's more susceptible to moving in high winds, which can make it slightly disconcerting.

The forecast says the blizzard is supposed to last until at least tomorrow. Which I hope so. Not so much because I want a day off work, which would certainly be nice, but because I have an unhappy Cathy who views the blizzard as the waste of a perfectly good snow day.

On the off-chance there are any kids reading this, take some heart in this statement - as much as you might want a snow day so you don't have to go to school, odds are your teacher wants it more.

I can remember Cathy calling me when she was working in Rankin and I was still in St. John's when she was in the middle of a five day blizzard. She would be slowly losing her mind because she was bored with nothing to do. And she used to get blizzards all the time there. In Iqaluit we hardly ever get snow days. We got maybe four and two of them were lame over-reactions.

In terms of weather, Iqaluit really does have some of the best in the north. It doesn't get as cold as some of the other communities, the winds aren't as bad and we don't get as much snow. Even with this blizzard, I doubt more than 5 cm fell. Although, if I recall, Environment Canada says we lead the country in some of the worst weather categories. I guess it's all in perspective.

So Cathy is hoping for a snow day. Actually, she wouldn't mind another one of those five day blizzards. When I pointed out they used to drive her nearly mad she replied "Yes, but I now have the doggie and you to pick on." So I'm kind of hoping it clears up before then. If you don't hear from me over the next few days I suspect one of us may be dead.

(Note: I had just finished typing this and checked the forecast again. They cancelled the blizzard prediction tomorrow. EC tends to be more wrong that right with their forecasts up here. I now have a fairly unhappy wife who wants to smack EC for lying to her about getting a snow day. I'm just relieved it's not a five day blizzard that would result in one of us dead.)