Toronto to Tsiigehtchic (Part 3): Edmonton to Inuvik

Edmonton to Yellowknife

After the adventure getting out of Toronto Pearson Airport, I was deeply releived to arrive at Edmonton Airport around 11:30pm. My relocation assistance provided an overnight stay in Edmonton. There was a shuttle bus waiting in the passenger-pickup section of the airport. I was the only passenger. I got dropped off at the hotel close to midnight. The attendant at the front counter handed me the room keys, and directed me to the elevator. The room was quiet and clean. I brushed my teeth, and fell asleep.

The next flight, from Edmonton to Inuvik, departed at 8am the next morning. I was up at 6am, and arrived back at the airport close to 7. My baggage had transferred overnight, so all I had to carry were my two pieces of carry-on baggage. I walked through the check-in terminals, past WestJet, Air Canada, until I found Canadian North Airlines. I joined the checkin line. The passengers ahead of me seemed to be of two types: people wearing hoodies and jeans, and people wearing expensive-looking outdoor clothing. The guys lined up directly infront of me were wearing fancy-looking survival vests, and equally fancy-looking haircuts. Up ahead of them, a family was trying to check-in a large cooler as their checked bag. I noticed a few signs next to the check-in counter saying that rifles and Ulus were not permitted in carry on baggage.

The flight to Inuvik had a single stop in Yellowknife. I was slightly disappointed that we were flying on a Boeing 737-700. I’d hoped that the flight to Tsiigehtchic would take place on a series of progressively smaller airplanes, ending with a small, signle seater bush plane on floats. Sadly no such luck. The entire flight was serviced entirely regular passenger jets. All the way to Inuvik, I flew in complete comfort, chair slightly reclined, enjoying in-flight snacks.

Back at the Edmonton Terminal, around 8am, our plane was getting ready for boarding. We boarded the plane on time, stowed our luggage in the overhead compartment. Sat down, and waited. After a few minutes the pilot came over the intercom, “Ladies and Gentlemen we’re just investigating a mechanical fault signal with a trim tab on the rudder. Just give us a few minutes to find out if it’s an error.” A few minutes later, they came back on. “Ladies and Gentlemen it appears there’s a mechanical fault with our rudder. It’s a fairly important part of the aircraft. We will have to de-board, so we can bring in a new airplane.”

With everyone off the airplane, some passengers started to get anxious about their connecting flights in Whitehorse. There was group of fairly rugged-looking fly-in fishermen, worrying about if they’d be able to get any fishing in that afternoon. Listening-in on their conversation, it sounded like they’d made a very expensive northern fly-in fishing trip, to get away from their high-end jobs in some major urban centre. Quite rightly, they were displeased that a mechanical failure had cut into their time up North. I felt myself relax a little into my chair. I had nothing to rush for. The stress of my first day of flying up here was long gone. It occurred to me that these guys had planned possibly this fishing trip for months, paid thousands of dollars for connecting charter flights and remote accommodations. The delay in the flight sounded like it could have have a significant impact on their fishing plans. Very quickly I was learning that the North runs on its own schedule.

Looking around at the other passengers waiting in the terminal, I had a feeling of weathered ruggedness. People wore heavy plaid jackets, and jeans. Their cuffs looked worn. People’s skin seemed tougher, sturdy, worn in by cold rough weather. Even the way people stood around and talked, especially groups of men, seemed to have a northern swagger. Cool, invisible confidence that they lived here. Tourists travelled with bags of specialized survival equipment. The Northerners (or who I suspected were northerners) travelled with no carry-on, and a beat-up cooler as their checked bag. While we waited to board the plane, I thought I could spot who was returning home, and who was visiting. A pullover hoodie, jeans, and a rough canvas jacket, left unbuttoned, as if to say they were tough enough to take the cold without them.

I tried to put a small scuff on my Roots-branded boots.

Outside the terminal window, the old jet got towed away, and a new one got towed in. I laughed. I guess when something breaks down on your Boeing 737-700, all you need to do is swap it out for a new one. A few minutes later we were boarding again, flight belt bucked, baggage stowed. We taxied to the runway, and prepared to depart for Yellowknife (this time with a working rudder). The engines rushed to life, we rumbled down the runway until airborne, flying to Yellowknife.

The passenger sitting next to me looked like he lived in a northern community. We sat without speaking for a while. I asked where he was flying to.

“Kugluktuk” he said.

“Is that where you’re from?” I asked

“Yes.”

I explained I was flying to Tsiigehtchic. He knew about it. I told him I was especially looking forward to seeing the stars, during the times of year when the sun would be blow the horizon all day. He said he could still remember the first time he walked out of his town, away from the town lights one night. he described the night sky bein incredibly beautiful. He said he still remembered that, when he saw the sky like that for the first time. He had silver grey hair.

Part way through the flight, I looked out the window. Down below you could see a changing landscape. There were no farms, or winding roads. Endless pale green, threaded with winding rivers. A few hours into the flight, a lake appeared below us. Great Slave lake. I could hardly believe my eyes. This was a lake that I’d imagined while looking at maps, where the printed blue lettering of “great slave lake” contrasted slightly against the pale blue shape of the lake represented on a map. here was the real thing. I pointed out the window, and said to the passenger next to me,

“That’s Great Slave Lake!”

“mmmm, I think so.”

I made a sketch. From 20,000 feet in the air the landscape looks ancient and expansive. The broad flat low forests feel like thousands of years of patience. Our plane started to descend, and the pilot announced we’d be landing in Yellowknife in twenty minutes.

The man next to me got off in Yellowknife. He gave me a nod and a smile as he walked off the plane.

The final leg of the flight took a few hours to get from Yellowknife to Inuvik. My new flying companions were a mother and daughter, who both appeared Japanese. This entire time, I had been expecting that once I left Edmonton the only people I’d see would be Indigenous northerners, and a few white people from the South. One this one flight to Inuvik, you could have found someone to represent every major continent. I made me feel that we truly live in an international country. My feeling, which evolves with each day, is that our country is not a place not for any one person to own. The vast cultural diversity of Canada, seems as vast as the geographical diversity in our country. Someone said, Canada became a country not in spite of its geography, but because of it. The vast lakes and rivers that stretch from the St Lawrence to the Mackenzie River literally carried people and ideas and trade from Eastern Sea to Western Sea to the Northern Sea. Whatever we take “Canada” to be, I feel this understanding that our diversity is part of what makes us, should be something that we hold together, if we want to hold ourselves together as a country.

Saying “everyone is equal” can be like standing on a mountain, surveying a forest, and saying the trees are all the same. Equality, perhaps, means coming down off that mountains, standing among the trees, and speaking through the roots that connect us. We are made equal by how we relate to each other. Roots take time to grow. There are not many roots connecting us to someone on the other side of the country, unless we find ways to connect ourselves. Being equal, I think, means we allow our roots to grow and strengthen.

Our flight eventually landed in Inuvik. While I waited outside the terminal for a taxi to arrive, I took a photo of my feet. There I was, standing north of the Arctic Circle. It had happened. I had a night to stay in Inuvik, and then I’d be driving down to Tsiigehtchic to start work the next day. The cab arrived, and drove me into the Town of Inuvik. From my new hotel room in Inuvik, I took pictures of the setting sun.

There was a baseball diamond just outside my window. It was 11:30pm and still looked like daylight. Around midnight, I could hear a group of kids starting up a game. I fell asleep hearing children laughing outside, and the ping of a baseball bat getting a good hit.