The diagnosis

Thursday, August 2, 2007

INUVIK, NWT — When you’re this far north in the summer time, you can’t exactly talk about the crack of dawn, because you hardly get a dusk, let alone a dawn. But we were up bright and early today to take our ailing truck to the truck doctor, to find out what was causing the oil leak we discovered yesterday on the ferry.
Val opened the hood to see if we had lost an appreciable amount of oil overnight, but the level was still good. It was a short drive to the mechanic’s shop, and we spoke to Jeff — who turns out to have been born in Ottawa. He was busy for the morning but suggested we bring the truck back around one o’clock. So we took it back to the hotel parking lot and decided to set out on foot, just to be on the safe side. Inuvik is small enough to walk to most places anyway.
Our first stop was the Western Arctic Regional Visitor Centre, where we were greeted by Lenore at the front desk, a young Inuit student working at the centre as her summer job. She’s headed for Red Deer in the fall to study business and hopes to come back and manage the place when she’s qualified. Lenore told us about the area and invited us to look around the centre. It was nicely laid out with examples of Inuit crafts, animal furs and interpretive displays about the geology and geography of the area.
Inuvik is on the delta of the Mackenzie River and many of the residents here still make a living hunting and trapping. Muskrat is the most prolific animal in the area, although there is also caribou, fox, rabbit and other fur-bearing animals. The warmer temperatures and climate around the delta mean that vegetation grows here that normally couldn’t survive this far north. We noticed that when we drove up yesterday — at one point we were above the tree line and there was only tundra all around, but when we descended to cross the two rivers by ferry, we were back among black spruce and even deciduous trees like aspen and birch.
After our visit there, we walked on to the offices of Arctic Nature Tours to see about a flight up to Tuktoyaktuk. The young lady took our particulars but couldn’t guarantee a tour because they don’t fly if there are fewer than four tourists, and we were the only two so far for tomorrow. We’ll find out in the morning if it’s a go or not — but it’s only a 40-minute flight, and the tour lasts three hours. One of the things you can do up there is put your toes into the Beaufort Sea.
You can also see a pingo — that’s a large round hump of land that consists of ice covered with mosses, which occurs when a drained unfrozen lakebed gets forced upward by the permafrost underneath, causing any residual water to freeze and expand upward. Some pingos are hundreds of years old and still growing.
Permafrost is a challenge to builders in the north as well. Inuvik’s sewer and water system is entirely above ground because of permafrost, and throughout the town you can see elevated pipes, about a foot in diameter, through which these liquids flow. If they were to bury the pipes, the permafrost would thaw and the ground would cave in, causing houses to sink. The Dempster Highway is build on a thick pad of overburden for the same reason — if it were directly on the surface of the earth, it would attract warmth that would melt the permafrost and cause the roadbed to sink. So we were on a raised roadway all the way up here yesterday.
With our names registered for a tour, we headed back along the main drag to find the Igloo Church, a Roman Catholic church in the shape of an igloo that was built without blueprints. A tour was scheduled at noon, so we sat on the front steps to wait. Another couple came by for the same tour, so we struck up a conversation. They were both from Darwin, Australia and just decided to visit Canada’s north! We had a great chat about world affairs for a good 20 minutes, but the priest never showed up to give us our tour!
By this time we had to grab a bite of lunch and take the truck in to the garage. Jeff told us to call in around five to find out what news he might have for us. We decided to have a quiet afternoon at the hotel, reading and napping. At five, we went back to find out what the diagnosis was.
Bad news. Jeff says the main rear seal is leaking and would need to be replaced. He recommends we take it to the people who repair Fords in town. It’s going to be a big job. And tomorrow is Friday! So we could be here until next week! Stay tuned!