Cold Enough For Ya'?

It is cold outside!  If this weren't a family friendly blog, I would put a very apt expletive right between 'is' and 'cold'.  We have never experienced temperatures so cold in our lives and we are shocked that people survive, thrive even, in this kind of extreme weather.

Me sporting a hat head and a wool sweater, with about
3 layers underneath

One morning last week as I came stumbling into the staff room fresh from the outdoors, I joked with a few Inuvaluit colleagues and quipped, "Cold enough for ya'?".  I brought the house down.  Last week I could joke about the cold because it was only -40C.  Big deal. This week, when temperatures have dipped to -50C, I am hard pressed to joke about it.  If I tried, it would definitely sound similar to whining, and I have decided I will not whine about the frigid temperatures, but this blog most definitely has whining overtones to it.

I know, I know.  We decided to move up here, and we knew it would get cold, so suck it up, slap that frozen smile across our frost burned cheeks and soldier on.  Right?  Nobody else up here is complaining of the weather.  They are used to it.  It is just simply a part of life.  They are used to getting up in the middle of the night, getting dressed in outside clothes and running their vehicles so they won't freeze up.  They are used to dressing in layers, and wearing their furs and animal hides for protection from the cold.  Wearing snowpants (or skipants, as the kids call them) in the school is considered perfectly normal. Up here, Hot Paws mittens are for fall and spring weather!  Up here, if your coat does not contain feathers, you will freeze. And finally, if you go outside with exposed skin for more than a minute or so, you WILL get frostbite.  Greg knows a thing or two about that now!

A few things about Arctic Temperatures in Tuktoyaktuk:

1.  There is always a windchill here.  I guess living near the Arctic Ocean doesn't help.  The thing is, the temperature may be in the low to mid -20s, but the windchill drops the temps an extra twenty degrees!

Bowing snow 40 km/hr gusting to 70 km/hr

2.  The wind can and often does blow up and create low visibility.  We have learned that the difference between a winter storm and a blizzard has to do with the kind of precipitation falling, temperatures, and wind.  Winter storms have a mixed bag of precipitation, usually involving snow and ice of some sort, have cold (but not too cold) temperatures, and some wind.  Blizzards, however, are limited to strictly to snow, with winds so bad they shake your house, restrict or eliminate visibility, and have extremely low temperatures.  The word 'severe' kept coming up in the blizzard descriptions.

3.  Even the snow has reacted to the extreme temperatures. When you walk on the snow, you can hear an almost echoing with each footstep.  Everything sounds hollow.  The sounds of our van doors opening and closing and the tires on the snow at the front of our house.  It is not packing snow because it's too cold out, but it's not fluffy or crystal-like either.  It is solid.  When the snowplow, which up here is a heavy duty, monster-size front end loader, comes through and clears out our driveway, the snow piles in large chunks.  I suddenly realized that this was igloo snow!  My suspicion was confirmed when I was talking to the Inuvialuktun Language teacher.  She said this snow was light enough to lift but condensed enough to insulate, which is why it is perfect for making igloos.  Of course, we haven't seen any.  They are becoming archaic, just like dog sleds.

The staff from Tuk who work at the school tease me and tell me I have to develop thicker blood...my thin Southern blood won't keep me warm.  My blood must the only part of me that IS thin, I guess.  If the people here have to get up in the night to run their vehicles to keep the oil from freezing, what keeps their blood from congealing?  That must explain the large families!

After a night of blowing snow, this is what we found when we
opened the door the following day!

Our house is warm enough, especially now with the window and living room floor repaired (a shout out to our land lord), but when the temperatures are this low, it is impossible to keep a house warm enough to dress in anything short of sweatshirts, woollies, and to cover up with our afghans.  The other night I went to tuck Charlotte into bed and she was still wearing her clothes from the day.  I asked her why she hadn't put her pyjamas on and she said, "My clothes are so much warmer, Mom.  They're already warm on my body!"  She had a point, so she slept in her clothes.  The worst parts of the day involve putting on clothing, both indoor and outdoor, a sure sign that the snuggly warmth is about to come to a dramatic end.

We enjoy being toasty warm in our beds, but staying in bed does not get us to work or school, does it?  So, we haul ourselves out of our duvet cocoons, shiver into our wool and fleece and about seven layers of socks, plus our own sets of furs/hides, parkas, and boots meant for extreme temperatures and head off in the darkness to school.  The sun is now well above the horizon by the time we leave school at lunchtime, but there is  something about the cold and darkness of the morning that makes it dreadful to be outside.  It is still dark for about 18/24 hours right now, and although we gain ten minutes of daylight each day, it is difficult to see much past the snow, ice and cold at the moment. Also, when you are in the middle of a wild and crazy blizzard, the sun and the daylight amount to squat.

Greg in his slippers and sweater with his hood pulled up to
keep his follicularly challenged head warm.

I used to say that I would prefer winter to summer because at least with winter you can always add a layer if you're cold.  In the summertime, there is only so far you can go before you have reached your limit.  Well, I am going to officially retract that statement.  I have learned that despite the numerous layers one can add to one's body, including long underwear, sweaters, socks and blankets, parkas even....a bone chilling cold is simply that - a bone chilling cold.  It is worse than any shiver one can experience during a fever, and far worse than a tingle-up-the-spine shiver.  It can take hours of shivering to balance your body temperature when you are that cold!

It's too bad that showering is a necessity, because we would have given that up a few weeks ago.  Showering means being naked, which is the worst thing possible at the moment, even inside a steamy bathroom! We will just remain in the same clothes and sleep in our parkas, hoods pulled up, our scarves wrapped around our faces with just our eyes peering out like a bear hibernating in a cave.  This is how you will find the Wilson Family when the temperature finally does rise, and if we haven't frozen our woollies off, you can stick us in a nice hot shower and thaw us out.

By the way, if you ever hear any of us whining about the heat again, smack us!