The Journey Begins - Part 3: To Kangiqsualujjuaq

Well, I finally made it to Kangiqsualujjuaq.  But lets rewind for a moment here and talk about the super-boring day I had while I was in Kuujjuaq.  We rescheduled my flight since I got all the information I needed from the pedagogy councellor and I was supposed to get on the 9:30 flight....woohoo! So I went to the airport around 8 so that I would have plenty of time.  Around 8:30 they tell us that the flight is delayed until 1:30 since they needed the current plane for something else.  That's a bit of a pain, but 4 hours is okay I guess.  I figured I could tough it out.  Around 12:30 they tell us that the flight is canceled and I'm going on the 3:30 flight.  At this point I'm kinda pissed off since if I had known that I would have just gone into town and got something to eat.  The major problem lay in the fact that it is about a 3-4km walk into town from the airport.  On the plus side I went out for a short walk and got a picture of the town.

So I gave up and started eating out of the vending machine (which actually turned out to be not much more expensive than your average airport machines with everything costing around $2.  I ended up getting a bag of chips and 2 bounty bars (So much for healthy eating).  Around 2:00 the guy comes by and says that there are further delays until 6:30.  At this point I'm wondering if I'm actually going to make it outta there in the same day.  Evidently I wasn't the only one who was bored since some little kid started throwing his stuffed frog at me and we ended up playing pass the from for about half an hour...

 

So as you can see from this picture, it is actually literally IMPOSSIBLE to actually get lost or confused in the Kuujjuaq airport.   There are the two counters you see here and about 40 seats.  Anyway, we took off at 6:30, finally!!!

So this was definitely the smallest aircraft I've ever been on!  I think the total amount of seating was for about 10 people.  It was kinda neat though I could see the GPS in the pilots cabin and track how far we'd gone.  I found that I actually don't mind being on these small planes.  Although the fact that we were only in the air for about 35 minutes probably helped.  Anywho, the fog was pretty thick and we just managed to get into Kangiqsualujjuaq.  About an hour after landing the fog started to hit the ground.  Fortunately the principal Mark and another teacher came by the airport to pick me up and drive me into town.  Mark and his wife Nancy had me over at their house for dinner.  It was a great change from stale chips and chocolate bars.  I think I'll take some more pictures this weekend to give you an idea of what this town is like.

The Journey Begins - Part 2: To Kuujjuaq

So this morning I got up around 6am in order to get the shuttle to the airport for my 8am flight.  I managed to get through security fairly well considering the guy was speaking French, but I suppose my understanding is good enough! I got a little lost on my way to the gate, but I figured it out eventually.

So here's my plane.  It was little but not too little.  I think it said the seating limit was 76 or something.  The flight was alright.  I had cereal for breakfast on there with fruit and a muffin.  Not too shabby.  Glad I didn't go with the eggs (they didn't look too good).  The weird thing was that the flight was full of hunters.  Apparently Kuujjuaq is a big destination for them; who knew?  Anyway, the funny thing is that the landing strip is a little bit too short and the pilot had to actually turn the plane around after landing and drive back to the airport.

So here is the giant Kuujjuaq terminal...lol.  There is a counter for First Air and Air Inuit. The good thing is that it is literally impossible to get lost in this place.  Anywho, fortunately there was someone there to pick me up and took me to the pedagogy councilors house.  She gave me a better idea of what was in the curriculum and what to expect from the students and parents.  I'm glad I stopped here since I learned quite a bit and managed to get some good resources as well!  Looks like the last day of school before the Christmas break is December 21!

After finishing off for the day we went on a trip around Kuujjuaq so that I could get a look at everything.  The grocery store was larger than I thought it would be and had a pretty good selection, although the pop was $11 for a 2L and a can of diced tomatoes was around $3.75.  We went all the way to the top of this hill where there is a radar dome.  It was neat since it gave a really good view of everything.

One of the weird things I noticed was that there is a whole lot of dogs around here.  I said a German Shepherd, Huskies and all kinds of mutts.  On our trip to the radar ball we saw two dog sled teams just kinda tied up in the middle of nowhere, it was a little weird.  At least if I want to get a dog I won't have to look too hard.  Anyway, I got myself a modem and I have 512Mb of bandwidth a day so I should be good to go! tomorrow I depart for Kangiqsualujjuaq.  Hopefully my house will be as nice as the one I'm in now!

The Journey Begins - Part 1: To Montreal

So today was the first leg of my journey from Delhi to Kangiqsualujjuaq.  Ashley and I got up around 8am and made our way to Burlington by 10am.  From there we went with my parents to Dim Sum at the Dragon Mall in Mississauga. 

This is one of those traditional places where the people actually come around with the carts and you pick what you want off of them.  It was a great time! I haven't been to one of those places in a long time. Ashley had a good time with it too I think.  We usually only go to the Dim Sum places where you have to order in advance off of the menu.

From there we went to Pearson and I got on my flight to Montreal.  Now that is a quick flight! we were in the air for about 45minutes.  Essentially enough time to get your drink, get the cup taken away and then it's landing time.  On the plus side Air Canada actually has monitors on the backs of all the seats now.  It makes traveling much more fun and easy, but in this case I only got to see about 20min of Rango before it was time to land.

Anywho, It took a while for the baggage to get there.  Once I got my stuff and exited the airport I realized that I had no idea where the shuttle for the hotel was supposed to come.

I figured it out when I saw a mini-bus drive by with Comfort Inn printed on it; sadly that one drove away before I could actually get there.  After waiting around for about 45 minutes for another one I called the hotel and found out that the buses are on-call.  Who knew?  Anyway, once he came the drive was only about 5 minutes.  The hotel was good enough, pretty much what you would expect for $100 a night.

So I used the low-speed wifi and had a rather nice conversation with my Ashley on skype.  Hopefully the connection will be as good out in Kangiqsualujjuaq.  If so it won't be so bad.  We had a look around for places to eat and I went to Barbie's Restaurant in Dorval.

I figured I could use a walk so I walked the 2.4km to get there.  Haha, I know the place looks a little sketchy from this angle, but it was actually quite good.  The food was good and priced reasonably.  The service was friendly and quick.  I made it there around 6:30 and was good to go around 7:00.  Afterwards it was a nice 25min walk back to the hotel.  It really amazes me how many people actually speak English in Montreal.




Tomorrow will be part 2 of the journey as I fly from Montreal to Kuujjuaq.