Further to that....

Lily mentioned in our last post that Spring in Baker Lake isn't all fun.
Allow me to add my 2 cents on the subject.

We have regaled everyone with numerous tales of Mother Nature's fury up here, blizzards, whiteouts, etc. You would think then, that as extreme as winter is in Baker Lake, everyone is breathing sighs of relief now that spring is finally here. Not so.

To give you some perspective, I spent a year living in Uganda back in 2000. When I arrived, it was the wet season. It sucked. I prayed for the dry season to arrive. When it finally did....I prayed for the wet season to return. Now, Uganda's climate is a little harsher than Nunavut's, and at the almost opposite end of the temperature spectrum. Still, I understand why winter is so popular here. First, it's the longest season by a wide margin. Ergo, if you don't want to be angry all the time, you need to, if not openly embrace, then at least tolerate 8-9 months of often mind-numbingly, we-are-crazy-to-have-moved-to-such-an-inhospitable-place cold weather.

Also, as Lily mentioned, there are bugs in the summer. Seriously, we get maybe a month of summer, and most of it is plagued with a cloud of stinging insects. It's like Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds, in insect form. I've camped in Northern Ontario in the summer, and that was pretty bad - almost a four on the Baker Lake scale.

Lastly, as Lily also mentioned: MUD. There are no paved roads here, the grading is inconsistent, and April didn't bring us showers, but nothing flower-like rhymes with "deluge". Last night it felt like a giant big bad wolf was trying to blow our house down (luckily, we used brick), and this morning, the roads were like rivers.

Despite all of this, it's nice to break out the windbreaker, and pack the thermal underwear away for another few months, until winter slaps us in the face again, likely by the end of September. Crazy.

-J

PS - our posting schedule is going to be a little less regular for the next while, but we promise to check in at least once a week. Thanks for your understanding!