Creativity Abounds!

One of the most inspiring things that I have witnessed here in Baker Lake is the amount of creativity that lives here. Even when traveling throughout the territory, you would be hard-pressed to not notice the beautiful arts, crafts, clothing and more that are created here. In Iqaluit, it is common to be sitting down for dinner and local artists approach your table with prints or carvings for sale.

Baker doesn't have restaurants per se, so people here tend to use Facebook to sell their wares unless there is a community event. Just before Christmas, there was a community craft sale where people came out with all sorts of homemade items that we oooh'd and aaah'd over. I ended up buying a knitted hat, but many of my colleagues walked away with ivory jewelery, knitted wares, traditional prints and more.

There is something to be said about not only supporting your community, but supporting the artist who worked so hard to make the items they so proudly showcased.

 

-L

Trying New Things...A Tasting Experiment!

I was browsing through the store recently on our weekly grocery trip and found a couple of interesting-looking items for us to taste test. I was pretty excited - new things are hard to find when you shop the same store/same aisles day in/day out. It's the little things in life that make me smile every day. :)

Both items I found were prepared Arctic Char, so I was looking forward to it. Neither were too expensive either, which was an added bonus. (Given that you can buy a whole frozen Char for about $70). Since we're in-land, we don't get any Arctic Char in our water. You have to leave town and head towards the area where the river meets the bay, and you can find Char there - about a 70km trip, I understand. Still, people go out there to fish all the time and you can sometimes find local sellers who will sell you fresh fish from their day's catch - for far less than $70 each!

If you've never had Char, it's very comparable in taste/texture to salmon. I think it tastes a bit fattier than salmon, but it's delicious every time I've had it. Hence why I was extra excited to try my new discoveries!

Girly Things: Julep Monthly Subscription

Sometimes, when the days are dreary and you feel like you've been wearing nothing but thick sweaters, over sized parkas and heavy boots, you just need a good pick-me-up and to make yourself pretty. Being as there aren't any drug stores or makeup counters around, it's hard to just run out and pick up a little something to cheer yourself up, you know?

I stumbled across a solution that not only caters to my need for pretty things in my life, but it also couples it with a surprise in the mailbox every few weeks...all at a fairly low cost. It makes me happy and it doesn't break the bank. Win-win, I'd say!

Retail Therapy

I find that I've been particularly homesick the past few weeks; I think it's because everyone is planning their summer vacations home and we're still months away from going south so it's tough. It happened around Christmas too, since we weren't planning on going home for the holidays, and it was hard to see everyone around us leaving. I know we were home not too long ago, but it didn't feel like very long - especially when you've got people going home for 4-8 weeks!!

I don't deal with homesickness well, I'm afraid. I find myself calling home less often because I miss everyone too much when we hang up. It's like the more I miss home, the more I withdraw. I won't lie and say that moving away is easy, because it's not. Especially if you've got a close circle of loved ones at home - I will say that having a strong support circle at home, and the circle we've made here, has helped immensely. It doesn't make the homesickness go away, but it's nice to know that the ones at home are waiting for you, and the ones here know exactly what you're going through. Comfort in empathy!

I've also been doing a lot of shopping recently and that seems to be helping a lot, much to my husband's chagrin, ha! There are a lot of things that I'm waiting for through the post office, but the newest fun past time we've acquainted ourselves with are house sales! A lot of people, teachers in particular, move at the end of the school year, so they sell a bunch of things so they don't have to ship them home. Moving sales are a great way to 1) get rid of things before you leave and 2) get some amazing deals on things you didn't even know you needed/wanted! Plus, it's a different place to shop other than the Northern - so something new is always exciting/welcome here! I've been able to pick up a few goodies for dirt cheap, but I've also learned that you have to be quick before someone else scoops it up before you!

All this to say - it's not always easy, and it's not always sunshine and rainbows...but as long as you have people who love you (and a credit card, ha!), you're going to be a-ok.

-L

Shipping Woes

A while back, I wrote a post about online shopping and what sites we were using - specifically sites that offered good prices with reasonable, if not free, shipping to Nunavut. Unfortunately, in the months since that post, a few companies have now changed their shipping policies and it's left us scrambling to find alternatives. It seems counter-intuitive, but as more people started taking advantage of the shipping/buying from the sites, the more they "caught on" that they had customers here and needed to start charging more.

 Let's review what companies have changed their policies since our last post:

Swap & Sell

There's an online group for Baker Lake that allows people to post things they are selling/looking to buy/giving away, and so on - and for the most part it's a really handy place to pick up/unload anything you can think of. The posts have ranged from baked goods to handmade items to cars and trucks...the list goes on and on.

I've noticed that it's not only for items, but really, it's a community forum to see what is going on in town. The airlines may post when they have a sale, or a flight is cancelled - or the church group will post when a flea market is happening in the rec center for a fundraiser, etc. It is the online hub for the community, and from what I understand, each community seems to have a similar outlet.

I like going on it to read the posts because I find some of them entertaining and admit that I spend at least a little bit of time every day reading through the posts. When someone says that something is "brand new...only worn a few times" or "laptop for sale, nothing wrong...may be missing a few buttons" - it makes me giggly. Where else can you sell small cups of Jello for $1 each, or a homemade pepperoni pizza for $25? It's definitely a lucrative business if you want it to be. The majority of the posts revolve around food that people are selling/looking for, and Jeff has mentioned on more than one occasion that I could make a profitable side-business by selling the things I cook/bake. I don't think I'm quite there yet, when I'm enjoying being a lurker too much.

-L

What Else is Expensive in Nunavut?

Everything.

Everything is expensive in Nunavut if you've been exposed to prices south of here, or have discovered the beauty of shopping online (though some places won't ship this far north, and if they do, it could be crazy expensive...so that may not be a good option either).

One of the "convenience" stores in Baker Lake also has an electronics counter and I recently found out they also sell furniture from time to time. I think it's beyond a typical convenience store - which there are a couple of small ones in town - because it sells a variety of other things if the stock is available.

The store sometimes posts a few sale prices on Facebook, and I grabbed a recent flyer to show what non-grocery items can look like in terms of pricing:

I'm quite certain that you can get most of these items for a lower price with free shipping if you purchased online. For larger items (such as the appliances and furniture), the shipping is usually at a premium cost so people tend to wait until summer when the barges come and order it up that way (barges are also when many people purchase vehicles and have them sent up, but that's a different story).

Clothing is also quite expensive here, since the only place to purchase it would be at the Northern - and the mark-up is steep. I have seen track pants or jeans that are Walmart or Zellers brand go for $75. I get that sometimes it's necessary to purchase items that you don't have the luxury of waiting for it to be shipped, but stores need to realize this and cut us some slack - prices could be lowered significantly and they'd still be making a huge profit.

-L

Weekly Sale at the Co-Op

As I've mentioned before, the Co-Op used to offer more fruits and vegetables that were in better condition than the Northern, but there's been a noticeable decline in the past couple of months - to the point where we hardly go there anymore. One time we went, and the store was in such neglect that there were visibly mouldy bags of shredded cheese in the cooler and bags of fruit that were so past their edible date that they leaked onto the floor in a big brown puddle (ick).

Their prices have also gone up fairly significantly in the past little bit as well. When we first got here, bagged salad kits were $3 and now they're anywhere from $6 to $8. They've also stopped putting price tags on their produce so you're not quite sure how much something is until you get to the till. I was very excited to see Asian Pears the other day and thought as a treat for Lunar New Year, I'd buy one so we could share it. Unfortunately I wasn't man enough to pay $3 for one (not very large) pear, so that went back on the shelf!

When you don't have much choice in terms of shopping options, it still helps to do price comparisons for items. Although not as fancy as the Northern's, here's the flyer from the Co-Op from last week. We bought the apples and although they are very small, they are still pretty good and crisp.

Looking at this flyer makes me pretty thankful we stocked up on toilet paper before we came up though - pretty sure we paid no more than $0.16 per roll, and this sale brings it to an astonishing $0.71 each! You don't even want to know what the cost is when it's full price. So next time you're at the store and you're looking through your flyers, think of us and be glad you're not paying 4x as much!

-L

Ladies Night

Last night was Ladies Night at the Northern...since it was also Grey's night, the girls and I decided to go see what all the buzz was about. We weren't quite sure what to expect (should we bring small bills and pretend we're on Magic Mike?), but it was an experience we decided we needed to see for ourselves.

Bad Day for Shopping!

When you're shopping online, there's a level of trust that you need to build between yourself and the place you're shopping from: you trust that they will deliver the products you purchased in the condition you purchase, and they trust that your credit card doesn't get declined when you hit that "pay now" button.

It's really frustrating when that trust is broken, and even more so when you aren't the one receiving the purchases, but gift recipients are!

Online Shopping Guide

With Christmas around the corner, and a distinct lack of physical shopping at hand, we've (let's be real here, I'm the shopper in this family!) had to learn to be resourceful at using the internet to find sites that offer online shopping.

The trick is to find retailers that offer reasonable, or even better, free shipping. Some sites will do shipping for free in the South and because Nunavut is considered "remote," we may not qualify for these deals.

I thought it would be helpful to list some of the sites that I have found really useful/helpful/lucrative for our shopping needs. Mos of the Christmas shopping we've been doing for friends and family at home have come from these retailers. *I will update the list as I discover more sites I like.