Tuesday, June 16, 2009

First Impressions

It is Tuesday morning, we flew in on Sunday in the early afternoon. My first view of the North was from the plane, of Great Slave Lake. Covered in fragments of ice, the lake was deep blue and white, as far as I could see. There was a low cloud bank, but we popped through in time to see the rocky islands and Yellowknife itself. Pretty. I saw colorful houseboats, some pushed onto the rock, waiting for the ice to melt away. When we stepped off the plane the ground was wet from a recent rain shower, and the air clean and fresh, it reminded me of living on Vancouver Island.

YK is definitely a city, petite, but with its various sections defined nonetheless; old town, business section, the street you don't walk down at night by yourself. A city, just mini. Surrounded by lakes, rock formations and resilient little "pipe-cleaner" evergreens. The deciduous trees are still only half way leafed out, but the dandelions are blooming and people have filled there window boxes with flowering annuals. This place is built on rock, gravel and sand, bringing in topsoil is expensive and it would be invisible 8 months of the year anyway. It is Canada's rugged north. I like it. I think it will be very pretty in the winter.

We dropped in to visit 440 Squadron yesterday and someone asked me if I'm looking forward to moving up here. I paused and then said, "Yeah..., I am." The man seemed surprised, "Really?". To which I replied, "How many people can say they've lived north of 60?". That seemed to satisfy him and even appeared to give him some encouragement... a spouse with a positive attitude about her husbands posting location. I guess some spouses arrive in tears, or so I've heard.

Yesterday we viewed our assigned housing. It will be a change from .6 acre and house, but there is beauty to be enjoyed almost everywhere, even in what some affectionately call "the ghetto". I like the space, the wood laminate, the white walls, the kitchen and the decks, and the views from the back. It "felt" right. Good. Peace. IKEA here I come... cha-ching! :0)

Oh yeah, and I got offered a job...


3 comments:

  1. Welcome to Yellowknife. Glad you are liking it so far.
    Check out some of the other Northern Bloggers at http://www.nwtblogs.com

    Kyle (The Bushman)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Welcome to Yellowknife! Found you from a Google Alert I had setup on the word Yellowknife. We moved here a little over a year ago and have been enjoying life here as well. There are many naysayers but don't let them get you down. Enjoy it for everything it has to offer. And you're right... not too many people can say they experienced the sub-arctic. It's an amazing place in both summer and winter. btw... those are the 2 seasons we get, in case you hadn't heard! :-)

    All the best to you.

    Dave
    http://familydayz.wordpress.com

    ReplyDelete
  3. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete