Canada

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What It Felt Like to Go Back to English and Québécois

(Post 258 of 263)

It’s interesting how multilingualism works, at least in my brain.

In Mexico, I live in a Spanish environment. Every year, I get more proficient, but I’ve finally accepted that even with my accent, even with my mistakes, I’m fluent and capable of handling any situation in my third language. For speaking, it is now my default language and I’m surprised to catch myself thinking and dreaming it.

Within that Spanish environment, I work in English day in and day out, listening and reading and writing, but I actually don’t speak it that much. When I do, sometimes my québécois accent pops out and I often search for words or put in a Spanish word.

Québécois continues to be my default language of emotion and what I use when I talk to myself. I read a lot of québécois content, but it’s very hard to get TV shows and movies out of Quebec (one of life’s great ironies), so my spoken québécois can have a lot errors and hesitation and mispronunciations, even though it is in theory my langue maternelle.

From the time I got to Calgary to landing in Montreal, I was firmly in English territory, and it didn’t feel as strange as I expected. I did catch myself a few times fumbling for a word, but it really all felt very natural. I lived most of my life in a primarily English environment out of the home before moving to Mexico, so of course I fell back into that rhythm very easily.

But when I got to the Quebec…oh, it was like slipping into comfortable slippers after an eternity in uncomfortable shoes. I was shocked. My mother did take me to task repeatedly for my mistakes when I spoke, but that’s just her being her and not getting how hard it is to get québécois content out of the province and as well that she’s the reason I speak two other languages! When I was interacting with others, it felt easy and comfortable. Home is always going to be home, even if there are a million reasons it makes sense to be away.

One very amusing thing that happened linguistically when I was in Quebec was that I answered my doorbell in Mexico! I was in the car with my parents when it happened and I recognised the fellow on the camera as being a guy who sells good quality black earth. I’ve been trying to get ahold of him for ages. So I switched from québécois to Spanish mode to answer to tell him I wasn’t home but he’d have a sale if he could come back the following week. We chatted for a couple of minutes so he’d know what I needed and when I could receive the order, then hung up. Later, my mother commented that she couldn’t understand a word of the conversation but that it sounded very fluid to her. I think this was the moment she realised that all that money she spent on my private classes when I was a kid had finally paid off!

(He did come back the following weekend, and with perfect timing as my giant front yard cactus had keeled over from its own weight. So I got him to trim it and clear away the debris.)

Answering the doorbell while on the go reminds me that I need to talk about the change in using your Amigo Sin Limites (formerly Sin Fronteras) plan outside of Mexico.

But a final word on this topic, going back to Spanish mode when I got to the Aeroméxico counter at YUL felt just as natural as stepping back into using québécois in a business setting. I expected to need a period to adapt, but it was a smooth transition. I guess I really am trilingual now.

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June 2024 Adventures in Quebec and Ontario (with a bonus July 1 memory)

(Post 256 of 263)

There’s a new direct flight between Regina and Montreal on Air Canada that is more expensive than the old Westjet route of going through Toronto. I will pay anything to never go through Toronto again and was grateful Air Canada was in better shape than Westjet. The payment system for food was down,  so it was free food for all!

YUL, like the rest of Montreal, is perpetually under construction so arrivals were complete chaos with long queues to be picked up. I found a door for my mother to pick me up at and after repeated calls, I told her I was staying put and she’d get to me when she could. It wasn’t until we were finally reunited that we both realised we should have met at arrivals instead.

I arrived early evening on the Saturday, so we caught up over beer and pizza from my favourite place, then I called it a night.

Sunday, one of my sisters and my brother showed up with their broods, as did my other sister’s younger boy. It was fantastic to catch up with everyone and meet nieces and nephews for the first time! Of the ones I’d met, some remembered me, most didn’t.

Monday was la St. Jean Baptiste, Quebec’s national holiday, so everything was shut tight. I took a vacation day and lazed around, planning my week ahead.

Tuesday, we headed into Montreal so I could do some shopping of items I can’t get locally in Mexico and which really can’t be ordered online. The first item was rain boots for wide calves. I do have rain boots of the type meant for mucking about in the garden, but they are not comfortable to walk to Pilates and back in. After seven years here of being held hostage when it rains, I was not coming back from Canada without urban rain boots that fit properly! I did considerable research and found a promising model with an adjustable calf that was in stock at Tony Pappas, a well-known Montreal shoe store: the Amanda II Tall by Bogs. I was dropped off near the store and was back out waiting for a lift before my mothers even had a chance to park! Talk about luck. I really did not expect the boots expedition to be that easy.

Next, I needed a specialised bra store because I have the fun situation of needing cups that are very small relative to my band size, so there’s literally nothing in stores for me in Mexico and I’m tired of buying ill-fitting bras online that I can’t return. J.A. Bouré Coursetière got me sorted very quickly. That was a really pricey trip, but at least now I know my size and what to look for when I shop online. This expedition also took no time at all, so I walked the couple of blocks to the Marché Jean Talon to join my mothers for lunch.

Exterior of Métro Jean Talon

This being a bit of a touristy spot, the food options were $$$ and a bit bougie, but I was delighted with the spicy tuna onigiri I found for only $6.50 as it made for not just a delicious but also very filling lunch. While there, I also grabbed some maple syrup and candies for my sitters back home, happy to find the syrup in a miniature traditional rectangular can.

I was then dropped off near Métro Mont-Royal to go book hunting while my mothers headed to La grande bibliothèque. I bought a book a while ago from a French bookstore in CDMX not realising that not only was there a volume two, but also that volume two was out of print! There are several used bookstores on Mont-Royal, so the plan was to spend an hour going from store to store in hope of finding my book. Well, luck struck three times and I found my book in perfect condition at the first store! French books are ludicrously expensive, so even used they are not a bargain. I therefore only got one other tome and called it a day.

La grande bibliothèque is just a few métro stops away from Mont-Royal, at Berri-UQAM, so I was able to see how the Métro has changed since I started taking it in the mid-1990s. As it turns out, you still have to buy single tickets from a real person at a booth, but you can pay with a card, and the tickets are now $3.75. Instead of a little ticket that you promptly hand back to the attendant for the turnstile to open, you now get a card with a bar code to insert into the turnstile. Keep your card! The machines of old that issued “correspondences” are gone.

The station looked exactly as I remembered, but the cars have been updated. Those of you who follow me on Instagram saw the video of  a new Métro car entering Mont-Royal station (swipe or click right to get to the video).

You can access la Grande bibliothèque from inside Berri-UQAM station. The signage is excellent.

We were beyond done by this point because the traffic in Montreal was worse than its usual terrible. They need to figure that out. Mérida is going that way. 😔

Our final stop of the day was St. Jean-sur-Richelieu’s Enterprise branch for me to pick up a rental car.

Wednesday morning, I headed westbound towards Ontario’s Kawartha Lakes region, where I lived nearly 25 years ago. My destination was the lakeside summer home of my friends K&T who winter in Mérida. I really appreciated the new extension of Autoroute 30 that meant I did not have to go through Montreal. The toll is only $3.75 in each direction and worth every single penny.

I really took my time and the long way around, taking Highway 401 all the way to Brockville before heading north and meandering my way through cottage country until I got to Highway 7. It had been so long since I’d driven it that it was completely unfamiliar.

I stopped at the Subway in Sharbot Lake for lunch and was delighted by the creative menu, not expecting to have pork tandoori with habanero cheese and pickled jalapeños in such a tiny bump in the road.

My friends live deep in the woods, so they met me further down Highway 7 to lead me down the scary-in-a-rental-car road to their beautiful property. 🫣

They have a chihuahua who never had any use for me, but he ended up on my lap several times while I was there! 🥰

Like my Haven stop, this brief lakeside interlude was just what I needed from my trip to Canada.

Thursday morning, I followed T into “town” to attend the exercise class that she gives once a week. A lot of it was similar to things I do in Pilates. The stretch was most welcome ahead of the long drive back!

To return to Quebec, I took the more direct route through Ottawa since I had to be back by 5PM to return the car. I only stopped at the Harvey’s in Casselman for lunch. I remember their burgers being fantastic, but that was back when they were the only real option for a veggie burger. The beef burger and onion rings were meh, but I love that you can pick your toppings, which have really expanded to nearly match Subway’s offerings. I went with my usual relish, mustard, and tomato, but added pickled jalapeño. I do not remember pickled jalapeño being so readily available back when I lived in Canada! There are also a lot of habanero offerings, even at Tim Horton’s!

Friday morning brought a surprise. I’d checked the tracking on my box and it wasn’t going to arrive until the day after I left. But Canada Post came through for me!

I took a vacation day again on Friday, but did borrow my mother’s bike to get some grocery items that are difficult to find in Mérida:

-Patak Indian sauces (sadly the IGA did not have all varieties on my list)
-tomato paste in tubes
-packet gravy
-onion soup mix
-Better than Bouillon

Really, that’s all the staples I’m missing at home. There were a lot of other things that caught my eye, of course, but I’m trying to live where I live.

After dropping off the groceries, I got back on the bike again to go have lunch at a traditional pataterie. This was my third time on her bike that week. My hometown is very bikeable, flat with tons of bike paths, a real joy to tour around in. I have a bike in Mérida, but it’s so dangerous and time-consuming to get to the enjoyable biking areas that I hardly do it anymore.

For lunch, I went all out and had both a smoked meat sandwich and a poutine. I cannot believe I only had real fries once on my whole trip! But at least they were the real deal. This was so good and is what “home” tastes like.

Friday night, my cousin met me in the late evening and we went for a walk along the Richelieu River at the site of Fort Chambly, which looked pretty under the lights.

Saturday’s lunch was another item on my food bucket list for the trip, a real bagel from St. Viateur! My mother mixes all the toppings — capers, smoked salmon, dill — into the cream cheese, a superior method than layering everything.

My sitters kept me updated about the goings-on at home and sent me this sweet shot of my girls having accepted the strangers into their home and being able to relax around them:

I don’t remember what I did on Saturday. It was rainy and I probably just took a vacation day. Oh, my younger sister and her new partner came for dinner, so it was great to catch up with her and meet him, as well as see my eldest nephew who had missed the party on Sunday.

Sunday, I headed to the sports store where he works as I needed a pair of hiking shoes. He’s well trained and knowledgeable in the products his store carries, so after having me try on a half dozen pairs, he found the perfect thing, and well under budget. I was so proud of his professionalism!

Monday was Canada Day, so everything was closed. I took a long bike ride and got back to an invitation from my younger sister to have dinner at her house so I could meet her stepkids. They were a delight, and I was thrilled to have a chance to see the home she and her partner are renovating.

It was then time to try to go to bed early for a 5:40 wakeup call to start the long journey home, the part of the trip I was most excited about! All will be revealed soon enough. 😉

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June 2024 Adventures in Saskatchewan (Spoiler: Avoid Westjet!)

(Post 255 of 263)

After six years away, it was time to return to Canada this year to attend to a few things in Saskatchewan, check in on my property, and then visit my family in Quebec. This was a weird trip to organise. A lot of it was contingent on being able to get a rental car, which was contingent on being able to renew my expired driver’s license. I was also so busy with work in the weeks leading up to it that I just didn’t have time to plan. There was also a bit of existential dread around the whole affair, considering how I always get interrogated when I return to Canada — was this the entry where I’d end up arrested?! So I won’t pretend I was excited about it, but I had to go since I’d lined up sitters from France way back in January!

My sitters brought real champagne!

I had no choice but to use Canadian airlines to get myself to Regina then on to Montreal, so I packed very light to do carry on, with the plan being to have checked bags when returning home on Aeroméxico, the only part of the trip I was super excited about, which you’ll understand why when I relate that adventure. 🤭

My new and improved luggage setup. Suitcase smaller than the one I went to Europe with, backpack a bit bigger (but still personal item sized). I also had a small cross-over purse for hands-free access to things like my phone and passport, which I could tuck into the backpack.

Wednesday, June 19th, a prescheduled Uber driver showed up at 6AM to take me to the Altabrisa ADO station for a 6:45 bus ride directly to Cancún’s terminal 4, where I would catch a flight to Calgary. I was then to transfer to Regina, where I’d arrive at 2AM. Ha ha ha ha ha. SURPRISE. In anticipation of a strike, Westjet rerouted me to Edmonton with a flight to Regina Thursday morning! They gave me no notice to explore other options and too late to cancel my room in Regina.

At any rate, the first part of my trip to Canada was great. The bus ride felt really quick and we got to the airport nearly 5 hours before my flight. This was my first time at the Cancún airport and I was not impressed as everything was a cash grab. It is apparently one of the most expensive airports in the world to be stuck in. After wandering a bit, I found a restaurant tucked into a far corner where I could sit with a burger and beer for a couple of hours and not be rushed out the door like at the Puck and Fieri restaurants in the main food court area.

I had a middle seat for the flight to Calgary, but it was surprisingly not as miserable as I’d expected. I chose to buy food on the plane rather than get a sad sandwich from the airport. To my surprise, there were no sandwiches on the menu, just hot dishes. I picked a curry with rice and it was surprisingly good and felt like exceptional value for the 11CAD price point.

I met a lovely young man from Veracruz on the plane who was on his way to far northern Alberta to work as a camp counselor. I was amazed by the start he was giving himself in life – he’d learned English, taken classes, and successfully applied for a Canadian work visa. This was his first time leaving Mexico, and I knew he had nothing but great things ahead of him. He was stressed about the immigration process and spent the entire flight reviewing his documents over and over again. I tried to talk him off that ledge and have him focus on all the amazing things he was about to experience.

We got to Calgary on schedule, past 9PM and it was still daylight. I have missed the long northern summer days! Arrival was just like at pretty much any airport in Canada nowadays — no service, no signage, total chaos. We now have to do the declaration on a touch screen upon arrival rather than handwriting one on the plane. It was then time to go speak to a CSBA agent. This is where everything changed for me and will greatly affect how I feel about future returns to Canada. Of all my anticipated scenarios for my encounter with CBSA, this one didn’t even make the list, it was so improbable. There was a precheck of documents before being sent to a booth with an agent. For the first time since 2011, a CBSA officer barely scanned my documents and told me I was clear to go. 😲😲😲😲😲😲😲😲😲😲😲😲😲😲😲😲😲😲😲😲😲😲😲😲😲😲😲😲😲😲😲😲😲😲😲😲😲😲😲😲😲😲😲😲😲😲😲😲😲😲😲😲

In a daze, I headed out to find a Westjet agent when the boy from Veracruz waved me down. “Rae, Rae, they let me in! It was so easy! I’m spending my summer in Canada!!!!!!!!!” I still feel emotional thinking about it. I’m so pleased his arrival was so painless.

WestJet had no one available to help all the hapless Regina-bound customers. It would have cost them so much less to have a minibus waiting for us in Edmonton to take us to a hotel than to get all the negative publicity from dumping people at a completely shutdown freezing airport in the middle of the night.

Edmonton did have a ton of comfy-ish couches to sleep on, but ran pointless announcements all night long that I think are purposely played to discourage folks from sleeping at the airport. I settled down to try to sleep at 1:30 and gave up at 5:00 when the airport started to get busy.

Morning in Edmonton

I had breakfast at the Chili’s and the server got a huge tip for bringing peanut butter with my pancakes, correctly asserting I’d need the extra protein since I’d not eaten since my curry on the plane.

We arrived in Regina late morning and I headed to the hotel, a short distance away. Check-in was at 5PM, but I hadn’t been able to cancel the room, so it had been held for me. I had a quick shower then looked for a nearby place to renew my driver’s license. In Saskatchewan, you do that at insurance agents, so I knew I’d find something close by. Sure enough, there was a place a 15-minute walk away.

The neighbourhood around the hotel was so neat and clean, with streets and sidewalks in perfect condition and lots of green spaces. I hadn’t realised until that moment how much I’d been suffocating in Mérida despite being aware that I desperately needed to get back out in nature.

Regina has a large population from India and all the people I saw that first morning back were from that part of the world. I remember the lack of diversity in Saskatchewan when I first arrived in 2008. It’s incredible how quickly things change. It was humbling to go from being a minority in a foreign country to a minority in my own country.

The license renewal process was mostly painless, but there was a bit of it that reminded me that I while I might enjoy trips back to Canada, there is no way I’ll ever live there again. I’m not going to go into that rant; the travel part of my holiday was positive and I want to focus on that.

I was then going to get a few things at the nearby Walmart before renting a car, then realised that I was too exhausted to think straight enough to buy shoes, never mind drive a car for the first time in three years. So I headed back to the hotel, but stopped at the Co-Op grocery store to get a quick lunch and some snacks. I don’t miss Canadian food prices, but I do miss the supermarkets with the huge variety and freshness of products. Back at the hotel, I had some “sushi” with fabulous veggie and fruit trays, and then passed out for a nearly four-hour nap!

Feeling much better, I got online and reserved a car, going with the only company I’ll rent from if they are a choice, Enterprise. I got a taxi back to the airport and picked up the car there, an absolutely effortless process. The price was only $107 to have the car until my departure on Saturday morning, which felt like a steal.

It was dinnertime when I got back and the nearest restaurant was Indian. I decided to order a ton of food to have leftovers for Friday since the room had a fridge and microwave. All of this with a generous tip cost me $70, and I could have had four meals out of it.

Friday morning, I had breakfast at the hotel buffet and then headed on the road to visit Haven! It felt so good and comfortable to be back behind the wheel after so long. The kilometres passed quickly and effortlessly as I sailed across my beloved Prairies. Saskatchewan really is my home in Canada. I stopped at the post office in Assiniboia to get a prepaid box, with the plan being to ship a few things to my mother’s house rather than risk checking them with Air Canada.

My property looks pretty good! There was a lot of mouse poop in the buildings, though. The RM (rural municipality) put the dumpsters on my lot in exchange for the grass being cut, a very good deal! I couldn’t believe I’d made it back and was thrilled that my two neighbours were there so we could catch up. I really hope to eventually put a house on this lot so I can come back for a month or two every year. It’d be good for the soul. The trick is to fly into Calgary and then drive from there (eight hours) since flying to Regina is consistently a hassle.

I packed up my box and after a few hours it was time to head back to Regina as I had a 2.5-hour drive ahead of me. Unfortunately, the box was a bit heavy, so I had to take out some items that, thankfully, I knew would fit in my carry-on suitcase.

The return drive was equally painless, but I was fatigued by the time I came in. I was so pleased I didn’t have to go back out as I had a feast awaiting me in the hotel fridge!

Saturday morning, I wasn’t flying out until 11AM, so I had a bit of a lie-in before enjoying the complimentary breakfast again. Pretty basic, but the coffee was exceptionally good.

I dropped the car off at 10AM and the return process was as painless as the pickup. I only had to put $40 of fuel in. Fuel is the same price as in Mexico, so no sticker shock there, about $1.70 per litre in both SK and, spoiler, Quebec. And that is where we are headed next!

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Canada As a Tourist Destination

One thing I frequently get asked when I’m travelling outside of Canada is, “Is Canada a good tourist destination?”

Travel + Leisure seems to think so since it named Canada its 2017 Destination of the Year. I actually started this post before that came out and that’s what’s prompted me to actually finish the post.

So is Canada a good tourist destination worthy of such an accolade?

Unlike the vast majority of Canadians, I’ve travelled just about the entire country. I’ve been to nine of the ten provinces, two of the three territories, visited most of the major cities, been to almost every major “tourist trap,” and have experienced just about every ecosystem Canada has to offer, from desert to tundra, rainforest to plains, mountains to ocean coast, and more. So I can speak for all of it, not just the part where I’ve lived my whole life and so I believe I’m particularly qualified to answer this question of whether Canada is a good tourist destination.

My answer, with a some reservations tailored to the individual, is YES, Canada is an absolutely amazing tourist destination! And let me add that I feel so privileged to have had a chance to knock off about 99% of my Canada bucket list!

Before I get into the good stuff, let me get the negatives out of the way.

First, Canada is an expensive country. An asker from, say, Western Europe, wouldn’t get nearly the same sticker shock as someone from, say, the Balkans or Mexico. But there are some things in Canada that are pretty much universally prohibitively expensive:

  1. Groceries. While restaurant prices are quite on par with countries in Western Europe that I’ve visited (Spain, the Netherlands, the UK), groceries themselves are not. Our dairy products and produce are much costlier than I’ve seen in other countries. Someone from Japan might find them cheap, but Canada has thus far been the most expensive place I’ve ever had to buy groceries. So self-catering isn’t a guaranteed way to save when visiting Canada, depending on your style of travel. I find that in some more remote locations, you can actually eat much better quality food at a more reasonable price at a restaurant.
  2. Telecom prices in Canada are stupid. You are likely better off to get a Canada add-on to your existing cell phone plan than to buy a pay-as-you go SIM there. For Mexicans, I tell them to look into TelCel’s “sin fronteras” plan before going to Canada.
  3. Travel within Canada is very expensive. I had one lady in Spain say that she wants to visit Montreal and Vancouver. So she thought to fly to Montreal and then, “since [she] would already be in Canada, [she] could just get a cheap flight to Vancouver and fly home from there.” She was shocked to discover that the cost of flying from Montreal to Vancouver was more than the price of flying from Spain to Montreal! I really think that the best way to visit Canada, if you can take the time, is to come for many months and road trip it, preferably in an RV, and that’s not just because I’m biased towards RV travel. It’s what folks who have done it both ways have told me.

Now, what to see in Canada? Well, what do you like? Canada has something for everyone and I cannot off the top of my head think of a tourist trap that isn’t still worth visiting. For the urban-minded, we have world-class cities filled with museums and other cultural events, as well as shopping if that’s your thing. For the outdoorsy type, there is so much choice, from taking a canoeing trip on a lake to kayaking on the Arctic ocean, surfing in the middle of winter on the Vancouver Island, horseback riding on the prairies, and choosing from a myriad of hikes. If you like history, how about visiting Viking ruins, citadels, and ancient totem poles? Quebec offers non-French speakers a chance to travel somewhere that should feel more than a little exotic, plus old Montreal and Quebec City offer a taste of Europe. Canada has a lot to offer foodies as well. Depending on the region you are in, you will find foods from all over the world as well as some interesting local delicacies (Eskimo ice cream or prairie oysters, anyone?).

Really, Canada has so much to offer as a travel destination that it makes me dizzy!

For those on a tight budget and schedule, I highly recommend visiting the National Capital Region. Some will call me biased because Ottawa is my favourite city in the world. But really, coming to this area will give you access to some of Canada’s best museums, easy access to one of our magnificent national parks, and a chance to experience francophonie when you cross the Ottawa River into Gatineau. With extra time, you can also easily get to Kingston, Toronto, and Montreal. But of course, going there means missing out on our quirky Maritimes, all that Newfoundland and Labrador have to offer, our under-appreciated Prairies, and the incredible diversity of British Columbia’s landscapes, never mind the diversity of our northern territories where you can step back in time in an authentic gold rush town or experience life as it has happened for thousands of years in a small native fishing village.

Canada’s climate reputation is generally unwarranted. Regardless of where you go, you can pretty much be guaranteed decent weather three to four months of the year in the summer. In fact, I’ve had nicer summers in Yukon than much further south. For winter, don’t be fooled. 5C in Vancouver in January might sound nice, but it will be very rainy and overcast. You might actually be more comfortable in Regina at -30C, where it will be dry and sunny. The biggest mistake I see tourists make when they come to Canada is to make assumptions about the weather and then being completely inappropriate dressed for it (and it’s usually over dressed!). Do research about the climate of the specific area where you are going at the time of your adventure and then build your wardrobe around that information and the activities you plan to do.

I hope that some of my readers who have never been to Canada will eventually do so. Thank you, Travel + Leisure, for making my home country your 2017 Destination of the Year!

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The Year-Round Road to Tuktoyaktuk Is Finally Complete

Long-time readers may remember the heady days of my Klondike summers, when I finally fulfilled my dreams of seeing Canada’s far north. Oh, those days seem so far away now, but they are some of the months I will remember most fondly in my old age. They taught me that dreams really do not have deadlines and that achieving them is particularly sweet after you’d given up hope. I may never again drive the Alaska, Klondike and Dempster Highways again, may never again see a show at Diamond Tooth Gertie’s or fly over Tuktoyaktuk’s pingos, but I did it!

Exploring the north is going to get a little easier for tourists because this coming Wednesday, November 15th, 2017, after years of delays, the all-year gravel road between Inuvik and Tuktoyaktuk is finally going to open. For the first time in Canada’s history, it will be possible to drive year-round to each of our three coasts.

I would like to invite you reread my series about Driving the Dempster Highway and to revisit the towns of Inuvik and Tuktoyaktuk. I feel privileged to have done so and to have spoken to locals so that I know that while this year-round road will change life in Tuk, in some ways not for the better, this road is ultimately a Good Thing worthy of celebration.

Standing in the Arctic Ocean at Tuktoyaktuk, NWT, August 2010