This is a panoramic view of the village of Chesterfield Inlet, Nunavut Territory, which is at the top end of Hudson's Bay, near the mouth of the Inlet of the same name. The significance of all this being that away back in the summer of 1968, when I was working for a federal government subsidiary called Northern Canada Power Commission, I was sent up there to the arctic, along with a pile of supplies unceremoniously dumped in a big heap above the high tide line of the inlet there, and the object of that exercise was to renovate a small 3-unit diesel powerhouse belonging to the Department of Transport, and convert it with larger units, which would then be connected into the main grid of the small village there. Until then, the main village got its electricity from an improvised setup in a big shed, operated by the Catholic Mission, and its substantial crew, while the separate Department of Transport and its weather and radio installation had their own isolated system - and never the two had met. I was there to perform that rather dubious task.

That was one of the most unusual summers of my life, and living up there so far above the tree line, with only grass and moss, and low outcrops of rock here and there, and very few people, that was a very different kind of experience. In summer, the sun was above the horizon for about 22 of the 24 hours, and it was a rather bright twilight for those other two. The native kids, and there were lots of them at a big boarding school there, also operated by the Catholic Mission, played outside sometimes until one or two in the morning, and all our houses had 'blackout' type drapery, rubber-lined, so we could make it dark enough inside to get to sleep. The Mission had a small bulldozer and a small farm-type tractor, and I had the only real (and really useless!) pickup truck in town. I'd been assured it would be a 4x4 with big tires to run on the unimproved trails and open tundra there. Typically of government, though, there had been a last-minute mix-up, and what I got was a two-wheel-drive city-type pickup with ordinary summer tires - and it wouldn't go anywhere I needed to go with it without getting stuck in the soft sand near the beach, or digging holes and spinning its wheels where the ground was a little harder. Four or five inches below the surface was permafrost, and the surfaces above that in summer were often wet and mushy, and rather slippery for a vehicle with rubber tired wheels. So my pickup was useless. I parked it in front of the big school, and let the kids there amuse themselves by pretending to drive it. Most of them had never seen one of these things before, and they had fun with it. I rented a tractor from the Mission instead. About once a week, I'd fire up the new truck, load it with as many kids as could get in or onto it, and take everyone for a short ride around the few hundred meters of roads they had there. And calling those roads was being overly generous for sure.

I had four young native lads working with me, constructing about a half-mile of power line to connect that isolated powerhouse to the rest of 'downtown', and in between helping them and a lineman sent from another arctic site to do that part of it, I worked on the powerhouse getting that ready. But as the summer progressed, and we didn't receive any of the promised pay-cheques, and the annual re-supply ship got delayed for repairs, after hitting rocks further down south, the situation got rather uncomfortable. My solution was to arrange for meals at another government operation's cookery, and finally one day I went to the weather station's radio message center, and called my boss in Ottawa on the radio-phone, to request that he send me another tech-type from there to lend a hand. He agreed, and that's when I started packing. When the plane landed with that requested helper on it, I was all ready to throw my gear onto it, and take off for Ottawa to collect my summer's wages. I congratulated my helper for becoming my replacement as superintendent of the project, said a fond farewell to my four faithful native assistants, and hitched a ride down the coast to the nearest airport with scheduled service. Then, back to Ottawa, for a tersely-worded exchange with my employers, collected my pay, and headed for the west coast out here, where I've remained ever since.

A lot has changed in those intervening 41 years, and those natives up north are now voting and deciding their own fates, instead of being under the government's paternalistic thumb, and I'm a lot older now of course - but one thing's still the same - the arctic is a very different kind of environment if you've been raised in the south, and it's a lot like landing on a large foreign planet in the midst of nowhere. One that is only now catching up to the rest of us with its communications, and connections to the rest of the world. And what about the power network in Chesterfield Inlet today? It's modern, works well, and makes life better - but only if you can afford it. Check this map, and click on the place names for details of the rates of electricity up there. It will take your breath away I bet.... See what I mean? Told ya....