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Grise Fiord, Canada's most northerly community
- notkaiho 7y agoInteresting to see this on the same day as the "overtourism" article shared here too
- wavefunction 7y agoEven worse it involves a cruise ship. https://foe.org/cruise-report-card/ https://foe.org/cruise-report-card/ https://www.npr.org/2019/06/04/729622653/carnival-cruise-lines-hit-with-20-million-penalty-for-environmental-crimes https://www.npr.org/2019/06/04/729622653/carnival-cruise-lin...
- hluska 7y agoI'm not sure how to word this so forgive me if it doesn't make sense. I was born 'up north' in a very remote community where my parents had to drive two hours (down awful roads) to reach the hospital where I was delivered. It is far enough north from where I live now that I could not drive to that community in one day. However, when I look at where that community is located and compare it to Grise Fiord, it is very far south. Heck, it is so far north of where I was born that if you went to where I was born and went a comparable distance south, you would end up in Mexico... Canada is so big that I have trouble imagining how big it really is.
- na85 7y agoMy spouse had family from Holland come visit us. They told us they wanted to see Niagara Falls and the Rockies. When we explained it would take a week to drive from Niagara to the Rockies they boggled. It's hard to conceptualize just how vast Canada is when back home you can drive for an hour and pass through three different countries.
- davidw 7y agoI lived above a pizza guy in Padova Italy and would occasionally go down to get a slice if I didn't feel like cooking and chat with him a bit. When he realized I was from the US, he went "oooh, America is really big isn't it... what, it's got to be at least 1000 km across, right?!". Try almost 5!
- thrownblown 7y agoLets not forget Brazil, the mercator projection makes it seem much smaller but in reality it's surface area (8,515,770 Km2) exceeds that of the continental US (8,080,464.3 km2).
- jfim 7y agoWhat I've found useful to convey the relative sizes of countries is to use a website that allows dragging country outlines to somewhere more familiar [0]. That way it's easier to say that driving from one end of the country to another in a few hours isn't really doable because it's the same size as California or the distance from Zurich to Madrid. [0] https://thetruesize.com/ https://thetruesize.com/
- CobrastanJorji 7y agoThis is super fun to play with. I was surprised to interactively discover that South Africa was bigger than the Nordic countries.
- hluska 7y agoWhen I was in University, I had a roommate from Germany. He was blown away how if he wanted to drive east from our place to Montreal, it would be around 2900 km. Had he driven that far east from where he is from, he could have ended up in Asia. He joked that if he made that trip in Europe, he would see hundreds of different cultures and hear languages he could barely recognize as language. But here, he could drink Tim Horton's coffee "and hate his life" the whole 2900 km trip. He wasn't big on Tim Horton's.....
- BareNakedCoder 7y agoYup, Toronto, Canada (where I live) is closer to the equator (in South America) than it is to the North Pole.
- perardi 7y agoOh, I love that comparison. I moved to Toronto from Chicago, and my family and friends are bewildered that I haven't had to buy some sort of exotic encounter suit to survive the tundra.
- gpm 7y agoLol, the weather in Toronto and Chicago is practically identical. The average temperature difference is a whole two degrees.
- vinay427 7y ago"But it's Canada!" Anyway, yes, growing up very close to the border the weather was predictably virtually identical (usually a degree or two warmer in Toronto, actually) and this seemed to confuse everyone, including Canadians.
- watersb 7y agoRight now in Chicago it's 51 degrees, but in Toronto it's only 14!
- shadowprofile77 7y agoI just had to confirm this with a distance measuring check in Google Earth and yep, looks like it's true. Had no idea.
- 205guy 7y agoJust look at the latitude: Toronto is about 43.6 deg north, so about 100 miles or 160km south of the halfway line (45 deg N).
- 7y ago
- 205guy 7y agoThis seems like a fun math game. Grise Ford is at 76.4 deg north, and the northernmost point of Mexico (near Yuma, AZ) is at 32.7 deg north, for a difference of 43.7 (45 would be half the distance from the equator to the pole). Round up to 44 and split in half, add 33+22, and your hometown is at most 55 deg north. I guess it depends on what part of Canada. In Ontario and Quebec, 55N is the middle of the Canadian shield, a maze of lakes with no roads and almost no settlements (looking at satellite view, because I don't know the area). But out west on the prairie, Edmonton is 54N and while as a USian, I consider it the great white north, it has roads and towns all the way there. And settlements continue further W and N into BC. I have a friend in Ft St John at 56N. Ultimately, there are several roads (more recent) going up to the arctic Ocean (69N at Tuktoyktak, NT, and 71N at Barrow, Alaska). I do get your point though, Canada stretches far north and has lots of empty areas and small communities with low connectivity to the rest of the country. After all, Canada is the second largest country by land area.
- hluska 7y agoI really like this reply - that is some seriously good work and you made me laugh. You just about nailed it. Had I done the math, you would have found me to within a few km. Instead, I eyeballed it and we’re about .2 degrees apart. The answer is Pelican Narrows, Saskatchewan.
- randomdata 7y agoI was under the impression that Alert was the most northernly, permanently inhabited, community. It is approximately 800kms from the North Pole, while Grise Fiord is approximately 1,500kms away.
- shaggyfrog 7y agoAlert is primarily a military base, so perhaps that quality is making the distinction here.
- na85 7y agoAlert is permanently inhabited but has no permanent residents, if that makes sense. Everyone there is on an overlapping rotation.
- mikestew 7y agoIt makes sense if one replaces "Alert" with "A hotel". Pretty much the same difference.
- chadlavi 7y agoTIL that Canadians spell fjord "fiord"
- rsendv 7y agoFunny, I read the name immediately as "messy fjord" (to make a mess is "å grise" in Norwegian).
- tyfon 7y agoI read it as "Pig fjord" or "Pig Bay", but that is in Cuba. Edit: ah, I see from a sibling comment that is indeed from Norwegian. I guess I got confused about the fiord thing and though it was a local name at first!
- grawprog 7y agoWe don't...that's the first time I've ever seen it spelled like that. The name of the town is Norwegian >The second comes from Norwegian explorer Otto Sverdrup and means “pig fiord” for the grunting sound that walrus herds make and the fact this spot is tucked between cliffs at the mouth of a gorgeous fiord. I don't know why the author spelled it like that throughout the article when talking about the landform. https://wikidiff.com/fiord/fjord https://wikidiff.com/fiord/fjord Apparently fiord is a New Zealand spelling? >Alternative forms * fiord (New Zealand
- ovis 7y agoWe do! Sometimes. A lot of places in Nunavut use that spelling - just a historical oddity I suppose.
- lhorie 7y agoI was curious to see whereabout this was, and while it is incredibly remote, google maps actually showed me another place that is even farther north: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alert,_Nunavut https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alert,_Nunavut
- daveslash 7y agoYou are correct: Alert and Eureka are both further north. However, I believe that they are both research or defense installations. While I believe that they are both occupied year round, I don't believe that they qualify as "community" because people are assigned there; nobody is "from" there.
- singingboyo 7y agoYes - per wiki, Alert has Canadian a military SIGINT monitoring station and a couple of weather stations. Eureka seems to just be a research station.
- bryanlarsen 7y agoMost residents aren't really "from" Grise Fiord either. Quoting from Wikipedia: The settlement (and Resolute) was created by the Canadian government in 1953, partly to assert sovereignty in the High Arctic during the Cold War. Eight Inuit families from Inukjuak, Quebec (on the Ungava Peninsula) were relocated after being promised homes and game to hunt, but the relocated people discovered no buildings and very little familiar wildlife.
- daveslash 7y ago>> " partly to assert sovereignty in the High Arctic during the Cold War." Just Wow: "We're afraid that another power might assert claim/dominance over this giant region, so we we'll get a few dozen people, who have no real skin in the game, to form a small hunting/fishing villiage. That'll stop another power from claiming this WHOLE area." ~Humans are weird....
- northern_ta 7y agoThrowaway account. I live in northern Canada, have been to most communities up here in both Nunavut and Northwest Territories. It's GREAT, life is extremely different, but it's extremely rewarding and fulfilling. Most people move up and either move away within 2 years, or they end up staying for a long time. I've found it to be very binary -- either you love it or hate it. Any questions, ask away!
- bendbro 7y agoHow do you make money and/or acquire resources?
- northern_ta 7y agoService work. Government work. Mining and natural resources are the major employers. It's really not as barren as it comes across, hell, Amazon Prime ships here -- it'll just be 3-4 days instead of 1.
- phonypc 7y agoHow's the internet up there?
- northern_ta 7y agoSurprisingly good in larger cities. 100mbit in capitals fed by fibre. DSL is an option, though many communities are ultimately fed via satellite. So you'll get LTE, it's just limited to 3mbit and 600ms latency. Pricing isn't great, and all plans have bandwidth caps of less than 500GB per month. It's do-able.
- agota 7y agoWhat is great about it? Genuine question, not saying that it isn't, just curious what exactly makes it great for you.
- grecy 7y agoI was in Whitehorse, YT for 4 years, loved it. Can't wait to get back North. Once it's in your blood, it's hard to stay away!
- dblohm7 7y agoIf you're into winter sports, check out the video of the local snowboarder that was linked from the article: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlc2G8Zsay4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlc2G8Zsay4
- flyGuyOnTheSly 7y ago>I’m Canadian enough to know the horror of minus 40, but anything beyond that is daunting. I'm Canadian too, and I was surprised to read that line. I've spent winters in Northern Quebec where the temperature regularly hovered around -40C and it was glorious. Everything sparkles. Everything. In fact, -40C feels warmer than +5C because there is no humidity in the air to make your skin feel the cold. If you are unprepared for the weather, trying to get by in shorts and t shirt, you're absolutely going to have a bad time. But so long as you're bundled up and your house has good insulation, a -40C day is usually much more enjoyable than a +40C day.
- singingboyo 7y agoI'm a moderate-temperature Vancouverite most of the time, but - does windchill factor in here? In my limited experience, negative X is one thing, and usually quite manageable if, as you say, you bundle up properly. Once windchill gets involved, though, things can get miserable quickly.
- brailsafe 7y agoIt doesn't really factor in here, because the wind just isn't that bad and we have elevation. I'm also a Vancouverite, but from Winnipeg, so I'm very familiar with both. I'd also say that a night on Salt Spring with no heat is insufferable in it's own way. The difference is bone chilling cold here in the worst of times, vs face on fire mode in the prairies.
- freeone3000 7y agoYes, but below -25 or so you don't have any exposed skin so it matters a lot less. Mostly just decided whether your eyelashes freeze in place or not.
- brailsafe 7y agoIt doesn't really factor in here, because the wind just isn't that bad and we have elevation. I'm also a Vancouverite, but from Winnipeg, so I'm very familiar with both. I'd also say that a night on Salt Spring with no heat is insufferable in it's own way. The difference is bone chilling cold here in the worst of times, vs face on fire mode in the prairies. This year Winnipeg broke its minimum wind chill temperature record for a full year, reaching lows regular lows of below -52 between Jan and Feb. Not fucking fun.
- ilamont 7y agoCan anyone give insights into the written language used by the Inuktitut, which appears in the first photo? Can it be adapted to other languages/dialects? Is it used in Greenland or Alaska?
- seanmcdirmid 7y agoIt is used in Northern Alaska as well as Greenland. See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inuktitut https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inuktitut and https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inuktitut#/media/File%3AInuktitut_dialect_map.svg https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inuktitut#/media/File%3AInuk... for the map. See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inuktitut_syllabics https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inuktitut_syllabics About the written language. It seems to have been adopted from Cree by a missionary, which itself was another missionary devised script with an influence from India Indian Devanagari.
- mmanfrin 7y agoI sometimes go on Google Maps and explore remote areas and I always wonder what life is like in the bleak wilderness; and I think how helpless I'd be if I lived there. I grew up in the SF Bay Area and the thought of being so remote scares me. I crave being near humanity, or at least having a good enough internet connection to pretend I'm near. It's a fault, for sure, but I am what I've been made to be.
- yummypaint 7y agoYou might want to check out the nat geo show "life below zero." it follows people living mostly off the land near the arctic circle. the first few seasons are quite good before the producers started interfering.
- mmanfrin 7y agoI will check it out, also that analysis about producers interfering after a couple good seasons sounds like 95% of nat geo or discovery channel shows, hah.
- Blackthorn 7y agoThis line really stuck out to me: > Adventure Canada expedition leader Jason Edmunds always works with communities to develop a plan that’s about “connections and what they want to show us” instead of just what we might want to see. The company only goes where it is welcome. If only more companies would operate that way.