This is my first community event in Inuvik and it was unforgettable. The feast began at 5 and everyone is free to join. The foods were all prepared and cooked by volunteers in the community. The amount of food was shockingly huge and delicious. We also got to pack the remaining food back home too. After the feast there were games for all age groups. I participated in the women 16-49 musical chair competition. I though I had a chance to win until we all got blindfolded to find the chair on the floor… we all had a good laugh though! Next was a traditional dance contest called jigging. This is a duet dance that focuses on footwork to fast country music. It reminds me of the Irish dance but with more subtlety. To prepare dance floor, they sprinkled some yellowish powder on the floor to make it more slippery so the dancers can shuffle around. I will start practicing so I can jig in the next event! The celebration and dancing continued till 1am. After the countdown, many people shook hands with us and wished us happy new year, even though we are strangers. This is by far the warmest new year celebration I’ve ever had!

Any place and town would have a library, even in the arctic circle. The library in Inuvik is also publicly funded. Schools, colleges and many other indoor facilities here have no outdoor shoes policies. We have to take off our shoes to enter the library. The traditional decorations are quite unique. There is a big muskox head hanging on the wall, I would like to see a wild one someday!

世界上任何小鎮都會有圖書館，在北極
也不例外。Inuvik的圖書館也是公營的。在學校，大學和很多室內設施都有需要脫室外鞋的政策，進去圖書館前也是需要脫鞋的。圖書館的裝飾非常有北極圈特色，牆上還掛了北極麝牛的標本。希望有機會看到野生的麝牛吧！

We were invited to a Filipino party on Christmas Eve. As I mentioned before, there is a large Filipino community in Inuvik. I’ve been told there will be lots of food and drinks. Every hour new people came and new dishes were brought in. The party went wild afterwards – children taking candies from a piñata and everyone was on their knees grabbing coins being thrown on the floor. It’s fun celebrating Christmas with the Asian community!

Our Christmas and Boxing Day were hectic. As we approached the last day of our hotel stay, we had to move our luggages to our new apartment. We tried cooking a turkey for the first time in between our move too. We had no idea a frozen turkey would take us the whole day to cook. We eventually ate at eleven o’clock because of that. It was worth the wait though because the turkey turned out to be so succulent and tender. We had turkey for four days straight afterwards and still couldn’t finished it.

It’s pretty expensive to get good food here since we are so far in the north. There are traditional foods but those can’t be commercially sold without a license. Luckily there is a truck that comes up from Edmonton that sells premier steaks and seafood twice a year and it was in town! We bought some Nova Scotia scallops and king crab legs for Christmas and Christy’s birthday. They weren’t cheap but cheaper than flying south for them!
We also went to an indigenous traditional food restaurant called Alestine’s. The kitchen is in a school bus and we were seated in a cute little cabin. I have to say they serve the greatest fish taco ever! It came with curry sauce and chipotle, and the white fish was caught in nearby region that day. It was better than the tacos in Toronto! We also ordered a bison burger and it was also heavenly with crispy bun and flavorful meat patty. I was dreaming about the taco ever since, will go back for sure!

因為北極非常偏遠，所以伙食很貴而且很難有新鮮的食材。雖然這裡有傳統的原住民食材，可是政府管制下需要商業牌照才可以賣。幸好有每年兩次有一家人從南部運送各種優質的海鮮和肉類到Inuvik，而聖誕節前他們來了三天。因為聖誕節和Christy生日快到，我們決定買了些Nova Scotia的帶子和阿拉斯加長腳蟹。雖然有點貴，可是比買機票飛去吃便宜吧！

星期天晚上我們去了一家做傳統原住民菜的餐廳Alestine’s吃晚飯。他們的廚房是在一架校巴裡面的，而用餐的地方是在一間別緻的小木屋裡面。沒有誇張：他們的魚taco是我吃過最好吃的taco！兩份taco分別用了咖喱汁和chipotole，魚是當日野生釣回來的，外層鬆脆，入口融化，比起多倫多有名的店鋪還要好吃！我們還點了非常好吃的水牛肉漢堡包，肉質彈牙加上包面烘得鬆脆。我回家還不停的想念那個fish taco，實在不得不再回去吃！

Saturday was the well anticipated Santa parade in town. It started at 1pm and we could see families heading towards the parade. The parade was not what i expected – there were only 3-4 floats but they were throwing all sorts of candies and goody bags to us! We had such a great time picking up candies before they got crushed by cars when the parade ended in 10 minutes. It was different but fun! P.S. the fur in the photos was my hood. I was recording with the GoPro mounted on my head. 星期六就是期待已久的聖誕老人北極巡遊了！巡遊下午一點開始，我們途中看見很多家庭也去看巡遊。巡遊跟我想像很不一樣-裡面只有三四架花車，可是花車上的小朋友在瘋狂丟糖果和禮物包！因為我們都趕快拾糖果，因為巡遊十分鐘就完了開始行車😂。跟想像中的不同可是還是很好玩！（註：相片裡面的毛是我的帽子）

Christmas is a big celebration up here in the arctic. It’s good to be festive when there is not much sunlight in this season. On a random morning, a team of staff (including my boss) welcomed us by singing Christmas carols, sharing fresh muffins and hot chocolate! Our office is beautifully decorated by staff and is always full of snacks. I love my team! Another surprise is that I just received a Christmas present for myself , a GoPro delivered from the south! It took two and a half weeks to deliver this package up north because the ice road was not sturdy enough for trucks to cross over. I’m excited to use it for the upcoming festivals and events 🙂

聖誕節在北極可是一個大節日， 因為沒有太陽的關係，人們都想透過節日氣氛開心一下。一個普通的早上，我一進醫院大門就被整班聖誕歌合唱團（包括我老闆）迎接，還送我們新鮮的muffin和熱朱古力🤩！辦公室被同事們佈置得很漂亮，每天都有一大堆零食在台上，超開心的！另外一個驚喜就是收到自己的聖誕禮物 – 南方寄過來的GoPro！因為冰路還未厚到可以行載貨車，從多倫多足足等了兩個半星期才到。很期待之後可以用來拍很多精彩的節日和活動呢！

Friday was our department’s Christmas potluck party. It was held in a cabin in the middle of a lake. And because it’s in winter, the pond has frozen and turned into an ice road. It was our first time driving on a frozen lake! Didn’t feel much different from driving on regular road. There’s nothing except ice around the cabin and the starry sky was gorgeous (sorry for my crappy iPhone)! The cabin uses a small generator for electricity, and the decor is very “Canadian country style”. The food was amazing. I guess because there’s no place to eat out so everyone needs to be very skilled in cooking. We only brought chips as we don’t have stove and oven in the hotel. After talking to people I figured everyone is so adventurous- which makes sense as we all decided to venture in the arctic. 星期五是我們部門的大食會聖誕派對，舉行的地方是一個同事在湖邊的小木屋。因為現在是冬天，湖面已經結冰成為冰路了。我們第一次在湖面上面駕車，感覺和普通的路沒什麼分別。木屋的四周只有結冰了的湖面和黑夜的星星，很美唷（我沒有好的相機拍不了那個畫面😭）！屋是用小型發電機供電的，非常加拿大country style。食物超好吃的，大家的烹調技術好厲害呢，應該是因為鎮裡面沒有什麼餐廳吧。因為酒店沒有爐灶，我們只帶了薯片～和同事們聊天後發現大家都是瘋狂的冒險家呢！果然在這裡工作的醫護人員都是很有冒險精神的。

We went to the community Christmas carol night at the igloo catholic church. This is an event celebrating cultural diversity and togetherness. The igloo was packed with lots of children and adults! The performance lasted for almost three hours, people singing in aboriginal languages such as Gwich’in and Inuvialuktun, international languages such as Tagalog, Igbo (Nigerian language), English and German. We have such diversity up here! 今晚去了冰屋教堂搞的社區聖誕歌晚會，目的除了慶祝聖誕，還是在宣揚文化共融的。我們去到時已經 坐滿了小朋友和大人！節目差不多進行了三個小時，用了不同的原住民語言（Gwich’in, Inuvialuktun)，國際語言（德文，菲律賓文，尼日尼亞的Igbo方言等）唱聖誕歌。想不到這裡的文化和南部一樣十分多樣！

Today is the second day of the “thirty days of darkness”. There are thirty days every year without sunshine in the arctic circle. Actually there is still ‘day time’. You can see the sky color changed from pitch dark to having some daylight at noon. 今天是「三十日黑夜」的第二天，「三十日的黑夜」就是每年在北極圈連續三十日沒有陽光的日子。其實還是有「白天」的。今天十點還是漆黑一片，十一點開始天色變淺了，而十二點天其實還很白。

Today we met up with my real estate agent Miriam. She has been living in Inuvik for 10 years and told us there is quite a big Pilipino community here. She drove us to the supermarket, her friend’s southeast asian food shop, and we also saw the road that goes to the seaside town Tuktoyatuk. 我們今天和我的地產經紀Miriam見面了。她在Inuvik住了十年了，她告訴我們這裡的菲律賓社群是很大的。她載了我們去超市，她朋友家的東南亞海鮮小店，還去了通往海邊城市Tuktoyatuk的公路看看。

After taking a break in our hotel, we went to a weekly arctic flea market and another supermarket/department store called Northmart. In the arctic flea market, people just need to pay 25 dollars to rent a table and they can sell whatever they want! There are some arctic items you can find in Northmart – seal and fox hides, snow mobiles and snow bikes. The beef jerky here is fresh and heavenly good! I am looking forward to trying different kinds of game jerkies here. A mother said “oh you little muskrat!” to her kid who was running around the department store. I guess muskrat is a sneaky cute little animal? I want to see one! 回去酒店休息一會之後，我們去了位於高中裡面的週末北極跳蚤市場,然後去了另外一家叫Northmart的超級市場/百貨公司。只需給25元大家就可以在跳蚤市場租一張桌子去賣東西了！在Northmart裡面可以買到北極特有的商品：海豹皮，狐狸皮，雪地電單車和雪地單車也有哦！牛肉乾是新鮮製造的，肉味濃郁。很期待之後可以吃到的野生動物製品呢！在百貨公司裡面有個小弟弟在亂跑一通，他媽媽說了句「oh you little muskrat」然後抓住了他。看來muskrat應該是很常見的可愛調皮小動物呢，很想親眼看看！