What Happens When the Town Goes Out Of Town

The long weekend in May is the annual fishing derby in Whale Cove - and it's a pretty big deal. It's not hard to understand why when you know that the first prize for the biggest fish is $7000! Even 10th prize is $500.

Anyone who has a cabin (and many do) heads out some time on Friday or early Saturday morning. Many without cabins will pack up a tent or two and head out onto the land as well. Cabins can be anywhere from 30 minutes to more than 2 hours away and as long as Hudson Bay is still frozen (as it is now), they will get there by snowmobile, pulling their equipment behind in a kammotiq.

When the ice is gone or too soft, they'll travel over land by four-wheeler. They're fishing for arctic char, cod and trout mainly, but pretty much anything goes.

So what happens when the town leaves town? For starters, the shelves at the Co-op look like this:

Everyone stocked up last week for their weekend out.

But that's okay because the Co-op closed early today anyway! Curtis (the Co-op manager) said on Friday that he was expecting a shipment on the weekend and he'd be open today (Monday) from 12:00 - 5:00. When we arrived just after 1:00 he locked the door behind us and said he was closing early because he had no staff! We picked up a few things from what was left. We'll get through the next few days and the shelves will likely be restocked early this week. Crisis averted!

Things are pretty quiet here in town with lots of folks out on the land. We went out for a long walk on Saturday to some areas that we hadn't visited before. You can see that the snow is melting and there is lots more exposed rock, but there's still a long way to go. We will not see open water on the bay before we go, except perhaps from the air. Here's a view of town looking northwards from the point:

With only seven days of school left for students it won't be long till we're beginning our long trek home. Looking forward to going outside in flip-flops, without stopping to put on wind pants and a parka!