We’re in Tuk! It’s amazing!

Ben Edwards, writing in the early hours of Sept 3rd local time. About Sept 2nd in Tuktoyaktuk, Canada. UTC 0700 Sept 3rd

We’re in Tuk!  It’s amazing! Forty percent of the land is small lakes and the village is built around it.  It’s bleak, like the rest of the Arctic, but there are some small hills and some foliage, so in comparison to the area around Barrow it’s a veritable rainforest.  We arrived several hours ago in an area away from the rest of the village because it’s more sheltered and there’s a hurricane in the US.  When we arrived we refuelled and Nikolai and Barbara got a ride into town to see the pontoon near the village.  They returned and proudly announced that they had procured not only the car they’d come back in, but also the house of the people who met us’s boss for a shower!  Not surprisingly we all went and had showers, it was very nice. I also got rid of my coffee stain face look by shaving, a big improvement, and apply some cream to the quite spectacular spots I’ve developed on my chest.

Tuk has no hotel, no restaurants no cafes, but it has two supermarkets.  Barbara and Constance went to one of these and got sticky ribs and chips that Nikolai then cooked up into the best meal I’ve had since Tromsø.  In the house with the shower we were also granted use of the television that it had.  From this I discovered I didn’t like Canadian television because it is Eighty percent adverts.  We returned to the boat for dinner and discovered the first proper dark night I’ve had since I crossed the Arctic circle.  It’s really nice.

I also discovered that over this trip I have become laughably unfit.  I used to be able to do five kays in under twenty two minutes.  I went for a two hundred meter walk and my feet hurt by the end of it.  Grrr.  It’s quarter past one in the morning now and we’ve got a busy day tomorrow so I should probably go to bed.  I’ll write again in the morning.  By which time I think I’ll have been on the boat for eighty five days.  Would it be wrong to say I’d like a bed where I can sit up straight without banging my head?  I like to think not.  Bye.