July 18th

Slept in till 8:00 am then went for breakfast at the Hotel. Went to the Western Arctic Regional Centre and found out where to get a flight to Tuktoyaktuk (for Brad only, small plane!). Went and checked that out and he will be going in the afternoon early evening. Drove around town and checked out some stores and Galleries. Then went back to the Visitor Centre and learned some more about the area and the people. There are about 3,500 people living here, the Gwich'in, the Inuvialuit and non-aboriginals. About 5,500 visitors come annually. There is an Igloo church "Our Lady of Victory" that took two years to build by volunteer lavour and was completed in 1960. It is 75 feet in diameter, the cross is 9' high and is 68' above ground. The copula is 20' in diamemter. Total cost in 1958 was $70,000.00.






Inuvik was concieved by the Canadian government in 1953. It was intended to replace the hamlet of Aklavik in the MAcKenzie Delta, which was subject to flooding and offered limited space for expansion. Survey parties spread over the MacKenzie Delta searching for town site locations, of 6 sites this one was chosen for its large flat area, mavigable waterway, tree cover and gravel supply. The community was first named "New Aklavik", this caused confusion for the delivery of mail and supplies, so the name "Inuvik" was selected in 1958. In Inuvialuktun it means "place of the people". In 1967 it achieved villiage status, and in 1970 it became a town with an elected mayor and council. The completion of the Dempster Hwy in 1979, Inuvik became part of the Canadian Hwy system. The land claims for the Inuvialuit was settled in 1984 and the Gwich'in claim settled in 1992.
The annual rainfall is 10.6 inches, Warmest month July, Coldest Month January, Wettest month August and Driest month February. The extreme maximum temperature is 91.04 F and the extreme minimum is -70.06 F. Inuvik enjoys 56 days of 24 hours of daylight (late June, July and early August) and has 30 days without sunlight mostly in the month of December.
Inuvik is on the east channel of the MacKenzie River Delta and 97km south of the Beafort Sea, and is 10 degrees further west than Vancouver. It is 57 square km and approx. 5% is utilized.
Permafrost
One half of Canada's land surface including most of the NWT is underlaid with permafrost, or pemanently frozen ground. It makes for bad building conditions. When the permafrost thaws, the ground shifts and building materials loose their support. It can cause walls to crack and buildings to lean dangerously. Most of the buildings and homes sit above ground on pilings, which are stilt like poles of wood or steel drilled through the active layer of the perafrost into the continuous permafrost layer beneath. In between the ground and the floor is an all-important open crawl space, to ventilate building heat away from the ground.
Pingos
are the region's most famous landforms. Currently, about 1450 are scattered across the region. Every few years a new Pingo begins to form in a recently drained lake. The sandy ground beneath a lake is unfrozen but surrounded by permafrost. Once the lake drains, the permafrost begins to spread into the unfrozen sediments as they become exposed to frigid winter temperatures. Water in the saturated sand freezes and expands, pushing excess water ahead if the freezing ground. As the circle of permafrost inches toward the centre of the lake, the excess water comes under increasing pressure. Trapped between the continuous permafrost below and the much weaker freezing crust ofthe lake bed above, the pressurized water finally pushes the lake bed up-and up and up. When the lake completely freezes, the pingo stops growing. Ibyuk Pingo is probably the world's largest growing Pingo and is just south of Tuktoyuktuk. It is growing about 2 cm per year, indicating that the basin is not frozen through yet, even though the Pingo is probably more than 1,000 years old. Most Pingos have a large crack across their summits where the ground has split apart s it is forced up from below. If the crack looks fresh, the pingo is likely growing, but if healthy willows have established themselves in it, growth may have stopped.