A start

It's a little late. I mean, we are getting close to finishing the house, and these musings should have started last August, when the ship arrived with our material. But there is still a ways to go, and there are lots of stories to share, so here is a start. My start.

Welcome to the High Arctic. When I imagined where my life would take me, living in Arctic Bay wasn't where I saw myself. Arctic Bay is a beautiful little community, just north of the 73rd parallel, on the north end of Baffin Island, and I was transferred here in August 1999, when I was still a member of the RCMP. As they say "the best laid plans...", and my plans took a 180 degree turn when I met and fell in love with my wife Leah. Leah grew up in Arctic Bay and can not imagine herself anywhere else, so living in Arctic Bay while my life unfolds became my reality. Knowing that we needed to live and make a living after I retired from the Force, we eventually hit upon the idea of building a Bed and Breakfast. Who knew what that would have grown into.

Kiggavik is inuktitut for Gyrfalcon, and seemed to be an appropriate image for the business, so the business became Kiggavik Bed and Breakfast. We settled on a design or at least the concept of a design, and decided that we would build it ourselves, rather than use a general contractor. A friend of mine from when we lived in La Ronge, Gary, would be the project manager and we'd hire a local crew.

Now the thing about living in the High Arctic is that if you want to build everything, and I do mean everything, has to come up on one of the two sealift ships in August. No running to the Home Depot here. But sealift probably deserves a post or three of its own so we won't dwell on it. And I really need to take hammer in hand and get out to the site, so I'll continue this later.