We made it. It wasn't easy, but we are here. Let's recap:
We were supposed to move on Saturday. Then we had a crappy weather day and a message saying "We will call you when we reschedule your flight". Ok. I thought this meant we would have a bit of notice. Apparently not as the call came in at 1:00 pm on Sunday afternoon - "Hi, Jenn? This is Trevor from Innu Mikun [the airline]. Is your freight at the airstrip? No? Well, we will be there in an hour." Holy shite.
Called a bunch of numbers of people with vehicles who were going to help haul over 3000 lbs of freight (read: our shit) to the airstrip. Since no one thought we would be flying on Sunday, no one was around. It didn't help that it was a beautiful, but bitterly cold day, so there was much visiting about town. No one knew where anyone was. And we weren't even finished packing up the bathroom, the kitchen, the bedroom - incidentals mostly.
The mad scramble was on. Carolynn was next door at Delrose's having tea. The boys had taken the clinic van to the dump to dispose of the week's garbage. I made a frantic call to the only other person I could think of with a vehicle - Bob, the school principal. Thank all the gods, he was home and agreed to come and rescue us. Ken, the other nurse next door radioed the van to get back to town ASAP. Unbelievably, the whole operation took four van-loads, we filled the plane to the point of a shakey take-off and a few hastily said prayers and a mere twenty minutes later, we were in Nain.
No one knew we were coming. When we landed, the pilots told us that even they did not know about the trip to Natuashish to get us until an hour before they landed. There are no lights on the runway in Nain - they can't land in the dark. We arrived just after 4:00 pm and the sun was on its way down. As we stood on the runway with all our goo about us, a snowmobile and komatik arrived with one of the friendliest drivers ever - Richard. He took the dogs and cats first, thinking they could stay in our new house until we sorted out the rest of the stuff and rounded up another skidoo and komatik.
No keys.
Since we were supposed to arrive the day before and no one knew of our arrival on Sunday, the man with the keys, Samuel, was off on the land somewhere. Carla showed up. She was a CYFS worker in Nain who also made the switch to working for the Nunatsiavut Government. She is married to Richard. Carla was a total sweetie as she zipped around on her skidoo trying to locate a key for the house.
Samuel arrived at the airstrip to save the day. On his heals, Richard came back with four guys and another skidoo and komatik.
By 7:00 pm, Carolynn and I, with the help of the gang in Natuashish and Nain had moved all 3000 pounds four times - out of the basement and onto the vans; off the vans and onto the plane; off the plane and into the komatiks; off the komatiks and into the new house. We are both wrecked.
I put in a full day of work yesterday - meeting the new staff, going to the various other agencies to be introduced, up to the gas pumps (my nose was frozen white at this point. The weather was, well...a blizzard describes it best), back to the office to try and organise the office.
This morning, we had no water. Most homes here have to leave the taps running a little bit to prevent freezing. We didn't. I look like gak, Carolynn looks like gak, the dogs are freaking out because they have to be tied up, and the cats are most disgusted with the boxes all over the house.
I am glad to be here.
