This One's For Guy!

Since there was not much going on in the Heritage Society this morning, I asked Lisa to take me on a tour of the Cambridge Bay Fire Department. I did this especially for my good friend, Mr. Guy Lucas, but there was certainly personal gratification as well. Hi, Guy! : ) I'll send you more pics via e-mail!

She showed me the hamlet's two fire trucks and all the cool buttons inside. Because water pipes in the Arctic are not a good idea, there are no such things as fire hydrants. The trucks have to fill up from the hamlet's main water pump, located next door. On the same note, Lisa stressed that it's very important that the fire hall stay heated. Evidently, in Gjoa Haven (another Kitikmeot community), the heat in the fire hall was not maintained, and firefighters discovered that one of their truck's engines had cracked in half!

Lisa was the first woman fire chief in all of Nunavut!

The next room she showed me had their lockers in it. The Cambridge Bay Fire Department has 11 volunteer firefighters. Lisa let me try on some gear, but I did not dress in under a minute like they do. The next room over contained the ambulance. The firefighters take the ambulance with them for each fire call, but there are no paramedics in their department. Lisa described the fire department as a "delivery service;" they simply administer first aid until the patient is delivered to the Health Centre. This is not surprising, since the Health Centre is less than a two-minute ride from anywhere in town.

I told Lisa that if there was an alarm, I would just hop on the back of the truck. : )

In the afternoon, everyone in the Heritage Society gathered for a meeting with the founder and president, Kim Crockatt. Mrs. Crockatt is also the director of the Nunavut Literacy Council. Obviously, she has done a lot for the Cambridge Bay community! I find her story fascinating, because she is an outsider, a white person, who not only has a passion for preserving Inuit culture and society, but has been successful at gaining the trust of the people she is serving and created some fantastic initiatives in Cambridge Bay.

After work, I took Johnny and Cameron to the lodge for dinner. I had my usual muskox burger, and Johnny had his usual poutine. After dinner, Cameron headed off to work and Johnny and I went to the Youth Centre to play some board games. There were a lot of little kids who came to play Sorry! with us, and I was mistaken several times for a Youth Centre staff member. Who knew I was already past my prime!?

Johnny and Cameron at the Lodge