Settling In - Feels more like home now.

I like the licence plates

Office now

Laundry room/sewing room

Hallway now, I'll paint the shelves soon

Bathroom now

Standing between table and couch looking down hallway

Standing at front door

Kitchen open concept

Other half of kitchen

Book shelf

One corner of living room

The fireplace is nice, and we don't pay extra for water, hydro or heating thanks to Nav Canada while living in the north

Standing in living room

Other side

Thats it for now

Moving In - From Order to Chaos and back to Order (gradually)

The moving truck finally arrived on December 14 and we spent the weekend moving into our new apartment.  Here are some pictures of it before and after we moved in.  Of course we still have a lot of unpacking to do but we will get there eventually.
I will show you the more pictures later because the moving company just took the left over boxes away today and I have to drop some things off at thrift store because we don't have room for everything here.

Before the boxes and furniture arrived:

View off balcony to the left and moving truck

View off balcony to the right

Bathroom

Entrance and closet

Outside hallway.  Door leads outside to parking lot.

Kitchen

Living Room

After the furniture and boxes arrive.

David setting up bedroom

Unpacking bathroom supplies

Jammed hallway

Unpacking kitchen supplies

More kitchen unpacking

And more kitchen unpacking

Arranging living room

First Impressions

We arrived in Yellowknife 5 days ago and I am starting to learn my way around the city with the help of a map.  Its -45 C outside and I am stuck indoors most of the time until my ski pants arrive with the rest of our household belongings in the moving truck.   Why don't they call and tell us where they are?  Even if the drive takes 20 hours over three days they should be here by now.  We can't move into our new apartment from the hotel where we are now until our stuff arrives.  I was hoping it would be yesterday but nothing.  I guess they can only drive a certain number of hours before mandatory rest and they may not have left right away. 

I went to see the apartment yesterday and drove around a bit. In many ways it's nicer than Williams Lake and I love all the lakes right in town and on the way to the airport.  You can see our apartment location marked by the red dot on the map at the left. It is close to Niven Lake and the airport where David works as well as downtown shopping areas.

People are really friendly here although I didn't think so at first.  My first experience at the grocery store the day we arrived was me trying to carry a case of pop from the store and the box ripped.   I tried to catch it but just ended up throwing the cans everywhere. One guy started getting mad at me but other people quickly intervened to help me pick them up.  Later we went to a church pot luck dinner, and a Christmas party and ended up playing board games.  It was fun... maybe too much because my head hurt after I got home.  But everyone smiles and customer service is great in the stores is unlike Williams Lake where customer service was terrible.  They even seem to have very good drivers here.   Dave's co workers and their wives are really nice so I signed up for their pottery guild.
The local Church members are also very welcoming.  One person named Judy has been here for a while and knew the Bilodeau family and has fond memories of them.

Other things I have discovered about Yellowknife:

Gas is $1.70 a litre (ouch!)

They have indoor soccer!

I saw a music store where I want to go ask if they know anyone who gives Cello lessons.  There are so many little shops and the mall spreads over three blocks and is all indoors.  Enclosed walkways go like bridges over the streets so you don't have to go outside similar to the ones in Winnipeg.  The weather here reminds me of Prairie winters when I lived in Manitoba.  Dauphin was -60 C for 2 weeks the year I left and I said I would never live there again....I guess God has a sense of humour.

I look forward to getting my cold weather gear so I can get outside more and take some pictures to post in future blog entries.

We Have Arrived

Made it safely to Yellowknife on Saturday, its colder than cold,we are still living at hotel until our stuff comes with the movers which was supposed to be today but maybe tomorrow. Its beautiful here!


In the picture of the airport  on the left, you can see the office where Dave works.  It is at the second set of windows down from the top of the tower.

Two days before move

 Finishing the chairs in time then clean up.

Introduction

On December 7, my husband and I will be moving to Yellowknife in the Northwest Territories from our current home in Leduc, Alberta just outside Edmonton.  It is not exactly a voluntary move.  My husband's company gave us the choice of  a transfer to Yellowknife (the territorial capital) or an even more remote village called Inuvik on the edge of the Beaufort sea.  We chose Yellowknife as the lesser of two evils.  We are expected to stay for a minimum of 2 years.

We have never lived this far north and it is both exciting and scary to contemplate.  I have chosen to focus on the exciting part and try to not dwell on the more scary aspects.  My mother-in-law challenged me to start a blog to share my experiences as I embark on this great adventure so here I am!

Like the beautiful Snowy Owl pictured above, I hope I will eventually adapt and thrive in the north.  Right now I will just concentrate on preparing for the movers to arrive to pack up all our belongings at the end of this week.