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.