WHY MOVE NORTH? to Enjoy Life As It Should Be Lived
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ISSUE 1, 2020 WHY MOVE NORTH? To enjoy life as it should be lived. P4 NORTHERN HEALTH CARE It’s mainly free and readily accessible. P7 HOOKED ON THE NORTH They came for a year and stayed a lifetime. P10 NUMBER 1, 2020 MOVEMOVE UP UP 1 ON THE COVER: CATHIE ARCHBOULD; LEFT: MICHAEL DAVIES PANGNIRTUNG, NUNAVUT PANGNIRTUNG, How I became a Northerner I am one of thousands of Canadians who moved North from southern Canada. Like many who make the move, I promised my employer I would stay a year, maybe two. Now, some 40 years later, I’m still here. But why? I left a job in a downtown Toronto office tower to take a position in Yellowknife, a place I knew nothing about. I left my friends behind, sold my trusty Volkswagen convertible and packed my belongings for the movers. I arrived on New Year’s Eve and the temperature was hovering around minus 40 C, far beyond the warming capabilities of my southern duffel coat and leather boots. And it was dark. Sunrise was somewhere around 10 am and by 3:30 pm it was dark again. This was not where I wanted to be. For the first month I vowed to find the fastest route back to Toronto the minute my promised year was completed. And then the change set in. I made new friends. I was promoted by my employer. I tried cross country skiing. Bought a pass for daily swims at the community pool. Started a branch of the professional organization I belonged to in Toronto, and recog- nized people I bumped into when I picked up my mail at the post office. Issue number 1, 2020 By mid-April sunrise was around 5:30 am and sunset was after 10 pm and the Move Up is published bright sunlight and pure air encouraged outdoor activity. That’s when I began my three times per year by love affair with the northern outdoors. Camping, paddling, fishing: all activities that I Up Here Publishing Ltd. dabbled in when living in Ontario. Suite 102, 4510 – 50th Ave. Yellowknife, NT I did stay the prescribed year (16 months to be exact) with my first employer, but X1A IB9, Canada the lure of entrepreneurship was irresistible, so along with a friend from Montreal, we started a company ... firstly an advertising agency, and in 1984 added a pub- Co-publishers: Marion LaVigne lishing company. Our latest publishing venture is Move Up, designed to convince and Ronne Heming you that the far North is one of the best places in Canada to live, work and play. Each issue we'll introduce you to northern living, northern jobs and northern Contacts: services, that are often less expensive and more reliable than those in the south. Advertising: [email protected] Basic health care is free; education includes a forgivable loan program to help Editorial: [email protected] northern kids attend university; and there's no provincial (territorial tax) tax. Up Here Publishing also It’s a different world. A challenging world sometimes. But as an ex-Torontonian, publishes Up Here and there’s nowhere else I’d rather be. We invite you to read about the North. Up Here Business. Check out hundreds of job openings in the North, and really consider a move. I’m To subscribe visit uphere.ca sure, like me, you’ll never regret it. ON THE COVER: CATHIE ARCHBOULD; LEFT: MICHAEL DAVIES ARCHBOULD; LEFT: CATHIE ON THE COVER: Marion LaVigne Publisher NUMBER 1, 2020 MOVEMOVE UP UP 3 THE PART OF CANADA WE CALL HOME VERONICA LOPEZ AZOCAR THREE TERRITORIES: Alert QUTTINIRPAAQ NATIONAL The part of Canada we call home PARK Residents of Canada’s far North days of summer. Or the yearning government and support services like to think they’re tougher than for a juicy peach, fulfilled when jobs, account for a large percent- Axel their fellow Canadians. Also luck- the next plane or truck delivers age of the territories’ population, Heiberg Ellesmere ier and more resourceful. Yes, produce to the local store. Or the with Whitehorse home to 70% of Island Island there are a few very cold days, complaining about costs, offset Yukon’s population, Yellowknife but not the bone chilling cold of by northern living tax reductions home to 44% of the NWT popula- Grise Fiord King and Bay, or Portage and and higher wages. tion, and Iqaluit home to 21% of Main. Then there is the darkness Nunavut’s population. SIRMILIK NATIONAL PARK Northerners walk to work at AULAVIK Devon Island of deep winter, forgotten with NATIONAL minus 40 C, cozy in parkas, At least 95% of Canadians have PARK the arrival of the long, sunny Resolute Nanisivik Pond Inlet Clyde River Baffin Bay windpants and an assortment never set foot in any of the ter- IVVAVIK Arctic Bay NATIONAL Beaufort Sea Banks PARK Island of accessories. We unplug our ritories, and many still think that if VUNTUT NATIONAL Herschel Sachs Qikiqtarjuaq th PARK Island Harbour Baffin Island vehicles (connected to battery you cross the 60 parallel you’re AUYUITTUQ NATIONAL Tuktoyaktuk PARK blankets and oil pan heaters) entering a flat area of snow, polar Old Crow Pangnirtung Aklavik Inuvik TUKTUT NOGAIT Ulukhaktok Victoria for excursions to the supermar- bears and dog teams. Not so. To- NATIONAL PARK ALASKA Island Igloolik Fort McPherson Taloyoak Hall Beach ket, or to pick up the kids from day’s North is a mix of Indigenous Tsiigehtchic Paulatuk Kugaaruk M Cambridge Bay a hockey or soccer. We learn how and non-Indigenous people, who c k Gjoa Haven e E n Colville Lake CL z CIR i C e Kugluktuk CTI IQALUIT R to ration water if we live in a love their smartphones as much A YUKON Repulse Bay Dawson Kimmirut community where water is deliv- as any Canadian, follow their fa- Fort Good Hope Umingmaktok KLUANE Keno GREAT BEAR Cape Dorset NATIONAL PARK LAKE Bathurst Inlet Beaver Creek Mayo ered to an in-house holding tank vourite hockey teams on satellite RESERVE Norman Wells Pelly Crossing Coral Quaqtaq Carmacks Tulita twice a week. And we watch out TV, even in the most remote com- NUNAVUT UKKUSIKSALIK Harbour Haines R i NATIONAL PARK v Kangiqsujuaq Junction Faro e Salluit Kangiqsualujjuaq for one another. munities, and probably know more r NORTHWEST TERRITORIES Ross River THELON Ivujivik Kangirsuk Gamètì GAME Baker Lake about Canadian politics than most Carcross Wrigley SANCTUARY Aupaluk WHITEHORSE NAHANNI Wekwètì NATIONAL PARK Chesterfield Inlet Kuujjuaq Canada’s three northern ter- T Akulivik Tasiujiaq residents in a southern province. RESERVE Whatì re Teslin Behchokò el Skagway in Rankin Inlet COURTESY AURORA VILLAGE AURORA COURTESY ritories make up nearly 40% of Atlin Fort Simpson Edzo YELLOWKNIFE e Puvirnituq Jean Marie River Whale Cove this country’s land mass, and Yes, there are still dog teams, Haines Watson Lake Detah Nahanni Butte Fort Providence Lutselk’e GREAT SLAVE LAKE Arviat NUNAVIK only 0.1% of its population, giving but most are used for recre- Fort Trout Kakisa Hay River Inukjuak Liard Fort Resolution Hudson Bay us lots of room to move around. ational purposes. Polar bears still Lake Enterprise (QUEBEC) BRITISH Fort Smith The capital cities, with their many Fort Nelson 60TH PARALLEL Umiujaq wander the shores of the Arctic Sanikiluaq COLUMBIA WOOD BUFFALO NATIONAL Fort Chipewyan Churchill WAPUSK NUMBER 1, 2020 PARK NATIONAL PARK 4 MOVE UP ALBERTA SASKATCHEWAN MANITOBA Kuujjuarapik THE PART OF CANADA WE CALL HOME Ocean and Hudson Bay and we every community has an arena never dream about white Christ- for hockey and pleasure skating, mases, because we know they and larger centres have swim- are always white. ming pools, indoor tracks, field houses for soccer, badminton, Cottage country, known as cabin school gyms for basketball and country in the North, is usually volleyball and more. within an hour of home, and is accessible by truck, boat, snow- Activities in the North are geared mobile or all-terrain-vehicle ... and to both adults and children. is almost always near a good Northern kids likely see more of fishing lake or river or a prime the world than those from any hunting location. province. Exchanges with south- ern and international students, In the far North, housing comes school trips to Europe or south- in many shapes and forms. There ern Canada are just some of our are single family homes, condos, student’s contact with the world LALENIA NEUFELD apartments, mobile homes, and in outside our territories. Within Yellowknife, a colourful house- the territories there are also Opportunity is really what the boat community. In the Yukon opportunites to participate in an- North is all about. It’s a place and Northwest Territories you nual sports tournaments, or the where you can start as a junior can drive to most communities, bi-annual Arctic Winter Games, clerk and work your way up but in Nunavut access is strictly hosted across Canada’s North to manager in a few years. It’s by air, which drives up the cost of or in Alaska or Northern Alberta… where you can contribute to our living throughout the territory, but and occasionally in Greenland. society. It’s where you can enjoy is often offset by an employer life as it should be lived. supplied cost of living allowance And then there is work. As the VERONICA LOPEZ AZOCAR (In 2018, allowance for territo- northern economy grows, we have rial government employees in lots of jobs and not enough people Iqaluit was $15,016 annually and to fill them. Entry level jobs, trades $34,455 for employees in Grise jobs, professional jobs.