Sweet Ride

Welcome to Gameti. All the houses you may or may not be able to see, are it. The big brown building in the center with lots of space around it is the Health Center and if you can make out the greyish line to the left behind the community, that's the ice highway.

Our post-clinic walk yesterday took us up to the airport. The airport is a little tin shack about a mile out of town that sees 1 daily bush flight from Air Tindi. It's pretty much the opposite of Heathrow; there's no security, no people, no huge lists of arrivals, no getting lost. The helicopter we had heard around lately was just landing. We went to watch the event. It was the most action we had seen all day. As the men covered in gortex and helmets got out of what looked like a big yellow dinky, they waved enthusiastically. Turns out it was the (live) caribou trapper who had been to the health center earlier in the week for a sore tooth (actually I think here was just board and couldn't find the store). He was on a wildlife mission with his team of 4: a biologist, an engineer & a helicopter pilot. They seek out caribou, shoot a trap around them (like you see on the national geographic shows) and put these incredibly high tech collars around their necks to monitoring the population, find out the health of the species and other biological data stuff. Once they trap it and are on the ground with the massive hooved creatures they do their work and get the hell outta dodge in 15 minutes. Fast!

We had a little chit chat and told the flying biologists that if they took us for a spin in their helicopter we'd make them all dinner. Despite the abysmal conditions of their Motel, I didn't really think they'd take our offer seriously. But guess what? Yup. They called us this afternoon telling us they would take us for quick spin if we got their asap. Myles and I dropped everything we were doing (good thing we weren't sewing anyone up or they'd be SOL) and ran over to the airport. It was snowing and windy which is why they were calling it an early day. Guess the caribou like to stay in in a storm just like us (I wonder if they have scrabble and hot chocolate too?)

So up we went! I felt like a little kid at an amusement park, relishing every tummy tickle. We flew backwards a bit just for kicks and then we went over town to get new perspective on our geography. Despite the ridiculous amount of fuel that big dinky eats up..... It was a fun!

After we had insisted we feed the crew of 4 big men, we got home and realized we were both pretty much out of food. My food order was late last week and wont be in til Tuesday and Myles and Jen aren't ordering til next week. We dashed to the store to see what wilted vegetables we could find but it was closed. Shit! We scrambled through the freezer and used the last of our chicken, the few vegetables we had left and I whipped up some hearty rolls.

I'll be living off canned tuna and potatoes for the next 3 days. But it was worth it!