Recycling Arctic Style

Living up in the high Arctic has its challenges. White people either love it and adapt or leave quickly. Some stay and make life miserable for all who they come in contact with. My challenge was to occupy my time in a meaningful way. I chose to build a fishing camp 13 miles out of town (Cambridge Bay/Ikaluktutiak ) - at no cost.

Our local landfill site was a goldmine and contained all the raw material for such a project. Plywood , framing materials, windows, doors and roofing were there for the taking. Insulation was scarce but there was sufficient for the job. I stockpiled the needed lumber and material at my home and waited for the cold weather.

The location of my camp was important, as you do not own land in Nunavut - it is in trust to all the people. The place I picked out was on a slope on a bay of Grenier Lake. This was Inuit land and I was given permission to build. The char loved the bay in spring and fall and lake trout were there all year. Numerous ponds lay between my site and Mount Pelly. You could not find a better site for fishing and hunting.

Fall and then winter changed the landscape and I was able to load my materials on my kamatuk and head out on the land. With Buck supervising I made many trips to my camp location following Spring Creek to Grenier Lake and my site. I placed heavy stones on the plywood and material to keep it from blowing away during the winter storms. All winter I made my daily trip to the landfill site to collect articles needed for construction.

A yard sale or auction was held by housing and I bought a keg of nails of various sizes and a wood stove. Piping for the stove was left over from a construction site and I was in business. Firewood was scarce so I began collecting framing and odds and ends to meet my need.

Next came furniture which was in abundance as regular upgrades were always in the works. Beds and bedding was scrounged and I just had to wait for spring. I drew up a plan of sorts the build the camp in two steps.The first was to be nine by sixteen. When completed I would have a camp 16 by 18 feet. Two rooms and a outside toilet completed the plan .

Spring finally arrived and every waking moment from that day was spent at the campsite. Since I had to fish and hunt work sometimes took second fiddle. People from the town watched as my camp rose from the tundra. I even had visitors who helped with the rafters for the roof of the second section. They took care not to make fun of my project to my face but made small comments which caused the group to smile politely.

At the middle of August I slept over at my Arctic palace and learned what home ownership really meant. I was proud to recycle what would have been thousands of dollars of trash into a modest, safe, expense-free cabin. Materials were very expensive in the arctic where one sheet of three quarters plywood would cost a hundred dollars. One two by four eight feet long costs 12 dollars. You see - I saved all this material from being burned and had fun doing it.

For the next years I loved the time I lived at my cabin and had many visitors who benefited from the hospitality shown there. Travellers regularly stopped for a tea and my family members came to see me and loved the solitude experienced there. When I left the Arctic physically I carried a spiritually enhanced mind with me from my time spent on the Tundra. My wish is that more people will experience Canada's Last Frontier before it too late.