How you know you've been in the arctic too long...

Now that I'm back in Vancouver, I'm trying to get used to several things:

1) living in a big city
2) trees
3) driving on the highway
4) Tim Hortons and many, many different kinds of takeout

Number 4 is certainly the easiest of these, and the most enjoyable.

However, tonight as I was going to put the hose back in the garage, I stepped outside and did a double take...it was really dark out, and it was only 10:30 pm! Where were my endless hours of daylight? How could this be?

I guess I'm not quite settled back out west (and south!) yet. I'm looking forward to starting residency again next week, although I admit I'm a bit nervous. Once you're out in practice, it's easy to get out of "study mode", and now I have to get myself back into it. I tried to do some reading on volatile anesthetics this morning, and I think if it weren't for my large coffee with milk from Timmy's, it's possible my brain might have exploded. It doesn't help that I have an anesthesia exam coming up in less than two weeks (a three hour exam! on a saturday! in the summer! this is a form of sanctioned cruelty I say!)


Although I'm quite enjoying the view outside on these beautiful summer days, I miss those little flowers on the tundra more than I thought I would...

You call that 'up north'

This afternoon I am flying up to Resolute Bay and from there on to Griese Fiord to hold clinics for a couple of days. As northern as Iqaluit is, it's a metropolis compared to these remote places. I'll be there for a week and hopefully have some material to post about when I return.
The recently released book The Long Exile is an account of how people came to inhabit these unlikely places. It's a worthwhile read and a piece of Canadian history that most canadians know nothing about.
See you when I get back!

Real life, or something like that

We're safely back from our vacation. We travelled all around New Zealand over the past few weeks, and saw some amazing things. I've never in my life spent so long on a plane!! We won't likely have a chance to travel anywhere so far or for so long for quite some time so we really enjoyed our trip.
We're back in Iqaluit now, Dr. H for only a couple of weeks before she resumes her residency in Vancouver, and me for about 6 more weeks. It's still spring here, and like most springs it feels full of possibilities. I'm a little unsure what the next part of my own career will bring and am weighing a number of opportunities. For the next 12 months I will likely return north, here to Iqaluit, on a regular basis, but beyond that it's all up in the air. Iqaluit is a different sort of place than anywhere else in Canada, and it takes a little while to feel at home here. It seems like just as we started to feel like we're home it's almost time to leave...