A bit of a change of plans....

I spent the entire day yesterday, creating a chart that compares events & festivals in 6 Northern communities… Yellowknife (of course), Hay River (YK’s neighbour across the lake) & Inuvik in NWT, Whitehorse & Dawson City in the Yukon & Skagway Alaska. The entire day & evening, and i’m not even half finished! Haven’t even looked at Skagway (just a 3 hour drive from Whitehorse) yet! Oh, so much fun is to be had up North!

Can Can @ Sourdough Rendezvous!

My reasoning? Well, there are so many great communities up there, and i want to live in them all, but can’t really do that, can i? ...Can i?  But maybe i can live in at least one more… Maybe the one i originally had planned on moving to in the first place? Whitehorse. To be able to kill two birds with one stone (urgh, what a nasty saying, but it applies well… live in two cities in one year) would be wonderful! Maybe then my Northern Yearning Heart will be satiated then, and i can go on with my life & get on the road & see the rest of the continent! I mean, i can just see it... After a year in Yellowknife, saying OK, now a year in Whitehorse! Oo! OO! Then a year in Dawson City!!

Well anyway... on with the events. The only ART Events i found though, was one in Inuvik in July, and Dawson City in August. And speaking of Dawson City… whoa, do they ever have a lot of events! :-) I would love to live in that quaint Gold Rush 1880’s town! Although, there are so many of these festival & events all over, that i would love to go to!  ... Yup.. found one in Nunavut as well...

Burning Away the Winter Blues

I think that’s what i’m going to do with this blog for the next little while... Post festivals around the North that i wish i could be at. ‘Yukon Quest’, the dog sled race from Whitehorse to Fairbanks Alaska just finished last week or so. The “Yukon Sourdough Rendezvous” (in Whitehorse) is starting right about now, so that one will be first. Then the ‘Burning Away the Winter Blues’ (sort of like a mini Burning Man... how wonderful is that?? OH i want to go to that one SO badly!!), next month, also in Whitehorse.  The Snowking Festival & Caribou Carnival (with Ice Castle and all!) is next month in Yellowknife...

*sigh* I wish i could be there...

Anyway, so seeing i have no life right now and obviously too much time on my hands to kill... i started this new version of my Northern blog. The other one’s name was life-in-yellowknife, and seeing i’m hoping to expand my experience of the North a tad, i thought a more all-encompassing version would be more suitable, before the Yellowknife one got too big to transfer all the posts.

Now i’m free to sing the praises of the entire Great White North! :-D

Great White North Dreams & Plans...

This is my first post for this blog...

I’ve had this dream, on and off for many, many years now. More like a deep yearning. I feel like the Great White North is calling me. Amber... Aaaaaaamber... Which honestly perplexes me, because i’ve become SUCH a wimp living here in Vancouver, BC, a temperate rain forest. I grew up in Hamilton, Ontario, so i do know about snow. Problem is, i want to forget it. Twenty some-odd years here, and i’ve grown to expect that snow belongs on the top of mountains, and rain (and the occasional sunny day) belongs down here with me. If i want snow (and i don’t), i’ll go up on the mountain!

So, how on earth do i think that i can go live North of 60, by myself, in an igloo (kidding), with frigid cold & snow for a good part of the year, and lots of lonely darkness? I have no idea! I guess all i can do right now is dream (i am an incurable dreamer) and maybe, just maybe i’ll have the guts to follow through on the adventure of a lifetime. Move to Yellowknife, find a room, find a job, find some friends, and actually live that dream alongside the dancing lights!

Why Yellowknife? Well, considering i'm not American and couldn't live my first choice in Skagway, Alaska (i love the ocean), i had originally planned on Whitehorse, Yukon Territory. Because it’s a bigger city, has a big art scene, and.... well yeah, it has a Starbucks. There, i said it. But i was warned of standing water and bugs in Whitehorse, and that the bugs weren’t as bad in Yellowknife because of moving water. Don’t know how accurate that is, but once my brain was turned in the direction of Yellowknife, NWT.... well... you guessed it.... i HAD to have that polar bear shaped license plate for my car. Yes, that was the deciding factor. Bite me.

Sooooo, let’s just see what exactly i’m made of. No matter what that is though... Adventurous Animal or Whimpering Wuss... it will still be an adventure!

This is me... May/10... AA or WW? Only time will tell!