Michael, English cyclist at Inuvik
We are still awaiting better weather, though it has almost stopped raining and is now just sprinkling occasionally. The forecast for tomorrow is still good, so we hope to go north to the Arctic Ocean then.
A couple of days ago while at the Mackenzie River crossing we met a man from England who has been cycling all over the north. Michael, from Cornwall in England, though recently of many varied locations around the world where he has been cycling and teaching English as a second language, is now in Inuvik, and staying at the same campsite as we are. This morning he was in the cook shelter, just finishing his breakfast as we arrived for ours, so we shared some breakfast with him. He enjoyed the boiled egg, and toast with homemade wild blueberry jam that we gave him. A long conversation about his and our travels and plans whiled away quite a bit of time, so much so that he missed his appointment at the library where he had booked Internet time. Since I have my own computer, I don’t have to do that. We hope that he was able to rebook.
After that we went for a swim, not in the Arctic Ocean though, but in the indoor Inuvik pool. It is a very nice large facility, and they had lane swimming this morning. Enid and I were the only ones in the lane for quite a while, though there were a few children playing in the other part of the pool. Around noon more people joined us, and then the lights went out. We were almost done our laps, so finished them as soon as the lights came back.
We are also all stocked up with groceries for another week. Prices here are somewhat higher, and the fresh produce while acceptable is not in large quantity, and not of as good quality as you would get farther south. Gas here is quite a bit more, at $1.40 a litre.