Well, my title may be a little dramatic but this past week I finally succumbed to the need to eat more than the rations I brought with me from Edmonton on my initial trip here! Protein shakes, canned chili and dry cereal just weren’t filling the bill for me. As you’ll recall from an earlier blog, I am still suffering sticker shock from the prices at the local stores. People like me have two options, they can grin and bear it, or they can use two options that are available for most of the communities in Nunavut – food mail and barge orders.
Needless to say, barge orders won’t work this time of the year! The barges (two companies serve Nunavut) make their way from Montreal or Churchill. They are dependent upon the ice thawing in the Hudson Bay, as well as many other logistical issues. Each company has one barge which arrives in late summer or early fall before the freeze up. Many people place big orders in the spring for shipment on one of the barges. ATVs, trucks, furniture, exercise equipment, you name it.
People order large bulk orders of food and supplies, like pepsi (remember how expensive it is here!), canned goods and other items that they can’t get through food mail. Obviously, I can wait and order items on the barge for the summer, but I don’t think I can wait that long! And, I do remember a couple of stories that the locals told me about the barge orders that makes me wonder if I should place an order this spring.
The first story was about office furniture. It seems that the person I am replacing placed a barge order for new office furniture in the spring of 2009. Eagerly, she waited for the barge to arrive only to find out that it wasn’t on the barge when it arrived! Somehow, somewhere, the order got left off the shipment. Yup, and you guessed it, that meant that she couldn’t get it until the next barge order – one year later!! As is, when I arrived the furniture was quite new, not by intention, but by real bad barge luck!
Another person told me that they found lemming droppings in some of their barge orders. Others have said that water damage can affect up to 20% of an order. There is no sending it back for credit, only the task of taking pictures and hoping that your vendor on the other end believes you and will provide credit that you can (you guessed it) apply for your next year’s order!!
Food mail is another alternative but it has its own ups and downs. Food mail is a national initiative to help get subsidized food to northern communities. Three companies in Winnipeg including Safeway, will take online orders that they ship out via the airlines. The government provides a large subsidy to help with the shipping costs and the companies give you the same prices as if you were shopping in their store. And, if you are a Safeway clubcard holder, you get those benefits as well as Air Miles! Sounds like a good deal!
The controversy regarding Food Mail is two-fold. One, the government decides what items will be eligible for shipping subsidy (called eligible items) and those that will not (ineligible). Surprisingly, and many local people would tell you frustratingly, the lists don’t seem to make sense. For example, I can order frozen pizza or hot dogs and get a shipping subsidy, but not chicken bouillon cubes, lemon juice, cans of diced tomatoes, soup or tuna (not that I’d eat tuna (!), but you get the idea) or pampers for babies (not that I need those either). Some of the locals told me they feel like big brother is telling them what to eat and they don’t like that.
More worrisome for locals is that the program is ending March 31 of this year. Instead of having the southern companies like Safeway and Canada Post look after providing the subsidy, it will be passed on directly to the local food stores. The concern is that it will never get passed on to the consumer. Some even say the recent spike in food prices is to offset the new “lower” prices that the stores will be offering once food mail ends. Who knows, all I know is that I’d better get busy and get what I can before this program ends.
As you will see in the pictures above, I did place my first food mail order! It arrived safe and sound (that can also be a problem when there are weather delays and your head of lettuce and fresh veggies sit in a cargo area, waiting for the next available plane)! I have so much food now, I don’t know what to do with it all. And yes, you guessed it, there were frozen pizzas and hot dogs in my order! I couldn’t resist. The good news is that I can put all the frozen items in my un-insulated back porch. Works like a charm as long as those sled dogs across the road don’t smell my cuts of meat! Oh, and those little critters in my kitchen, those are my virtual pets! Cute, eh!
I’m off to Iqaluit tomorrow, weather permitting. I must sound like a broken record, but once again my travel plans and those of my colleagues have been changed this past week due to blizzards in the area. I was supposed to go to Iqaluit on Wednesday. I will now leave (hopefully) on Monday! Other staff were supposed to return to Baker on Thursday and Friday, and they still aren’t back yet. Wish me luck!
Chat to you later from Iqaluit!
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