Yesterday we hit our big achievement goal of Mokin’ all the way to Tuktoyaktuk. But today we’re taking a breather and spending some time back in Inuvik.

The hotel is really nice, the internet is good, and there’s even a small golf course here!

Inuvik is a bit of a planned city, where the Canadian government moved their facilities from Aklavik. Aklavik is located in a flood plain so it was regularly getting flooded in the spring. Inuvik’s infrastructure was built out by the government to support more people living there. Indeed, the roads are paved, and the facilities are good. The area it dotted with government weather radar and ground-station sites.

We toured a few things today, starting with the local community garden/greenhouse. This non-profit venture has transformed their old hockey arena into a greenhouse with plots to lease to local residents. They sell seeds, seedlings, and also host local community events in their space. The greenhouse provides local residents with the opportunity to have a longer growing season for their hobby garden.

We also toured a local church (Our Lady of Victory) that was expertly crafted with local left-over building materials, plus other structural pieces that were floated up the Yukon River from Whitehorse. For the remoteness of the city, it’s a really beautifully crafted building.

Just back south of town is a lookout-tower that we also visited to see the area. But, honestly, the views we had driving up to Inuvik were much more impressive than what we had at the lookout tower!

Across the road from the hotel was the local North Mart. North Mart is definitely worth checking out. It’s a small-town department store that pretty much has EVERYTHING: groceries, clothing, hot food, appliances, and your next raccoon or fox fur!

Speaking of clothing, we now had an opportunity to wash some clothing, however options were limited. It was $30 a load for the hotel to do it. But it was $8 to wash a load and $7 to dry it down the road at the campground. In the end, the hotel option won out. In fact, they said they were pretty generous with what counted as a ‘load’, so we took full advantage of that! They even folded it all!

For dinner we stayed at the hotel and dined at their Mamaqtuq restaurant. This was one of the best meals we had had in the last couple of days. The beef dip was great; the fish & chips also got top ratings; and the service was wonderful. We’re giving Mamaqtuq a top rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Right after dinner Jeff and Phil headed out to the local 6-hole golf course to try it out. Unfortunately, the trend continues, and they found out that the golf-course was closed! The sign on the club-house said that it was closed. The locals however said that if we had golf clubs we could just use the course and driving range. Golf clubs just weren’t going to fit in the Mokes for the trip, so they were out of luck.

Being the last night to see the midnight sun, dad stayed up to capture the sun-up at midnight, and Phil ran a time-lapse of the view out the hotel window over night.

Tomorrow, we’re properly heading south again on our return journey. A return to Eagle Plains is next.