Author: Maciek

The Tulita Fitness Room

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Our now-SAO (Senior Administrative Officer, aka guy who runs the municipality) is a young guy who proved his chops by (among other things, I’m sure) setting up a pretty awesome fitness room in the hockey arena building.

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I gotta admit, I was really not expecting to have access to so much fitness equipment in such a remote and tiny town. I guess I really have no excuse for not being in great shape these days…

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(Probably incomplete) List of Equipment:

  • Mismatched weights of various styles and sizes
  • 2 Bench press stations
  • Shoulder press up station
  • Leg press station
  • Chin up bars
  • Small dips station (like mini parallel bars)
  • Gymnastics rings (I brought these up myself)
  • Isolation machine station
  • Treadmills and exercise bikes
  • Punching bags
  • Long heavy ropes
  • Those giant ball things
  • Medicine ball
  • Platforms of various heights with grippy top surface (I use these for practicing jumping up)
  • Ab roller
  • Yoga mats

Dog Sledding

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While in Yellowknife I had a chance to ride in a dog sled.

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Your less active blog author, all mounted up

The kennels were several hundred square meters of chain link fence and hyper-excited dogs. Also lots of poop. I’d say there were at least 100 dogs in the place.

Twelve dogs were harnessed to our sled, which carried 5 passengers and one driver. The sled itself was a long plastic base with a large canvas sack on top of it, in which we sat.

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We set off!

I learned a few important things about dog sledding that day:

  • 12 dogs pulling 6 people don’t go that fast. Maybe at a quick jogging pace, despite all their canine enthusiasm.
  • The key to pulling a sack of humans is maintaining momentum. Sometimes we’d stop and the driver could just shout at the dogs to get them going again. One time though, the best time, I (as the person sitting in the front) had to get out and help the driver pull the sled to get it moving, before then diving back into my designated spot in the moving sled. Fun times!
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Unless you’re going around a turn, all you can get a photo of is the rear dogs’ butts.
  • Flying over bumps in the snow in a large sack on a bit of plastic, it can be rough.

  • Some dogs can poop while running!
  • Almost all dogs can nip at each other, deliberately bump each other and otherwise interact socially while running.

All in all, a fun adventure. I’d recommend it!

The Snow King’s Castle

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I was in Yellowknife recently and had a chance to pop in to the Snow King’s Castle.

The snow king's castle, built entirely from ice blocks. (Not my photo)
The snow king’s castle, built entirely from ice blocks. (Not my photo)

Each year a local Santa-Claus-esque guy, his small team of expert craftsmen and their horde of eager but inexpert helpers build a castle out of ice out on the frozen lake. It costs $5 to go in and have a look.

The castle includes a stage for performances on some evenings, and a slide for kids to enjoy. Alas, I was too busy to catch a show while I was in town (“Brrrrr-leseque” was on) and there were too many kids using the slide for me to have a go.

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The Ice Theater inside the castle, stage on the right.

For $5, I’d say it’s worth a look.

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The National Ballet Of Canada had a ballet slipper built in to the castle this year, on to a leg of ice.