Category: Living up North

Facebook fills a role up here as a sort of community message board. Each of the communities seem to have at least one facebook group devoted to sharing community announcements, things to buy or sell, lost & found, flight cancellation notices, rideshares, sporting events, jobs, and assorted requests, inquiries, or just random comments. The whole thing has a cute small-town feel to it.

“Does anyone know if the shop is open?”
“looks like the lights are on”
“Ok thanks”

“Has anyone seen my mom? Tell her to call me”

“Whose dog is this?”

“Anyone want to buy this?”
“me”
“K just come by my mom’s house”

“I’m looking for any tooth fairy costume pieces that our grade 6/7 class can borrow for a dental health school presentation. Please let me know if you can help!!”

Every few days, I look at the kitchen clocks and realize that I’m running late for whatever I’m doing next. Then I remember that it’s the clocks themselves that are wrong – our kitchen clocks gain about a minute a day, and need to be reset on a weekly basis.

It turns out that this has to do with our power generation. Electric clocks keep time based on the rate of the electrical current that powers them. If the current fluctuates then clocks will run a little fast or slow, which is a common problem with generators. On the grid, power companies keep the frequency of the current as precise as possible.

Power in Tulita is generated using diesel. The Tulita plant is equipped with three diesel engines with a total installed capacity of 1.1 MW. Here’s a video from the power company about how they generate and deliver power in the NWT: