Time Flies

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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:

 

Strange Frenchmen in the North

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It is rare for someone to accidentally find themselves in Tulita. There are plenty of out-of-town visitors for work, meetings, or other assorted reasons, but given the difficulties in getting here, it is usually a very intentional decision.

I saw this post on the community facebook group today:

“Weird thing happened last nite when working. As i was driving the back by pass, I seen two people walking in the dark, carrying big backpacks. At a distance, I was wondering what it was. Looks like moose walking into town lol. Pick them up and they hitch hike from wrigley yesterday. And they’re on there way to Inuvik. And wanted to know if there was a road from good hope to inuvik? I said nope. And they look sad … ohh they said. By the way, there from Belgium. Arrive in Canada 4 months ago. Hitch hike all the way up here since then.”

As it turns out, they are clowns who are doing some kind of hitchhiking-around-the-world as an interactive art project or something.

These clowns are not Tulita’s first inadvertent eccentric French visitors, however. In fact, they’re not even the first in the past year. This past August, a Quebec man was (willingly) blindfolded and dropped by helicopter somewhere in the Yukon wilderness, with a packraft and minimal other supplies. He found his way onto the Keele River, so Tulita was the first point of civilization that he encountered.

Here are some news articles about his expedition:

The North certainly attracts interesting people.