Aside from the adjustment to everyday life in the Canadian Arctic, I’ve had to adapt to a culture of which I previously knew little. There are a lot of social nuances in a hamlet of 1,800—nuances that you have to learn pretty quickly. One thing I realised in the first couple of days is that the entire community shuts down for lunch every weekday, with schools, daycares, and most businesses emptying themselves like clockwork, from 12pm to 1pm. As someone who always got caught up at work and who never realised it was long past 5pm in Ontario, I’ve had to adjust to going home right at the end of the day. My office also follows the break schedule fairly religiously – 10am and 3pm are 15 minute breaks that people take every day. Not being used to this practice, one of my first few days on the job I looked around at 10:05 and wondered whether I had missed hearing a fire alarm!
--> With so many unique challenges facing organizations in the north, the practice of human resources has both pros and cons. On the one hand, the inability to apply certain programs and practices due to cultural, technological and resource constraints makes it feel as though we have fallen behind our southern counterparts and are working feverishly to catch up. There is mounting frustration each time we are held back in our endeavours because we just don’t have the capacity. On the other hand, this lack of resources is also freeing, as not only does it allow for creativity, it demands it. As such, it’s a privilege to be able to establish a new “frontier”, and to be able to see and be a part of the revitalization of traditional practices.
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--> With so many unique challenges facing organizations in the north, the practice of human resources has both pros and cons. On the one hand, the inability to apply certain programs and practices due to cultural, technological and resource constraints makes it feel as though we have fallen behind our southern counterparts and are working feverishly to catch up. There is mounting frustration each time we are held back in our endeavours because we just don’t have the capacity. On the other hand, this lack of resources is also freeing, as not only does it allow for creativity, it demands it. As such, it’s a privilege to be able to establish a new “frontier”, and to be able to see and be a part of the revitalization of traditional practices.
I was prepared for the drop in temperature, the (extreme) increase in cost of groceries, and the other changes one would expect from moving to a new town. What I wasn’t prepared for was the changes I’d be faced with in my work, and in what I know about my field. Having worked in the field for the past number of years, in locations across North America, practicing my craft in the north was the least of my worries—I was more focused on how much of our everyday lives we would need to stockpile. Questions that would have previously landed me on an episode of Hoarders suddenly became appropriate: Is it socially acceptable to clear off an entire shelf of pasta sauce at the grocery store? How much shampoo is enough shampoo? While I tried to take it as a compliment whenever someone compared my living room to a warehouse, more than once I found myself hesitating over my purchases, because I kept asking myself, “How different can it be? It’s still Canada.” Little did I know that those 1,600 miles between Home and Nunavut would be paved with a world of change.
After many discussions with our families, my husband and I packed up and moved from everything we knew in Southwestern Ontario to the territory of Nunavut. I’m not sure what possessed me to apply to a job so far away from friends and family, but this bold move has led to a life-changing experience that we’ve been living for the past half year.
