Baffin has a New Year’s blast

DWANE WILKIN

A stubborn holiday storm strafed the south Baffin for at least two days over New Year’s with driving snow and 100 km/h winds stranding Iqaluit’s party goers, airline travellers and police officers alike.

But nothing it seems could delay the arrival of Iqaluit’s newest citizens.

New Year’s baby has home birth

Firefighters on snowmobiles whisked Dr. Stephen Wheeler of the Baffin Regional Hospital to an Iqaluit home to help deliver a baby on New Year’s Day.

Mona Katsaq’s eight pound boy drew his first breath oblivious to the whirling havoc that the winter’s worst blizzard was wreaking outside. Towels to wrap the baby were warmed up in the dryer and the baby was weighed on the bathroom scale.

Dr. Wheeler, who was living in Vancouver, B.C. before coming to Iqaluit in September says he’s never done anything quite like that before.

“Absolutely, definitely not,” Wheeler said. “I actually fell off the snowmobile coming back.”

The proud 21 year-old mother says she was getting worried because the raging blizzard kept her from going to the hospital. She was relieved when Dr. Wheeler arrived.

“I thought he was brave,” she says.

Wheeler had praise for the emergency measures workers who got him to the home and back to the hospital safely.

“They were incredible,” he says. “I couldn’t see anything.”

Another woman was transported by snowmobile to hospital where she is now delivering her child.

The storm, which began to gather force late Monday afternoon, had reached blizzard proportions by New Year’s eve day, closing most businesses and government offices in Iqaluit, including the post office, daycares and the airport.

“It’s the worst we’ve had in four or five years,” said E.J. Yougayougaosie, an Iqaluit resident for 40 years, who spent the day repeatedly shoveling snow away from the front entrance of The Snack restaurant in Iqaluit.

“It’s very rare. Especially at holidays.”

By morning on New Year’s Day, drifting snow and gale force winds had sealed all roads in a frozen web of three-foot high snowdrifts, making transportation impossible by any means save snowmobiles.

Although the Iqaluit weather office recorded only two centimetres of new snow over New Year’s eve, steady northwesterly winds averaging 80 km/h and gusting up to 110 km/h reduced visibility to zero by 9:00 p.m.

“I guess we’re getting snow from Hall Beach,” joked meteorologist Louis Allard, who noted that the New Year’s blizzard was compounded by an unusually high quantity of fallen snow.

“Let’s say you don’t see 100 km/h winds every year. So in that sense it’s abnormal.”

Temperatures held at an average -26C, but the strong winds meant wind chill factors of up to -64C.

Parties cut short

A brief reprieve from the storm on Tuesday afternoon lured hundreds of New Year’s eve celebrators to parties all over town.

But the storm resumed a few hours later with renewed vigor, leaving many people scrambling to get safely home.

Firefighters enjoying their annual New Year’s supper at the Kamotiq Inn were forced to leave the party early, taking their desserts with them, while some restaurant staff spent the night at work.

Authorities close Legion

A New Year’s Eve bash at the Royal Canadian Legion, which authorities finally cut short at just after 11:00 p.m., proved a logistical nightmare for the few cab drivers still navigating roads at that hour.

“They should never have let them stay open that late,” a tired-looking Nunavut Taxi driver Keith Baines said Wednesday morning, after spending most of the night sipping coffee and trying to sleep in a booth at The Snack, Iqaluit’s only 24-hour restaurant.

By the time the Legion closed, only Baines and one other driver were left to bring all the Legion’s customers safely home.

In the past, bad weather and alcohol have often combined with tragic consequences as drunken patrons foolishly chose to make the trip home on foot.

No missing persons

But on New Year’s Day, Mike Ferris, Baffin’s emergency services coordinator, said he hadn’t received any missing persons reports.

Emergency service crews stayed busy instead, shuttling essential staff to and from the hospital at shift change by snowmobile.

“It’s critical for our own people to be out there,” Ferris said. “But we haven’t had a serious emergency at the present time.”

Police too were stranded in their homes on New Year’s Day and two RCMP members on duty were unable to get to work until emergency services snowmobiles had completed their baby delivery duties.