Cambridge Bay weathers loss of communications

This sign was posted Oct. 6 on to the door of the Royal Bank of Canada in Cambridge Bay which remained closed throughout the day. (PHOTO BY JANE GEORGE)

(updated Oct.7)

CAMBRIDGE BAY — Late in the afternoon of Oct. 6 in Cambridge Bay, Keith Peterson, MLA for Cambridge Bay and also Nunavut’s minister for finance and justice, wasn’t too worried about that day’s lack of telephone and internet communication.

“I looked at it as an occasion to catch up on my reading,” Peterson said, as warm sunlight streamed onto the many piles of folders on his desk.

That’s what he’d spent most of the day doing — reading and talking to his constituents in Cambridge Bay.

Peterson had a satellite phone, given to him when he became MLA, but he hadn’t yet tried to turn it on.

He wasn’t too worried. That’s because, he said, he was sure the problem would be fixed shortly.

“But makes you think though about our remoteness and, not just in Nunavut, but across the whole North just how dependent we are on technology.”

In Cambridge Bay, use of the internet has grown since PolarNet first introduced internet service to the community in 1996.

Now the community is hooked on Facebook, with neighbours using it to speak to one another, and on text messaging, thanks to cell phone services.

None of those ways of communication helped anyone on Oct. 6.

Many didn’t find out about the lack of telephone and internet service until they arrived at work: a man, planning to head out to Yellowknife that afternoon for the long weekend, walked through the door of his office to learn that Canadian North had cancelled the day’s flights to Cambridge Bay — as did First Air.

A hamlet worker complained she couldn’t even buy a pack of cigarettes because she was out of money, the bank machine’s automatic teller was offline “until further notice due to satellite problems,” and the stores would accept cash only.

The bank remained closed all day.

But nearly every office in town — except that of Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. — stayed open, as did stores, as long as clients paid in cash.

Students went to school, and at Nunavut Arctic College the camp cook course students laid out their $10 lunchtime soup and sub buffet.

At the RCMP, things were quiet, and one constable played solitaire on a computer usually buzzing with emails.

In the afternoon, at the Government of Nunavut’s health and social services department, you could see the stacks of papers that workers were filing.

But there was no communication with Iqaluit.

Reduced computer time meant longer coffee breaks and an impromptu staff snack party at the Kitikmeot Inuit Association where everyone said they got more done than usual during the day without internet and telephones.

News continued to be available on radio and television.

But at Cambridge Bay’s North Warning radar site communications were reduced to satellite phones — and its helicopter out on the land had to return back to the site without the usual support.

By then, all aircraft were grounded.

This meant all regular medical travel came to a halt — causing some to face possible postponements of long-awaited surgery. As well, some en route from Kugaaruk to Cambridge Bay to see a specialist there (who never managed to arrive) were stranded in Yellowknife.

And, while the health centre in Cambridge Bay had a satellite phone on the premises, nursing stations in smaller communities weren’t so lucky and had to share the RCMP’s satellite phone, as needed.

At the Kitnuna Pharmacy in Cambridge Bay, retail business continued on a cash only basis, but pharmacist Ehab Meshrif and his assistants couldn’t fill any new prescriptions for outlying communities without a telephone or email service to receive orders or airplanes to send them on.

“The lifeline is down,” he said.

All flights to and from Cambridge Bay had been cancelled as well on Oct. 5, this time due to fog.

However, the pharmacist’s physical presence in Cambridge Bay — unlike that of the virtual pharmacist planned for the region under the GN’s proposed tele-pharmacy plan — meant that at least those in that community, the Kitikmeot region’s largest, and being treated at its health centre could be assured of receiving medications.

When telephone and internet returned, Meshrif said he’d ready to move the medications out immediately.

Service was restored to the town at around 8 p.m. Mountain Standard Time.

But the impacts of the communications failure endured for another day as many passengers were bumped from flights to and from the community.