SNOW DAYS

I got thinking the other day about school life in Nunvut. The thoughts came to me after a local school board was criticized for not declaring a snow emergency or "snow day". They did not close their schools for the day due to inclement weather. Here in Niagara we had about 14 inches of blowing snow over a 24 hour period starting late saturday night. By monday morning, most major roads were groomed...many side streets were not. The school buses were slowed and the Buffalo news told us they had "school bus delays".

My questions start with how do the kids in Rankin Inlet get to school...walk, snowmobiles, quads, sleds, taxis, buses, limousines? I don't know if they have school buses especially in the smaller settlements. Who determines if they have a snow day or is every day treated as one? Maybe they have "wind chill factor" days instead. Perhaps they don't change their habits at all and just continue on as a normal occurrence of life in the "north".

The same thing happens with their air transport system. "Weathering" is a term used to describe the fact that "we ain't going nowhere today". We are going to hunker down and when the weather breaks, then we fly out.

Remember the stories your parents told you about walking ten miles to school in the dead of winter with three foot drifts when milk was 5 cents a quart with a half cup of cream on the top?
Maybe some of this still goes on in certain regions of the country(although I have been told not to expect milk or any groceries to be cheap by any means).

The weather is expected to be sunny for the entire weekend in Rankin Inlet but the wind chill makes it a balmy -51C. It's a good thing school is out for christmas break...no one needs to make the decision on closing them.