Traveling Northern Style

We're home. Finally home. No more travel plans to worry about for many more months. I am totally exhausted, and fairly certain that unpacking will take weeks.

Getting back home to the North usually entails many obstacles, I bet most of us northerners have a fun story to tell about getting stuck somewhere. Throughout our traveling south career we have had no problems getting from A to B, but it was only a matter of time before we gained our own traveling in the north story.

It started with freezing rain in Ottawa and trying to get through rush hour traffic on the 417. We needed to have both Nathan's parents and my brother drive us to the airport because we had 5 suit cases, 3 carry ons, 1 gun case, 1 Malamute and cage and one very unimpressed kitteh. Even though Nathan's parents had 20 inch icicles hanging off of their car, we made it to the airport in one piece and on time. Just as we made it onto the plane and started relaxing the flight attended came up to us and told us their was someone on board with a severe cat allergy and could we please let them put the kitteh up with the pilot? Ok sure, but she meows solid while in transport, so as long as the pilots don't mind. No? Ok.....

"Good Morning, this is your captain and thank you for choosing first air, as you can see we are stuck in a line up and....MEOW... will probably be delayed... MEOW... about an hour... MEOW... so we can be de-iced... MEOW.... thank you for your patience."

Can you believe we were sitting on the runway for hours waiting to be de-iced... in a city that should be used to super amounts of snow and ice, I mean come on! Oh and the whole plane could hear the cat meowing over the load speaker... that wasn't embarrassing...

I guess after a while the pilot decided to let the cats head out of the soft create, so that he could pet her head in an attempt to calm her down. Then at this point they were also letting her walk around up there and then the flight attendants where taking pictures of her "flying" the plane. They came back to show me the photos and I even asked them to send me the photo and if I ever get it I will post it up. Only in the North.

Then we landed in Iqaluit and saw our flight home was canceled! That freaked me out because now I have to not only worry about all of our luggage but the dog and cat. Where am I going to get litter for the night? What a massive pain.

Here is where my northern stranded story transforms into a Northern hospitality story. Usually in the North you see people you know in the airport...this happens every time! We ended up seeing someone we met back in our community, who lives in Iqaluit. He gave us a ride and a place to stay for the night. Then he took us on a tour of Iqaluit because I had said that I had never really seen the place. It was the nicest thing anyone could have ever done for us, and he just said "hey, it's the north!". I am so happy to be back in the north and back home.

I encourage all of us to take this example and pass it forward. Help keep our beautiful white north the most friendly place to live.