Say! Who's up for a drive to the dump?

So I'm sitting in my pajama pants, watching TV and drinking some whiskey at 11:30 on a Friday night. There's a knock at the door. I scramble for a shirt. It's Nick from work. He and his girlfriend, Anna, just went for a drive to the dump. Yes, that's about the only thing to do around midnight on a Friday night in Tulita. Anyway. Ever since I got here, all I've heard about is how you can see bears at the dump. Any time I've gone, it's been garbage. So I grab my camera and off we go.

There were actually three black bears, but the other two had just been scared off by the RCMP.

Here you can see the bear in his natural habitat, probably chowing down on the expired bologna I threw out the other day.

Speaking of food, Yesterday I had my first taste of takeout since leaving civilization. The town north of us, Norman Wells, has a Chinese restaurant. And yes, they deliver to Tulita. It's $40 to have your order sent down on North Wright Air. Yesterday was Anna's birthday, so she and Nick ordered out as a treat. And they invited us up for supper. As luck would have it, someone we know from town was also in The Wells (that's the local term for Norman Wells) and saw Nick's order on the counter. She offered to carry it down with her, and saved them the $40. It was still $120 for a diner for six. There were two kinds of stir fry,shrimp fried rice, chicken balls, ribs, and spring rolls. The food was cold by the time we finished work. We reheated it in the microwave.

One of the stirfries was a "seafood" stirfry. In amongst the broccoli and bok choi, we noticed a strange item. It was shaped like asparagus: long with diamond shaped marks.

"It's chewy. Like scallops."

"It's definitely seafood."

"Maybe some sort of sushi?"

Then Nicole, being a Newfoundlander, spoke up.

"I'm pretty sure it's squid."

I've never tried fresh squid, but I can tell you that reheated squid has a texture not unlike rubber.

On the way back from the dump, I snapped a picture of the sun setting up on the barrens. It was around midnight when I took this picture. The mountain on the left is Great Bear Rock.