No pumpkins but a lot of pumped kids

You know who doesn't care that it's -8F and feels like -31F (-22/-35C)? Kids. Kids on Halloween. And they were RUNNING from house to house. For a place where treats and sweets are priced like gold, the opportunity to get FREE sugar from strangers is their utopia. I mean, kids everywhere love Halloween, but here, with the prices and luxury of candy, Halloween becomes the childrens' Shangri-La (if Shangri-La were not a place, but a day....you know what I'm getting at). AND, the kids are not dumb. They specifically target all the government housing units, i.e. all the government employees such as teachers, scientists, HR, IT, whatever. Anyone non-native and they're on the hit list. LIterally gaggles of children swarm the houses sometimes creating a line both UP the stairs to the door and DOWN the stairs as they flit away. Estimates range from 200-400 kids will visit your house. You are warned to be prepared. I was told by the HR person hiring me and told to bring candy with me in order to be able to afford enough. Yeah, right! I would have had to buy a crate load for all the kids that come out.

I lasted a whole 27 minutes before I was completely candy dry. Trick or treating is not allowed to start until 6pm sharp. And, boy do they start sharp. Those kids are probably like thoroughbreds at the gates before the start of the race. I bet their parents can't get dinner in their keyed up bellies. Apparently, the hullabaloo ends at 8pm....though I'm not sure who still has candy at 8! I suspect these strict hours were established so that all kids had a fair shot at getting some candy since there are not limitless places such as malls, neighborhoods, community events to go to like there are down south. There is a very very finite number of resources here, and by resources I mean Hershey's, so making sure there's a chance for the kids to have some probably created these timing schemes......that's my professional, all of two months in the Arctic, opinion.

I noticed a lot of homemade, altered garments for costumes as well as face paint. This makes sense since there is no "Halloween" store popping up on the corner to sell exclusively Halloween stuff and Walmart is a mere two day plane ride and roughly 3 grand away in Ottawa......yeah, not a lot of parents going down for a costume shopping trip. And, when the parents may have the opportunity to actually be south, Halloween costumes aren't out for sale. So, the get-ups here are definitely a more traditional sort. One kid had some great Spiderman face painting and I complimented his makeup. His mom or grandma was with him and she was totally stoked. She said it was her first time doing Spiderman makeup.

Also the same same, but different is seeing kids roll up on snowmobiles and ATV's. The best is when they are being pulled by snowmobile in a qammitik (traditional Inuit sled). Instead of cars parked along the road, just idling off road vehicles.

I'll know for next year to order up about 1000 lbs of candy.Read more