I know I whetted your appetite with my enthusiasm about making bread, but did I make you curious about the subject of the sea lift?
Just in case I will tell you about it.
When we made our decision to move to Frobisher Bay , now Iqaluit, we were told to prepare a shopping list for a whole year and to bring all of our non perishables on the boat which was much cheaper than air travel which we needed to use for our perishables.
At the time of our decision, we lived in Thunder Bay
I therefore started to measure everything we ate, everything we used, everything we drank etc… I put a new tube of toothpaste out, measured the cereal we used, the jam, we went to powdered milk (yuk) to see how much powder we needed, laundry detergent, chocolates, sugar, salt, nuts, peanut butter, chocolate chips, oat meal, corn flakes; we started to use more canned goods: peas, carrots, mushrooms, since air freight was $1.00 per pound. No more potatoes since the “winter potatoes” which keep for a long time were not going to be harvested until after the boat left Montréal; we would have to make do with dried potato flakes, dried scalloped potatoes, rice and pasta. Soft drinks, which we didn’t use much, but would now be a real special treat had to be included. And of course I started to make my bread to see how much I would need per week, or per month and then multiply by the adequate factor: 52 or 12.
Once you have the list made; how I wish I had kept it! Then you had to chose a grocer and get the grocer’s wholesale catalogue. I was really lucky there, because the grocer had 20 years experience with the sea lift to Baffin Island. I called him many times while I was making my order to pick right the size container and the right size of case. He was a very patient man and laughed many times at my anxiety about all of this. He was happy I spoke French with him since he was Québecois. Did I want the small size containers, or the large size, could I break a case, were there any other options, did he have any smaller cases , did he have another product because I didn't like that one. I really did not want to fall short of anything and therefore we did over purchase the first year, but since it was non perishables we weren’t really losing much except may be some freshness and flavour for the next year.
When we left Thunder Bay at the end of April, we went to Montréal to meet him and bring him the final order and the cheque. I was shocked when I found him in a little tiny corner store no bigger than a postage stamp in a remote section of Lachine. My order was larger than the store itself. My fear and anxiety must have been easily read on my face because Monsieur Turenne started to laugh his good hearted laugh again. He showed me the warehouse behind the shop where he packaged the orders and he packaged almost all of the orders for the whole of Baffin Island. Explained the whole set up to me. Him and I became very good friends over the years; we worked together on improving the seal lift service after the horrible fiasco when it came to late and couldn't be unloaded. Not only did he do the shipping for the sea lift, but he also was one of the main grocers involved in the air lift for the perishable goods which came in once a week on Nordair. We are talking mid seventies here, things have changed drastically in Iqaluit, Nanavut territories; they have flights every day now, and more stores than The Bay. It is the capital City of Nunavut Territory.
But doing your shopping that way actually saves you money, because you have fewer visits to the stores and therefore less temptation. However, children change their eating habits, develop different tastes; in Thunder Bay
I’ll leave it at that, because I have a tendency to not be able to stop when I get going so maybe the subject will come again under another lens, during another blog.
Cheers
Mama Cool
