As you all can see, Canada is treating us well. Nice weather, nice hotel, nice people. However we did run into some things that were not like we were used to. Of course that is to be expected when going to a different country. Some of the things may be typical to Yellowknife, some may be typical to the Northwest Territories, I don’t know, but here is a list of what surprised, amazed and / or puzzled us:
- Today, we did a hike, walking a path that went north of the Frame Lake. After a well deserved break at Tim Hortons, we wanted to take the bus home. We went to the busstop, just as we did yesterday and waited for the bus. It didn’t arrive. After close examination of the bus schedule it struck us that “Sunday” was never mentioned on it….. anywhere! So we can go to a supermarket on sunday, or to a gas station, to a mall…. virtually every store is open for business. But no bus to get there or to go home…..
- In the last few days, we bought quite some different kinds of pop soda and juices, which came, totally expected, in plastic bottles. Those bottles can be recycled and you pay a small deposit (for the Dutchies: “statiegeld”, for the non-Dutchies: don’t try to pronounce that word!), which you get back once you bring the bottle back. However, when we went back to the exact same store where we bought the bottles, the girl at the counter looked rather startled and asked her co-worker, one counter next to us: “Do we recycle?!?”. The answer was “No”. Turns out this system is widely used: you do pay the store a deposit, but you can’t get your deposit back by bringing the bottle back to them. No no, you need to go to a central facility where you can get the deposit back from all the bottles of all the stores in Yellowknife. Apart from being logistically challenging to the customer, it must be the same for the stores and the facilities. I picture empty trucks going back from the stores and more filled and empty trucks going to the central recycling facility and back. Of course this will help you keep unemployment at low levels. As Cruijff said: “Every disadvantage has an advantage to it.” Or was that vice versa?
- I may have mentioned it before, but the stop signs at every road crossing that force you to make a full stop, even if there is nobody there. And of course the waste of fuel, accelerating over and over again, even worse when lookin at #4. I know in the Netherlands we have a simular fetish with roundabouts, but at least the fuel consumption of those is less…..
- The huge cars. I mean, doing your groceries in a 4×4 pickup truck that seats 4-5 ppl, or an MPV (Multiple Persons really doesn’t mean you and your 5 other personalities) or a SUV? Of course this may have something to do with 5, but still
- The huge quantities of food in the supermarket. For example: I wanted to buy salt. At the store we went, we couldn’t get it in a smaller pack than 10 kilograms. 10 kilograms of salt?!?! I seriously doubt if I have eaten that much salt in my entire life! On a sidenote, I do like buying 2 liters of Lemon Ice Tea for $0,99 (ex VAT and deposit, see #2) 🙂
- The units used. Inches, foot, stones, fahrenheit (thumbs up for supporting the Dutchies here though), oz, lb….. and so on. Yes, I know Canada switched recently and perhaps with some time it will become better, but apart from the Commonwealth countries, Canadians must have a hard time explaining how much they want of something to the rest of the world.
- Having telecom providers that have no service in a town. I mean, bad reception is one thing, I think around the world we all recognize that, but having no reception at all….. weird! And inconvenient, if it turns out the only provider that has a roaming contract with your Dutch provider has no service in Yellowknife. :-S
Anyways, we like a lot as well. Just to give a list of that as well and avoid the risk of sounding like a bad adapting person, I want to point out we got easily adjusted to:
- Tim Hortons
- Iced Capp
- Timbits
- People that do feel a law is something you should obey
- People that will greet you when you pass them
- Space channel ( I think I need to say I got easily adjusted to that, I am still waiting for Judith to do so)
- Air conditioning
- Toast with breakfast and lunch
- Open WiFi networks