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Inuvik turned out to be a small town with a frontier
outpost feel to it. It is primarily the center of government for the
northern reaches of the Northwest Territory so you you see lots of different
governmental offices. It is also the supply center for the oil and gas
exploration of the Territory, a business that those we talked to were very happy
to see. The town itself is not very photogenic, which is undoubtedly why
we didn't take many pictures there, a big mistake. Here is a shot taken
from the air (more about why we were in the airplane down lower on this page).
This picture was taken from a lookout tower in our campground and shows our
camper and the town in the far background.
Inuvik, and the campground, are on the edge of the Mackenzie River delta.
Here is one small part of the delta as seen in the late afternoon from the same
lookout tower. 
And here we are canoeing on the Mackenzie delta.
Here is an aerial shot of a very small part of the delta.
The small lakes in the distance are the type that form Pingos.
While at Inuvik, we decided to fly up to Tuktoyaktuk, a
small First Nation village on the Beaufort Sea, which is part of the Arctic
Ocean. Here are some of our fellow tourists, getting ready to climb into
the Cessna which took us to Tuk.
Once in Tuk, 
we toured the town with one of the locals. Our first stop was on top of a
Pingo. A Pingo is an ice hill that is formed when a small lake fills up
with silt so it becomes a dry lake. For reasons that escape me, this
causes a low pressure region to form in the center of the dry lake bed and the
permafrost slowly pushes up. Because it rises slowly, nature manages to
keep a dirt cover over this rising hill. The dirt serves as an insulation
blanket which keeps the ice from melting which in turn allows it to keep
growing. The Pingo we climbed was probably 50 feet high and was thus the
highest point around this otherwise flat region. These two pictures show
most of Tuk as seen from the Pingo.
Next, we were off to dip our toes in the Arctic Ocean. 
As you can tell from this picture, it was cool in Tuk. I'm wearing a long
sleeved shirt, sweatshirt, and winter jacket. If I stood in the sun, out
of the breeze, it was warm enough to shed the jacket. Move into the shade
though and I was glad to have the jacket. This is one of the two churches
in town. I don't remember if this is the Anglican or the Catholic.
Our final stop was at our guides home where he showed us his fish smoking
rack. The black stuff and and the blubber on the left is from a whale that
he had harpooned the day before.
The trip to Tuktoyaktuk was definitely one of the highpoints of this
trip.
A couple of days after our return from Tuk the annual Northern Arts Festival got underway in Inuvik. We stayed long enough to watch the opening ceremonies, see carvers in action, buy some of their wares, and attend the evening show on Saturday night. Here are pictures from the festival.
During the native dancing part of the show, the performers
encouraged the audience to join in on several numbers. This young dancer
wasn't entirely sure of all the steps but seemed to have a good time anyway.