Court | Sybaritica

I know this interesting structure looks a little like the futuristic homes in the old ‘Jetsons’ cartoon, but it is actually a research station up in Igloolik. Readers will recall that I introduced this little community back in a post entitled ‘Midnight in Igloolik ‘ some months ago. Normally, I just travel up there for the regular quarterly court circuits but, tomorrow, I will be travelling up for a two day Preliminary hearing. As the regular circuit is the following week, I will be staying there through the weekend and will thus be away for ten days in a row. My wife is also away travelling at the moment and I am thus anticipating that I will be receiving a snotty reception from five pissed-off little kitties on my return.

Having learned from experience, I will not only be pre-publishing a post for each day I am gone, but will also post a couple of extras in case I am delayed getting home again. I also don’t know if I will have much time for taking pictures on this trip so I thought I might share a few with you that I took back in June… Read more

I am writing this post in the tiny hamlet of a Kimmirut, a community of only 300 souls which happens to be the closest neighbor to my home  city of Iqaluit. The name ‘Kimmirut’ is roughly translated as ‘the Heel’ and the hamlet takes it’s name from the odd-shaped rock in the harbor that is featured in the above photograph. As you can see, there is indeed a resemblance (given a little poetic-license) to an upturned human heel.

Anyway, I flew down here on Monday morning with two Crown Prosecutors, a witness coordinator and another defense lawyer. Things began reasonably well, in the sense that I made it to Iqaluit airport without serious incident, but from that point, things seems to have gone down hill all the way. The rest of the court party has failed to materialize (due to a deterioration in landing conditions), and I am now stuck here with nothing to do, no internet connection and, as it happens, no luggage… Read more

Home safe and sound!

Compare the picture above to my post from yesterday and you can see that we finally had a lovely day for flying home. I tried very hard to get a nice shot of the town of Pond Inlet after take off but, alas, I was seated on the wrong side of the aircraft. I did, however, manage to get a nice aerial picture of the iceberg you can see in the distance beneath the left wing of the plane, as well as a lot of other photographs detailing this past week’s visit… Read more

As I mentioned in my recent post, Prague vs. Qikiqtarjuaq, I was scheduled to be away all this week on Court circuit. The plan was to visit both Qikiqtarjuaq, a little island community just above the Arctic Circle, and then travel on to Clyde River a bit further north. I made it into Qikiqtarjuaq on Monday, as planned, but the Clyde River portion of the trip ended up being cancelled due to bad weather. Accordingly, much to the pleasure of all involved, we made it home a day early… Read more