Inuvik's position as the lone gateway to the Arctic ocean provides many opportunities and benefits, but the Inuvik-Tuktoyaktuk Highway served as a crossroads of adventure seeking and community charity this summer.
It was an average Wisconsin evening at the Marston household when father Brendan's webscrolling stopped on an interesting factoid.
"I watched a YouTube about a year ago and these people said, 'We drove to the Arctic Ocean!' and I'm like, you can drive to the Arctic Ocean? Jane came home that day and I said, 'Do you know you can drive to the Arctic Ocean?'" he asked his wife. "Because I think we're going to SA国际影视传媒� and the planning began."
Around this same time, their son Josiah was working on his Eagle Badge as part of the his work with the American Boy Scouts Association.
Considered among the greatest accomplishments one can achieve in scouts, to earn an Eagle Badge requires a scout to complete a service project.
With the family already planning a road trip to the point in Tuktoyaktuk, Josiah decided to reach out to the local Catholic congregation and ask if there was any way he could help the communities of the Beaufort Delta.
His inquiry was quickly answered SA国际影视传媒� with winter fast approaching, many of the region's unhoused or insufficiently housed needed blankets.
"I learned about the Igloo Church and I decided I wanted to do my project here," he said. "We used a small fundraiser to collect socks and organized a workday to make blankets. Everything went great.
"A huge thanks to Mrs. Miki O'Kane and Mrs. Johanson and everyone else for all their help. It's been an honour to work with the church and do this project for you."
So he set to work, assembling a total of 33 blankets and hundreds of pairs of socks and shipped them North. The family then made their way to Inuvik, arriving in early August.
With both a good deed and a family bucket list item accomplished, Josiah said he enjoyed his visit to the North.
Among the big surprises for the family was the temperature of the Arctic ocean.
"I was not expecting it to be as warm as it was," said Brendan.
