Braving Blizzards to Restore Power - By David F. Pelly

Article Rating: ***

This article is part of a series on Canada's Inuit population in northern Quebec, in a region known as Nunavik. This is about a man named Mark Papigatok who in doing his job, ensures the well being of his entire 800 person village.

In Mark's village in Northern Quebec, his job is at the powerhouse, and it's his responsibility to get it started again. That's exactly what happened the night of December 12th 1991. A blizzard started in his village, so intense that you could only see three metres ahead, and the power went out around midnight. Mark had to walk over to the powerhouse in the pitch black blizzard and find out what was wrong. He eventually restored some of the power and a crew fixed the rest the next day, but it showed how the people of his village need him and how without his bravery the people of his village would be in a lot of danger.

I liked this article because it just shows how the real heroes in this world are everyday people, like Mark, who risk their own lives to preserve others. When I read that visibility was reduced to three metres and that Mark walked to the powerhouse in that weather, pitch black on top of that, I was stunned at his bravery to do what was right, which was to get the power back on and to ensure the safety of everyone in his village.

By Thomas Hubert

Canadian Geographic, Braving blizzards to restore power, David F. Pelly, p. 30