Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
The fun & fascinating stories of Supply Chain & Logistics.
Bryndis Whitson: [00:00:03] Hi, my name is Bryndis Whiton, and you're listening to the Zebras to Apples podcast, the fun and fascinating stories of supply chain logistics. In this episode, I sit down with my friend Christina Monroe. Christina has lived in the Northwest Territories or northern Canada for over 27 years. We talk about the logistics of what it's like to live in northern, rural, and remote communities, and she lives in an urban center. What's it like when she has to travel, or other people have to travel to other areas within the North? And that's part of the conversation that we have. In typical Christina and I fashion, the conversation starts before we even started recording, so it starts out without even an introduction. But it's such a great conversation and there's so many different things to learn and know about what it's like to live in the Northwest Territories or in a rural and remote community. Thank you so much and have a wonderful day.
Christina Monroe: [00:01:05] It's such a different thing that people don't think about, like that you would have to deal with in these communities to get stuff. Right. The shipment today is like, okay, we're a group doing an Ikea order and it's going to apartments, but you can't have a delivery sent to an apartment, so you need to have a friend or a family member who has a house to have the shipment drop to the house. And it got delayed because of all of the stuff coming from Edmonton up. And then it sat from Wednesday night until today where they loaded it on a truck for the local trucks, for deliveries. And it's only because they're short staffed. They have the logistics of like Wednesday, Thursday, Friday are business ship boats for regular from the trucking company. It's the regular shipment days with shipment windows for a lot of the businesses. And they're also increased because it's Christmas. Because it's December.
Bryndis Whitson: [00:02:23] Yes, exactly.
Christina Monroe: [00:02:25] They didn't have time to do these non-priority residential customers versus business customers. So of course this is the day that the person who's supposed to be receiving it is supposed to be able to go there, put it directly onto another vehicle and then drop off the stuff to me and then take the stuff to their place. And then that can't happen because they're on a plane going to Ottawa. So yeah.
Bryndis Whitson: [00:02:53] Of course.
Christina Monroe: [00:02:54] So because that's the day that they decided to deliver it. So then I go over instead of the house and then wait for the stuff and then split it all up and then put it in in the garage and then I've now got to logistically figure out getting my couch to my house and then when they get back from three weeks from their trip, can get all the things to move them over. This is normal. You see people go on pages like, "Hey, I want to make an Ikea order. Do they want to go in with me so we can consolidate and get shipping?". And there's companies, there's one called Drumbeat here that does runs to stores like Costco and Ikea and they have an entire business that does smaller amounts. And then you pay for shipping. It's more than you would pay if you're buying the bulk order from Ikea if you can get it, but if you wanted to order some things, and then they'll be driving up, okay, we're going to Simpson or we're going to Hay River, or we're going to Yellowknife and we're going to be in Grand Prairie. And then you do like click and collects, and then they do pick up all your click and collects that you paid for. And then they bring it up and then you pay them to bring it. And then they go to a central place and then unload. And then you just grab all your stuff.
Bryndis Whitson: [00:04:13] Oh, wow.
Christina Monroe: [00:04:14] They started up during Covid because they would come across the border and then load it onto a different truck.
Bryndis Whitson: [00:04:27] Yes. Okay.
Christina Monroe: [00:04:28] And like unhitch a trailer and then have another trailer. Here you pick up and I take the empty trailer back, and then you'd be hitching things so that they have those, because people in Hay River don't buy groceries in hay River. They all go to High Level.
Bryndis Whitson: [00:04:43] Oh, right. But during the pandemic, they couldn't.
Christina Monroe: [00:04:47] No. So there was an entire company because you could go and go to the border, but you couldn't see the people. So they also had cars get sent up that way. You were signing documents and leaving it under a stone and not seeing a person and then signing documents, and there were entire companies that were driving up people's cars and leaving it on the border, and then you're signing for your car, and then they're taking the paperwork and you're waving at each other, and then you're driving your car back to your community.
Bryndis Whitson: [00:05:17] Oh yeah.
Christina Monroe: [00:05:20] Because of the rules. And it's also in our dead zones. So cell service here, there's outside of Yellowknife, less than six minutes we have no cell service. And then there's a pocket for Bachoco in the last 5 to 6 years where they have the internet. And then at the Big River station, which is near Fort Providence, near the bridge, it's spotty internet because the actual tower is in Fort Providence, which is about ten kilometers outside, away from the bridge.
Bryndis Whitson: [00:05:54] Yes.
Christina Monroe: [00:05:55] So you don't actually have reliable service. So, you can be with your friends and you'll get a packet of data, but you can't send it. So, your phone will blip and you know it's not real service. And enterprise has service. Although they did lose service for a while after the fire. So that was traumatic. And then there's no service until the 86km past the Alberta borders before you start getting intermittent service. And then there's no proper service until 20km outside of High Level.
Bryndis Whitson: [00:06:32] Yeah.
Christina Monroe: [00:06:33] So you're like all these dead zones. So, every time you're shipping or going or driving or whatever, you're like, "are you still coming?". You know that if somebody posts their photos of being at the NWT border looking at stuff, and they're coming north that they're at Enterprise.
Bryndis Whitson: [00:06:51] Yeah.
Christina Monroe: [00:06:52] Because there's no cell service. So they got to Enterprise and they posted their pictures.
Bryndis Whitson: [00:06:58] Yes. It's one of those pieces.
Christina Monroe: [00:07:01] So you're like, logistically okay, if they're speeding, they're this many hours from town because people don't do the speed limit.
Bryndis Whitson: [00:07:08] No. But at least you can get an idea of what 's coming. I remember when I was driving across Canada and we got to this one spot just outside of Dryden and this gas station. All they did all day long was answer the question of when do I get cell phone service? And then they would say, "what telephone provider are or which phone provider are you? Okay, you're Rogers. You'll get at this curve okay. You're Telus. You'll get it at that curve."
Christina Monroe: [00:07:40] Yeah yeah. Well for the longest time Rogers didn't work up here. It's all government workers that would come up and they would be bricks and they'd cry.
Bryndis Whitson: [00:07:50] Me too. Yep.
Christina Monroe: [00:07:51] And they're like, we don't. But now Telus has an agreement with Northwestel, a subsidiary of Bell. And they own all of the towers in the Northwest Territories and all the infrastructure, so they have the ability to, now things will work and other people can have different providers. But before then you couldn't. But there's none. People are like what? And I'm like, no.
Bryndis Whitson: [00:08:21] Well I remember the one time I came to Yellowknife and someone said, oh, right, it's Rogers. I forgot. I basically throw my phone in a corner and pick it up when I leave.
Christina Monroe: [00:08:32] You can take photos with it. That's sort of like the appeal to a lot of people, even now, you go just outside of town and your phone doesn't work. So, I have a friend that's a doctor. And during the pandemic I wrote her from my day home a sick note that I couldn't provide care even though I could, because they wouldn't let her leave the territory, it was illegal for the doctors to leave the territory. But she wanted time off. So she chartered a plane to drop her off at a late point in the East Arm and a leg to then canoe back with her kids.
Bryndis Whitson: [00:09:13] But that'd be an amazing trip.
Christina Monroe: [00:09:15] Oh, yeah. So she had no cell service. Well, she would have usually for her trip canoed out and then canoed back because she's that kind of a person. But did that or go to Blatchoe Lake Lodge or one of the other lodges where they don't have service so that you could just go out there and be alone. So lots of people who work in the industries of healthcare here enjoy the fact that they literally can say, no, I'm not available, and all they have to do is go like a couple clicks out of town and they're like, "Hey, sorry I couldn't pick up that overtime that you desperately needed me to come in for, but I was out of town.
Bryndis Whitson: [00:09:51] Yeah. You can't hear me. Yeah, exactly.
Christina Monroe: [00:09:53] I can't hear you because there's no service. So, sorry. There's no service out there. And they're like, okay. People kind of really enjoy that aspect of it up here that you can do that. And then there's things that people don't realize. We have a huge amount of urban farming here and urban collective here that a lot of people aren't aware of. We have a whole industry here where they're starting stuff and you can see things. Our Co-op grocery store has two hydroponic C-cans that are attached to the side it, and it grows lettuce.
Bryndis Whitson: [00:10:35] Oh, that's so cool.
Christina Monroe: [00:10:37] You can watch it on video inside the store. As they're harvesting, you bring things out and then they have a display where it is and they have a whole hydroponics bay of that. In a bunch of high Arctic communities, the governments or agencies have provided those so that they can have these kinds of foods in the communities. For those ones, they've trained people to grow them and then they just distribute them within the community as free food. We have them here, and then there's a huge operation in Hay River that does them, and growing and they provide a lot of our restaurants with salad. They have the salad greens and stuff there. So it's within the territory. So we also have less, "Hey you can't eat your lettuce because..." warnings because it's safe. Our lettuce people say "Well it's expensive", but hydroponic vegetables and fruit are expensive down south, but to us it's negligible.
Bryndis Whitson: [00:11:49] No, especially considering what it would cost otherwise is probably more.
Christina Monroe: [00:11:55] $6 or $7 for like a bunch of lettuce one way or the other. Then we have farmers markets up here, link Yellowknife has a farmer's market that runs from the beginning of June until mid September. And we have urban grass gardens like that, like collectives. There's a couple market gardens that are down the highway, like there's one at Mountain Lake. And I go and buy groceries every week there. And then people have subscription boxes and go pick up what they paid for and stuff.
Bryndis Whitson: [00:12:35] Yeah.
Christina Monroe: [00:12:35] And it's a massive amount of local fruit and vegetables that people have no idea. And part of it came out of the pandemic because the food insecurity of being able to get things even more, and we can technically grow things here, we have the growing season. The light is 20 hours a day. So there's certain things if you pull them off. I even had just a small balcony garden this year. For my house, I used to do 40 tomato plants. And I did four this year just because I wasn't, because I was moving in the middle of the growing season.
Bryndis Whitson: [00:13:13] Yeah.
Christina Monroe: [00:13:13] So on a balcony, okay, I'll edge out the entire railing will all planters. And then I have all the planters on the ground and stuff, and I have a little tiny chair and a little tiny table for me and the cat to sit up there, and it's just like I have enough pollinated stuff to attract all the bees.
Bryndis Whitson: [00:13:32] Mhm.
Christina Monroe: [00:13:33] And to have them there. So I always have lots of pollinator things in there. But like you have, you can grow food because it is costly but I grow the stuff and then I go and buy things at the market garden. And there's mass amounts, there's a bunch of people that have their whole yards that have been given over to the market gardens and they grow stuff and then sell them at the things. And then we even have an association now and have a big huge industry that we didn't have before. And that's because the logistics of getting fresh fruit and stuff wasn't there. But now, man, we want lettuce. No, I want kale, but not me.
Bryndis Whitson: [00:14:18] Yeah, but that is so neat in ways because everything costs so much and previously, at least more remote, there's one grocery store or anything like that. So the fact that they're actually investing in this is so exciting. I had no idea.
Christina Monroe: [00:14:39] And then we had for a while we had lots of local eggs, people have backyard chickens here. There's lots of local eggs you can get. But the ones that are at the grocery store we have, we have a huge egg production in Hay River. And there was an issue for a while. We couldn't get our polar eggs because of the issue with getting parts for the grading system and stuff. And then once that's been resolved, they were selling them down south for other purposes, so they were still manufacturing them, but we weren't able to sell them locally. But then they've got things back. So we were able to get our local eggs again. So we have eggs that are pasteurized and stuff, but they're only coming from Hay River. So that's a huge, massive thing. And I mean, I watch a lot of people complain about groceries and I will admit that groceries have become more expensive, but as groceries were becoming more expensive, I closed my day home so I wasn't buying food for like, a gaggle of children. So I felt a decrease in my bill. So I didn't really see I was buying less food. But it's all here about shopping sales, you always shop the sales. And our co-op bought into the Western Canada pricing structure. You have to buy them. We have the same sales as Peace River.
Bryndis Whitson: [00:16:02] Oh.
Christina Monroe: [00:16:03] So we have the same sales structure as Peace River. So the sales and the prices are comparable for a lot of the grocery items. But I know other people are there. It just seems to me like the rest of Canada is getting to where we are for a lot of things. But, I mean, I do live in an urban center. I know in the high Arctic communities and off road communities, groceries are very high and they're still all the logistical stuff of like, does this program work or not, for reducing the cost because it's freight costs. Anytime someone's like, oh, I'm going to send groceries to Nunavut, or I'm going to send groceries to this Arctic community in the NWT. And they collect a bunch of stuff and they get all the things, and then they try to freight it and they're like, it's going to be like several thousand dollars to freight it. And I'm like, that's why the groceries cost that much in the community. You actually can't. And you can always tell there's stuff here that you wouldn't notice down south, but I can always tell if somebody is from a community outside of a road community because they're buying rubber maids.
Bryndis Whitson: [00:17:16] Yes.
Christina Monroe: [00:17:17] Locklid Rubbermaid's. I was at Walmart the other day, and I knew that it was a community and someone was buying presents for a community government for our Christmas party for kids. They had the Rubbermaid's and then they're buying the toys and the things for the kids and their community, and then they're putting them directly into the rubbermaid's. Then locking them or whatever and then taking them to their work because everything is being freighted up but we always do it in rubbermaid's because you don't want it to be cardboard boxes because they'll break. And a lot of times you've got cans or things like temperature changes and stuff where if one can break, it sucks, but you don't want the box to fall apart.
Bryndis Whitson: [00:18:10] Yeah.
Christina Monroe: [00:18:11] You really do want your can of jam or whatever else in there. There's containers full of things. They're always at the grocery store or before things got more price better here. You could always tell if somebody was going up north because I would go to Calgary and I have like this big literacy council bag. It would be my carry-on bag. Right there it would just be vegetables. I just go to the farmers market and I'd be just like, the whole thing is the maximum weight allowance for a bag under the seat. It fits in the bag of the seat, and it's carrots and berries.
Bryndis Whitson: [00:18:56] All the things that.
Christina Monroe: [00:18:57] All the things like fresh fruit and vegetables. And when I first moved up here, I had to do that often because I just couldn't. And now we don't have to because when I moved up here 27 years ago, that was normal. It was normal to do that or when I would go down south, go to Costco, go to Sam's Club, go to a big grocery store, buy meat, cheese at a friend's freezer and then put it into coolers and then bring it up.
Bryndis Whitson: [00:19:26] Yeah, because you're just stockpiling for the next time you go down.
Christina Monroe: [00:19:31] We have to do less of that now. And prices are pretty much the same. They're not as bad, but when I go down south and people are complaining. To me, I'm looking and I'm like, oh, that's just the same price I pay at home.
Bryndis Whitson: [00:19:48] Which also puts everything in perspective of how much we're spending now.
Christina Monroe: [00:19:52] Everybody else is having a thing. It's not untoward for a person up north to spend $250 a week on groceries per person. And people are like, what? I'm like, that's that's the normal, about $1,000 a month for groceries. That's not taking into account that I'm a celiac or you have other dietary restrictions or you're choosing to purchase other items and stuff. But yeah, like $1,000. Easy.
Bryndis Whitson: [00:20:26] Oh yeah.
Christina Monroe: [00:20:27] And then but it's entertaining to watch people be upset about it now for them. I spent that my whole life. What? What do you mean? You don't get really excited over a bag of apples for $8. Oh, that was a good price.
Bryndis Whitson: [00:20:44] Yeah, I know now, actually, $8 for a bag of apples is. Oh, there's a sale on right now.
Christina Monroe: [00:20:53] Yeah, there's a sale on. Well the logistics of explaining to people cold storage and why apples at the grocery store are seasonal. And this year's fruit, because they're imperfectly shaped, so they can't be cold storage. A lot of your groceries are 2 or 3 years old from cold storage. And then coming up like, because I grew up in the prairies. Do you know that potatoes and apples and carrots and stuff are all in sawdust and sand and cold storage and then brought up and then you eat it and I was like, the reason your apple tastes mealy is because apples only grow for this short of a season, and they grow here. So the imperfectly shaped ones are the bin apples that haven't been waxed, that are there in the fall are this year's apples, and they're always going to taste better.
Bryndis Whitson: [00:21:48] Yeah.
Christina Monroe: [00:21:49] And then the ones that are perfectly shaped and can be cold storage, you're eating them from two years ago. And that's how they taste mealy. And I'm like, oh, we're just learning that. When you have people that live up here, I had this one little boy in my day home and he pulled my face really close one day and he was like, "I need you to teach mom to make your cheese potatoes". And he's talking about scalloped potatoes, right? He wanted scalloped potatoes. And I was like, I don't do anything special to make scalloped potatoes. So making them for children, and I couldn't think about what it was. And then I talked to his mom. His mom was from Inuvik.
Bryndis Whitson: [00:22:32] Right.
Christina Monroe: [00:22:33] We only ever made them from a package where they were like freeze dried potatoes, right?
Bryndis Whitson: [00:22:39] Yep.
Christina Monroe: [00:22:40] I made mine with him because I would teach the kids how to do it. And we do all the layers. So I was doing it with fresh potatoes. Even though his mom had at that point lived in Yellowknife and had access to potatoes, it's just her comfort food, like, her eating it that way. And he was just like, this is gross. I do not like this, please show my mom how to make proper potatoes. I was like, oh buddy. And I'm like, okay, I will teach you how to make the potatoes. Yeah. Or like a lot of my life up here, having had food allergies and also growing up with extremely frugal Ukrainian dad, I make my own stock for everything and then people are horrified and they're like, well, you're trying to stretch your grocery budget yet I'm like, well, how did you think that I had living in the North and paying all this stuff and having a day home for 15 years in my house, making groceries and then I'm like, oh, that tomato looks kind of wrinkly. I'll just immediately put it in the oven, roast it off, put it in a container like half of my freeze. This freezer up here is full of various containers of things that I have either flash frozen or roasted and frozen. And then I'll take the containers out and then make, like, pasta sauce.
Bryndis Whitson: [00:24:00] Yeah.
Christina Monroe: [00:24:01] With all of the wrinkly peppers and the other stuff. And then I have things cut up in other bags that are for stock. So if I don't want to make stock immediately, I have bone bags and ends of onions and other stuff. And those are all in bags. And they're all either marked as S for stock or P for pasta sauce. So I can see them in the containers in the freezer, and I pull them all out and then defrost them. And I'll either blend and make pasta sauce or put them into a slow cooker and make stock. I am not throwing out a tomato that cost me $4. Ever. I will roast it and I will make a sauce out of it.
Bryndis Whitson: [00:24:40] Exactly.
Christina Monroe: [00:24:41] I'm not wasting any food. you get really into that. There's so many people here that naturally do that kind of thing because we're just not willing to throw something away when it costs that much money.
Bryndis Whitson: [00:24:56] True, because you're so used to it. Plus it's also a way of utilizing everything.
Christina Monroe: [00:25:06] Absolutely. And then it's other things. I was talking with my cab driver on my way back and I was talking about the biggest issue right now when we're talking about friends for a while, then we're talking about the things having to do with tariffs. One of the things that's interesting to see is the whole book industry. Canada produces most of the paper. And we've had such a long standing agreement and then everything, even the books that are printed on Amazon are actually printed in the United States.
Bryndis Whitson: [00:25:46] Mhm.
Christina Monroe: [00:25:48] Even the publisher that does like the Canadian freezing freezer publishing, their printing is done not in Winnipeg but in the States. It's done in the states. They're paying the tariffs on the paper going down. And then you're paying the tariffs on the finished items coming back. So you've seen book prices go up. This used to be like $36, $39. And now you're looking at a hardcover being like $42 to $52.
Bryndis Whitson: [00:26:23] Exactly.
Christina Monroe: [00:26:24] If it's through Ingram, as much as $58 for a hardcover book. And that's because of the tariffs. And then there's also the whole industry of sprayed edges, like all the sprayed edge books. Like none of those are produced in North America. All the sprayed edge books, generally in large quantities for the large titles, are all done overseas in China. Yeah. And then barged over.
Bryndis Whitson: [00:26:56] So ah, this explains potentially why some of the books that I've seen or some of the items that I've seen lately, don't even have a price tag on it.
Christina Monroe: [00:27:06] Oh, they don't put price tags on them. Absolutely. You can't because this is a book from Penguin Random House and it used to have a US and a Canadian price tag on it, and it was on there and they stopped doing that, which is good because it was always depending if you're working at an independent store, depending on what supplier you get to and what you pay for it. The price margin could be 32% for the store for the discount to like 42, coming from the United States. A hardcover book could be like this price to this price. We're looking at the 38 to like 40, 42. And it was coming out at 41.99. Then it was usually coming through the States, through that, through Ingram. And then they stopped putting the prices on all of the items. Now we have the entire book industry, with the majority of printing now being done just in North America alone.Tey're being done there. And it's not really encouraging stuff to be printed in the United States, because the printed books in the United States are still costing more money to Americans that are being distributed right in the United States because the paper is actually all from Canada, because they don't have the paper facilities.
Bryndis Whitson: [00:28:31] Right. So the paper goes. Oh my goodness. It's so interconnected.
Christina Monroe: [00:28:38] Then they're chatting and you've had a really good relationship with this other country,'and we never saw the need to develop the printing. You have the facility to print and the physical land space mass, to have the mass warehouses to store the printed items, and then the distribution hubs of the companies to then distribute them to the other distribution companies for sailing.
Christina Monroe: [00:29:09] They get printed and then they go from the printers to the distribution hubs for selling and it made logistical sense for a lot of it to be done there. We're producing lumber there. Then all the books are coming back. And then being distributed within Canada, within the different companies that we have in Canada for distributing them. We don't print things locally at all. None of our stuff is printed like that and not for bound books. Oh, you're very happy, Kitty. The sprayed edge market of the whole industry of lots of small niche markets, like printing stuff that's done in North America, in small batches.
Bryndis Whitson: [00:29:52] Yeah.
Christina Monroe: [00:29:52] But if it's a major title by a major publishing company, that is all done overseas. And the reason they say limited first run printing and then they don't areas is because they've had to have made the order, have them all printed, barge them all over from overseas.
Bryndis Whitson: [00:30:13] Oh yeah.
Christina Monroe: [00:30:14] Get them into Vancouver and then distribute them out and then distribute them all from there because they all come in like in the port and BC, and then all of the books. The lead time for things being printed from printers is like crazy now. I had no idea. And then the more far flung you are, the longer it takes for us to get it. A title comes out on release day, they don't send it. They send it to the largest centers, first for real estate, because it's already there. So like everything is slower. Like people are not getting things on time. And we have an entire culture that values everything being immediately like like the, the like the, the whole concept of Amazon Prime, where, well, I won't pay for that, because if I'm going to order something that I need to get on Amazon because I live in a remote community and I don't have the ability to get something that I need locally, like my cat's pet food. My cat's pet food is not sold locally.
Bryndis Whitson: [00:31:20] Yeah.
Christina Monroe: [00:31:20] They have a specific brand that they liked. And the stores do carry the non-urinary specialty one, but they don't carry the specialty one of that brand because it's too expensive for them to carry. So they carry the regular brand. My cat's got put on this one and they won't eat the very expensive one. So I have to buy the very expensive fancy one from the brand that they like. And the only place I can get it is Amazon. I got it shipped. It didn't come in the bag. Usually it just comes in the bag with a sticker on it. Today it was in a box, but it's Christmas time, so they thought it might be a pleasant surprise.
Bryndis Whitson: [00:32:06] Well.
Christina Monroe: [00:32:08] I got a box for it this time. Usually it's just like I, I'll say, like you can ship an original container. It's fine. They just put a sticker on it. But like the logistics to get there. If I paid for the extra. It's like a day. It's going to take seven days to get to you instead of six. I'm like, I'm not paying extra money for that.
Bryndis Whitson: [00:32:27] No. Yeah, I'll wait an extra day.
Christina Monroe: [00:32:30] For the extra day I reorder when I'm down to half.
Bryndis Whitson: [00:32:37] Well because you do have to plan ahead because it's not like you just get it, go out the store tomorrow kind of thing.
Christina Monroe: [00:32:46] Well, and right now we're down to one veterinarian for the entire Northwest Territories.
Bryndis Whitson: [00:32:52] Oh, dear.
Christina Monroe: [00:32:53] So we had a vet clinic close, and then the vet that worked at that veterinary clinic opened a new one. Just logistics of the past owner who she had passed away. There were family issues and selling off the estate is that kind of drama. So because of drama, we had a little hiccup. And then they are opening to anyone. They didn't have the time to build everything. So they got the property and it's a commercial building. So like the bays are being turned into surgery wards. That's still slow going. They took possession and they've been going through and getting these things done, and there's one that she does have local vets come up. But there was a notice saying okay these are all the days where we're closed or you have to. So if it's after hours, you have to pay to call a veterinary triage and they'll get where you're speaking to a virtual of that, and then you have to go on a plane and go to Edmonton. Right? Or you have to drive.
Bryndis Whitson: [00:34:09] Oh my God.
Christina Monroe: [00:34:10] Yeah. Or you know, that type of thing. You have to like going there and this is like a reality where we live. And then they go and they have the vet care. So she's got that, but there was a notice like, hey reminder. Like if you want medication or medicated food that the veterinarian needs to order, like for orders, this is a reminder this is the cutoff because shipping for Christmas and getting it here. So like this is the cutoff for dates and then this is where you need to. So you need to know what your needs are so you can have the medication or their prescription food sent and brought in. And then you go pick it up because they don't have the storage facilities in the interim of building their building to store quantities of food so, they can't, everything is being purchased directly. They have very limited stock of anything. They have something if you find out your cat has crystals and you and you need to buy this special food. They'll have a little bit there, but usually it's like you place an order.
Bryndis Whitson: [00:35:18] It's enough to get you through the immediate crisis.
Christina Monroe: [00:35:23] Not past. That's a huge reality for us here is the logistics of getting that because we had a second vet who had a family emergency and had to temporarily close down. And I don't know if he's going to reopen his practice at all, because he was the other singular VAT logistically. So the town of Yellowknife, we have double that amount of animals.
Bryndis Whitson: [00:35:49] Yeah.
Christina Monroe: [00:35:51] Because we found out during evacuation that we had double the amount of animals than we did people that needed to be out of the territory. And like, that's because no one had ever done an assessment like we have dogs and we're known for having dogs. And people get dogs from the Northwest Territories there.
Christina Monroe: [00:36:15] And they see the dog count.
Christina Monroe: [00:36:17] So you see that, but no one's doing a count. No one's asking because there are people that just get the regular veterinary care by driving south with their animal. Right. Because there just is such a huge wait time and being able to get in with the small amounts we have here, even in Inuvik. Inuvik has a rotating vet where they'll be in for three days, every two months and set up there and then we have the SPCA that does clinics and has veterinary without borders and has people come up for specific things. But we don't have that, but we had the logistics of having to get everyone out of the territory and then not having enough carriers. I didn't own carriers, I had two cats, I didn't own two carriers. I've never taken my two cats other than when I moved from my apartment to my house. I had never in that entire time, they had never left together at the same time. It was always one at a time. And so most people and carriers are expensive. So you only have one. And now we got to get every single animal out and have them. I know friends that live in Alberta that were helping to get enough carriers to be like shipped up so that we had enough carriers so people could get animals down. And then when I was down in Alberta, I bought a large dog carrier. So I have like one small cat carrier that now that's a collapsible one that I have in a bug out bag to carry one cat to the vet at a time, but I also have, a dog crate that fits all three.
Bryndis Whitson: [00:38:00] Yes.
Christina Monroe: [00:38:01] We just didn't have enough carriers. We didn't have at all, the whole territory didn't have carriers and then they didn't deem the vets essential so the vets couldn't get access to the records. So then it was hard. They now, logistically paper wise afterwards, have deemed vets to be essential. So that would be able to have access to good things. But they had oversight of that so they weren't able to get it because of the intermittent issues and the power lines and things being burnt down like enterprise and stuff. Losing cell service and other things. So we weren't able to get access to records and you need records to be able to board animals down south.
Bryndis Whitson: [00:38:48] Yeah.
Christina Monroe: [00:38:49] Not everybody likes to keep track of all of theirs. Now as a territory. Everybody's all paranoid about things. I have my cat's vet records in the same Ziploc bag, the emergency bag where my passport is.
Bryndis Whitson: [00:39:09] Yeah.
Christina Monroe: [00:39:09] Like there's all the things.
Bryndis Whitson: [00:39:13] Oh, absolutely. Yeah.
Christina Monroe: [00:39:15] You have a bag full of things in your closet with all your medication and stuff. I had that. And it's funny because I had an emergency bag, and I never even thought to ask my sister in law to grab my emergency bag and bring it.
Bryndis Whitson: [00:39:32] Oh, yeah.
Christina Monroe: [00:39:33] With my animal, because I was on vacation. I didn't think about it, but I, having lived through the 97 flood and having all that trauma from the 97 flood in Winnipeg, I have a bug out bag in my closet with cat food, clothes, extra EpiPens, like all of my stuff. I have extra copies of documents. I am a crazy person who has a safe deposit box with extra documents in Winnipeg.
Bryndis Whitson: [00:40:01] That's smart. Actually.
Christina Monroe: [00:40:03] It's in a completely other jurisdiction, where my family lives. Here's what I think. So I have copies of old passports, a birth certificate, Canadian citizenship card, like all of that stuff. I have extra copies of my will, those kinds of things. I have those documents in a safe deposit box in a different physical location. So if I had to leave and not have it, I would still have some sort of identification, but it was still me. That's from trauma from going through a flood.
Bryndis Whitson: [00:40:33] Completely I remember it very well that 97 flood.
Christina Monroe: [00:40:37] Through that flood. I've always had a bag with like two extra EpiPens and all my meds and everything else. And I didn't even think further because it has cat food and all this stuff. I should ask her because it wouldn't be good for the long term, but it does sort of pop up as a temporary travel thing. If I had to take a cat out really fast, I would like to throw them in, right? So I had that. I didn't even think to tell her.
Bryndis Whitson: [00:41:08] Even now, as we're talking about it, the thought for me is we, if needed, can shove two cats into one of the small carriers. But we easily know where two of them are. But maybe we should actually move the third one a lot closer just to be on that safe side. Like, it's an interesting perspective of, okay, things we need to change out to.
Christina Monroe: [00:41:37] Well, yeah. And because I am the person who has the bug out bag with clothes. So I have clothes and everything else and medication. It's mostly because I have life threatening allergies that I always have. I have two EpiPens in my purse, two EpiPens that I keep at work, two EpiPens that live on top of the fridge in my house, and two in my bug out bag. And then I have to rotate through them all because I need to have them because I live with my allergies. I should be living 15 minutes from a hospital at all times. And if I'm traveling, I get the injectable Benadryl, which doesn't have a long, stable shelf life, but I get like doses of injectable Benadryl that I can give myself if I have an allergic reaction while I'm traveling as well to get me through to another location. So I have that. If I go camping, I have that if I'm traveling on the road, right? And then if I don't use them, then I just return them to the pharmacy. They dispose of them. But I have all those things in a bag and pet food and the disposable litter boxes that they sell at the dollar store that you rip the paper for litter.
Christina Monroe: [00:42:47] I have those in the closet and they're all in the front closet, one quarter of my closet. My house is devoted to things that I need to leave in an emergency. And I've always been crazy like that and done that because you grew up with a prepper type parent who is an end of the world, we're all going to get hit by nukes. And so I grew up with that, okay. You have all these things and then went through having to pack and deal with things for a flood. And you know, and being prepared at that point and then it's like, okay, I've got carriers, have all the things, have all the stuff for my pets. I've also trained all my animals that when I put on shoes, they get a cookie. So because I'm leaving the house, I treat them when I leave the house, and that's like a thing where I always treat the animals when I leave. So if they see me getting my stuff to leave, they know they're getting cookies. So they all come to see me. So they don't hide. So they've all been purposely trained. When we leave that they get a treat. So they're all in my face about leaving.
Bryndis Whitson: [00:43:58] So at least this way, if you really have to leave in a quick amount of time.
[00:44:02] They're right there. I got up this morning to leave to go over to my brother's house to get the parcels and have this big shipment come in from Ikea. And as soon as my alarm went off and I put boots on and I was getting dressed, my cat was like, notice the routine? He's like, she is leaving this house. I am getting cookies. This is like, are you excited that we were getting cookies? I'm saying the word. He knows the word. You're a smart boy. It's like when I had the day home, I trained them the opposite. I trained them when all the kids left, at the end of the day, if they didn't bite the kids all day and were nice, they could have cookies. So you were nice and you didn't scratch any kids and you didn't swat or bite. There's things that there's just stuff they didn't think of and one of the things that I found really interesting. And this past election, I had my MP actually doorknock in communities in the North that we had never doorknock before. Right. She's the first person to ever go door knocking and talk. And it's amazing but also frustrating because I'm cutting turf for where you pull off whatever and get the addresses. The thing is with non-tax based centers, most places are general delivery or post box for your address. So it's because in a non-tax based center you don't have street names, you don't have street numbers, you have no indicators.
Christina Monroe: [00:45:51] You have no concept of where or how things are. There's the whole aspect to rural campaigning where you go into rural communities and you usually have a guide, you have a person who's taking you with you to meet people so they know all the people that they're taking you to go to meet. So you don't necessarily knock on the door. These people are walking in, they're entering, they're going into people's homes that they know and they're taking you around and guiding you. And I always tell people, if you go into a community and you don't know anyone, you go to where old men drink coffee and they ask you why you're there, right? And then if you gain favor with the old men who drink coffee, they'll take you around, because then they become your guide, right? But there's things about rural and northern communities, like people have nicknames, not their legal names. People always talk about the whole concept of being within the trans community and like names and people going by new names. Those are their names. I live in the North, and I had to spend five years trying to figure out who the person squeaking was, because my MP was like, well, he was like, I went to residential school with this person. This is what I know them as. That's the name. I'm not asking them what their name is. And I was like, awesome.
Christina Monroe: [00:47:21] Best volunteer lives in Portsmouth, has all my signs and everything else. But having to explain to the government of Canada through Elections Canada, like, who has your signs? Squeak. Here's their phone number. You can call them. Do you know their name? I'm like, that's their name. That's what I got. I also can't put it into our database, into Liberalists. And it wasn't until, you know, a further election later and a former MLA of that community who, who was visiting, who was like, oh, I know because he's a lawyer. He knew who the person was and was able to give me the name, and then I was able to go into the software and go, this person is this person. But there's still not a way to classify that person and have them in there. And he at least then I had a physical address for him, which was helpful. But then there's the people that have my signs and data live in a blue House. And Elections Canada is pretty good about it, dealing with reserves and other communities because they sort of get it, but trying to get in the political system and trying to get in the logistics of, I need you to have a way for me to because I can have the names of everyone in a community because when I go to cut turf for this area, to get all the things, there's no street names, there's no addresses. Everybody has general delivery or a post box.
Bryndis Whitson: [00:48:56] So they're not showing up.
Christina Monroe: [00:48:57] They're not going to show up on the map. So you're looking at it so you print a physical map and the person will print a physical map and then just write down names of people. And then I'm getting photos of the names when they go back to a place with the community and then like finding the name and like putting their voters intentions or finding the things. But it's the logistics of things that people don't think about as small as one of my favorite podcasters is CPG Grey, and he has a podcast that he's been on for ten years, taking a break on now called Cortex. And he talks about the logistics of business and how things work. And his wife is from Hawaii, but like rural Hawaii, not off the beaten path. And he was really mad. And it was because he was trying to explain to get something shipped to him and he's the kind of person when he travels from the UK and goes places, he'll have things shipped to his hotel or have clothing shipped there and take care of himself and pick them up. He's trying to do that, but they have a postal shed. A lot of really small communities have a postal shed and if you don't have a post box or whatever. So you just put so-and-so's name on it'll get to them. We don't have a thing and then they'll know that it's for me if I put like so and so's name on it and they'll just drive it. But Canada Post is good about it. The US Postal Service is good about it. But all of the shipping companies really are not okay with rural areas and they're like, we don't ship to post office boxes. Which means they're just not shipping to any northern community ever. They're like, they're not shipping to any rural community in any northern part of any province or the north. They say, you have a post office box. No, you need a physical address. I'm like, these people live in communities that don't have an address.
Bryndis Whitson: [00:51:04] Yeah.
Christina Monroe: [00:51:05] You can give them the address of the post office, which is just the post office's name and the community. And they're like, no, we need an actual physical address, like a postal code. And then there's even a whole other aspect of postal codes in, like the Northwest Territory. So in Yellowknife, there's a whole bunch of downtown city blocks that have businesses that don't have postal codes, and most of them just have a post box. And sometimes we'll get a new person that comes up to Canada Post and they'll be like, oh, well, you can't have these things shipped to your physical address. You need to go pick up all the things. We're like, no, we're a business. And you can ship it down the block to the hat, to our business and have to deliver and they'll argue and there'll be someone from down south who doesn't know how it works. And we're like, no, they didn't map the downtown core for post office boxes because they just had a post office. So the downtown doesn't actually have a lot of postal codes.
Bryndis Whitson: [00:52:14] Oh.
Christina Monroe: [00:52:15] So they don't have a lot of postal codes. So then if something for a shipping company that isn't Canada Post needs a thing and they need a postal code, you'll just borrow one from close by and hope it gets to you because they're like, well, it doesn't match. And I'm like, no, it doesn't match. Here's the thing, and we don't have it. But the process is like, you have to go through the city, have them come in and then pay thousands of dollars to put a post box in. And a lot of landlords don't want to do that. They don't want to go and spend the thousands of dollars with the city to have the address addressed, and then do the things to get the things. So people would just give up and just have a post office box, like the shoppers or the main post office, which are one block away from each other. But then you want physical deliveries. People are like, what do you need to have a physical address? And we're like, we're a business where we have a physical address here. You don't have a postal code for it. And I'm like, no, the whole block doesn't have a postal code. Can you just let us have our stuff? But it's so hard to have that disconnect and have that conversation with somebody who doesn't live here. We're all like, yeah, if you have the business's name on it, you're good. If I take a cab like I did this morning. Yes. I give the physical address of the physical house I was going to on the other end, but when I got into the cabin, I was asking to go home. I gave them the name of my apartment building, but I didn't give them the current name of my apartment building. I gave them the historic name of my apartment building because they don't know the new name of my building. If I gave them a new name for a building, they're like, what? Where? What are you talking about? Like, you have to give the old name.
Bryndis Whitson: [00:54:02] Always.
Christina Monroe: [00:54:04] I remember when I moved here full time in 99 and we rented an apartment and I called a cab and I said, I'm at Crestview Apartments, and they're like, do you want the Edges door or the other door? And I was like, what are edges? Edges is a grocery store that had closed down, that was across the street from it for like ten years previously. And I was like, what? And then I would get into cabs and I would give people physical addresses and the cab drivers would be super mad at me. And they're like, no, what's the name of the building? What's the name of the business you're going to? Oh, I'm going to like the hair studio across town. Done. Right. They'll take you there. They do not want an address unless you're going to like a physical house on a physical street. And then other than that, they're like, no, it's always a building name or, you know, random things like they ask you which door to your apartment building. And it's always a landmark of a business that hasn't been there, or they've renamed, and then you go, I try, I go down south and I try to take a cab, and I have no concept of what I'm doing because I become such a northerner. And I'm like, ah, it's I'm at this hotel and they're like, no, what's the address? I'm like, I don't know, give me a minute to Google it.
Bryndis Whitson: [00:55:24] Yeah, I live in a small community and everybody just knows things by what it is. I'm like, yeah, here's the name of the old name of the apartment building that I'm in that they've renamed. And they're like, yeah, we're not acknowledging that name.
Bryndis Whitson: [00:55:35] No, fully we're but we will acknowledge the grocery store that closed in the 60s or 70s.
Christina Monroe: [00:55:41] That's totally normal. And try to get things. But yeah, it was interesting to see because it was the first time with the podcast listening to somebody else have the same trouble getting mail. I'm like, yeah, that's how I feel. If you try to get something, they're like, what do you mean? But it doesn't have a postal code? I'm like, it doesn't have a postal code here. I just want you to send me my thing or, we had all our bookcases and our couches shipped to a house because it's too hard to ship it to an apartment building. And, I mean, I live in the largest of the larger apartment buildings in town, like mine's got 60 units in it. So there's always somebody moving in or out. There's always stuff going on. But I mean, if it's a large delivery, things will be delivered right outside my door because there's always people going in and out. Delivery people can at least deliver things directly to me, which is nice.
Christina Monroe: [00:56:42] I wasn't really expecting that, but yeah, it's very different. And trying to figure out the stuff like my friend sending me a present and so she's sending it up with someone and then it's being dropped off to her son. And her son's playing Santa and distributing everything that his mom's dropping off in exchange for, because he's in his early 20s. So she's like, I will give you your present list. You distribute everything to all my other friends, right? And then her stuff that I've got to send to her, I think gets here on the 15th. And then I need to literally go on Facebook and go, who's going to Hay River? Because I don't have time. Even if I send something two weeks ago, because I know the parcel is going to go here to Edmonton and back up to here and then to Hay River, it's easier for me to find somebody driving the 5.5 hours, and then I'll buy you some beer. Can you send this to my friend?
Bryndis Whitson: [00:57:45] You know pretty much well, what I love about this conversation is that we're kind of starting and ending in that kind of conversation about postal codes and house deliveries and all those things in between.
Christina Monroe: [00:58:01] Yeah. Because it's so different here. People like postal codes don't really work here. Like the x-1a to the x-1e. They don't care. They don't care. They're like, you're X-1E, you can't. And there's no differentiating that you're on a road and you can have items and it's so bizarre. Or you try to explain to people it's like, oh, well, I have these things coming, but I don't know when. And they're like, what? Because they're used to instantaneous things. And I think one of the biggest ones was we had prime and I was thinking about sending a gift to my niece. So I sent it three and a half weeks early to my father in law's house in Redding, because I'm thinking logistically and my brain is buying something, it's like three and a half weeks before the kid's birthday, I have a reminder. I'm buying a thing, and then I'm going to have it shipped. It was shipped the same day. Right. Because it's going to be right here. So then he's like, why do I have this at the house? And it's like her birthday is like November and this is October.
Christina Monroe: [00:59:17] And we're like, oh, we forgot that people use that for instantaneous shipping; cheaper shipping. And I was like, oh yeah. No, that was not my intention. I was like, logistically thinking three weeks out for stuff or it comes like when you talk about gifting things I give my nieces and nephew that live in Winnipeg, I pay for sporting events or passes to places, or I purchase them cakes, things that don't need to be sent. Right. Because I don't know why exactly. Or I purchase from the bookstore. They're , McNally, I can buy things from McNally, and they have a Winnipeg delivery so they can drop it off to their homes there for a set time so I can buy something there, have it wrapped and then dropped off at their house for $5, because it's like deliveries. So we often think about things in way longer terms for getting things placed in the order for the furniture that we ordered early November and we're in the second week in December and it finally showed up.
Bryndis Whitson: [01:00:38] Oh, exactly. Oh.
Christina Monroe: [01:00:40] People are like what? I was hoping to get it earlier, but I had a coach this weekend.
Bryndis Whitson: [01:00:48] Yeah. Thank you for listening to this Zebras to Apples podcast episode. I hope you enjoyed the showcase of the fun and fascinating stories of supply chain logistics. If you liked this episode, I would love it if you could give it a rating and review for more information about this topic. You can go to zebrastoapples.com, or follow Zebras to Apples on the social media platform of your choosing, whether that's Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Bluesky, or LinkedIn. You can support the show on Patreon. Also, check out the show notes below. Please join me again for another episode of Zebras to Apples. Have a wonderful day!