Inuvik (Mar 29/04) - Spring blew in with a blizzard for some Beaufort Delta communities last week.

With winds reaching 100 kilometres an hour out on the land and temperatures plummeting to below -30, coastal communities like Tuktoyaktuk got what they hoped to be the final blast from old man winter, March 20, 22 and 23.

In Tuktoyaktuk, Mangilaluk school, the Aurora College learning centre and the local day care were shut down March 22 due to the blizzard.

"It was just blinding," said Mangilaluk principal Allen Pitcher.

On Saturday Pitcher walked across the street to go shopping and when he came back out of the store he couldn't see his home.

"If I didn't know the angle to walk at I would have been lost," said Pitcher.

The blizzard also left a few people stranded, including 32 soldiers from Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry and three Inuvik Rangers who snowmobiled in from Inuvik, March 20, during an Arctic survival training course.

They were supposed to leave Tuktoyaktuk on Sunday, but stayed until Tuesday because the ice road to Inuvik was closed.

They slept in the school gym and spent the extra time speaking to students, the morning of March 23, said Pitcher.

They spent Saturday night weathering the storm out on the land.

They tied their 10-man tents to their snowmobiles and hopped inside, said Lieut. Martin Dupuis, with the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry.

"The pole (on the tent) was swinging so hard we had to put the lamp on the ground so it wouldn't shatter," he said.

"We couldn't see to the 'boggan five feet from the tent."

Ice roads suffered the aftermath of the storm with mountain-high snowdrifts spread across the Aklavik and Tuktoyaktuk ice roads.

Both roads remained closed until the end of the week while crews graded the drifts down.

"(Drifts) happens sometimes," said Gurdev Jagpal, regional superintendent for the GWNT Department of Transportation.

"Especially at this time of the year when the snow banks are high."