Inuvik (Jan 14/05) - The storm began late Saturday evening and continued until late Tuesday afternoon, cancelling the Sun Rise Festival, closing schools and grounding planes at Inuvik's Mike Zubko Airport.

Wind speeds set a new record in Tuktoyaktuk, with gusts up to 110km/h, while Inuvik was let off slightly easier with 70km/h winds. However, they were still powerful enough to rip apart the wooden shed built around the trailer at V&S Options on Mackenzie Road. The previous record for wind in Tuk was 89km/h, set in February 1982.

Those travelling from Yellowknife to Inuvik on Canadian North Monday were almost at their destination when worsening weather conditions forced the plane back to Norman Wells. As of Tuesday afternoon, those passengers were still in the Wells as all Canadian North flights in and out of Inuvik were still on hold. And the schedules for other air carriers operating from Inuvik looked pretty much the same.

First Air's Sunday and Monday flights from Yellowknife were cancelled.

As of press time Tuesday afternoon, First Air was expecting its Yellowknife flight to arrive at 6:45 p.m.

Aklak Air had not flown since Friday afternoon and Northwright had also grounded all of its flights since Sunday afternoon.

According to Environment Canada meteorologist Yvonne Bilan-Wallace, the storm originated in Siberia and gathered momentum as it moved across the Arctic Ocean before pummelling the Western Arctic.

"This is a very unique and unusually intense storm," said Bilan-Wallace, adding that a storm of this duration comes around "once in 10 or 20 years."

If there was a silver lining to the storm cloud, the regions residents can take heart that temperatures actually warmed up with the storm, while way down in the NWT's southern regions, Fort Simpson was enjoying -38C on Monday afternoon. "With the windchill, you didn't really feel any of the benefits," said Bilan-Wallace. "But take heart that the politicians in Ottawa will be just as cold as those in Fort Simpson by week's end."