The days of gathering in the community hall for bingo are behind us, for now, so the Hamlet of Cambridge Bay has improvised a solution for the pandemic period.
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Volunteers are delivering free bingo cards to each household Friday and Saturday -- hanging them on the door -- for a bingo event to be broadcast on Facebook Live and on local radio on Saturday night.
Businesses have donated prizes including gift cards for groceries, crafts, furs and seal skins, the hind quarter of a caribou, turkey, a Playstation 4 console, a 55-inch curved TV, camp pots and a bed spread.
"Everyone is chipping in to keep us all entertained in isolation," said Marla Limousin, Cambridge Bay's senior administrative officer.
When the Hamlet promoted the bingo on social media on Thursday evening, word spread "at light speed through the community," according to Limousin.
She added that the municipality's Department of Healthy Living is planning a series of fun engagements via Facebook and radio -- 97.7 FM -- for the coming days. Some of the ideas entail trivia competitions, scavenger hunts inside your own home, and do-it-yourself projects that will be posted online for judging.
"We are trying to design and deliver another form of recreation," Limousin said.