Have time? Here are some fireside long-reads from the North

Do you have some time on your hands this holiday season?

Well then, grab a hot chocolate and your reading glasses here are 10 North long-reads from the past year that you don't want to miss.

(Don't forget to bookmark this page for your next slow morning or evening!)

1. The rat-infested ship mystery

It doesn't matter if you're into boats, ships, sailing or not this strange tale about a cruise ship named after a Soviet movie star will keep you hooked.

CBC North reporter Randi Beers once worked on the MV Lyubov Orlova and she dug into how it met its end as a "cannibal rat-infested ghost ship" in the Atlantic.

• Read Into the Abyss

2. The man who died out in the cold

A man named Emmanuel Vachon was found dead in his tent on the morning of Nov. 7, 2018, on the outskirts of Fort Providence, N.W.T.

He had lived there for months even though police, social workers and others knew he was there and had nowhere else to go.

Did Vachon's community fail him?

• Read Out in the Cold

3. Taking a chance on Canada's northernmost strip club

From coast to coast, strip clubs have been shuttering their doors, but a Yellowknifer took a shot at what she calls Canada's northernmost strip club.

Sara Murphy has since left her business, and things have changed withHarley's Hard Rock Saloon, but this story sheds some light into what was once a dingy basement bar on Yellowknife's main drag.

• Read Beating the Odds

4. The woman who fostered 250+ kids

For nearly three decades, Tammy Roberts has fostered hundreds of children many of them had experienced trauma and disabilities from being prenatally exposed to alcohol.

Here's her story.

• Read The Woman Who Fostered More Than 250 Children

5. Police not responding to calls puts community on edge

Megan Klengenberg is a single mother of three, after her spouseJustin Pigalak took his own life.

She blames the RCMPfor not showing up that night, and is calling for Justice for Justin.

Read more about why people in Kugluktuk, Nunavut, lost trust in the police.

• Read Community on Edge

6. The man that dedicated his life to N.W.T.'s Thelon River

For nearly half a century, he made it his mission to bring people to the N.W.T.'s most remote wilderness areas the Thelon.

Cancer snatched away Alex Hall of Fort Smith, N.W.T., from his favourite place on Earth this March.

Take a tripto one of Canada's most remote remaining wilderness sanctuaries, through Hall's eyes.

• Read Torn Away from Eden

7. What do you do when your home is on shifting ground?

How can you maintain your home when you can't trust the ground beneath your feet?

Margaret and Edward Kelly's home is coming apart at the seams in Fort Good Hope, N.W.T.

Live a day in their lives.

• Read Shifting Ground

8. Rise and fall of a small-town mall

In the heart of Yellowknife's downtown is a place you could find almost anywhere in Canada a mall.

Today, Centre Square Mall is almost completely empty.

Here's what went wrong with what was once a shopper's paradise, turneda cockroach-infested retail wasteland.

• Read The Rise and Fall of a Small-Town Mall

9. The million $ question where have the caribou gone?

North.

That's what some Indigenous Yukon elders are noticing about their moose and caribou.

What happens when the animals movefurther north to escape the effects of climate change? The hunters move with them.

• Read Moving North to Survive

10. Nunavut grandmothers + camp + youth = ?

Colonialism has left some young Inuit in Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, struggling to connect with their culture.

Here's how agroup of grandmothers is fighting to change that.

• Read A Culture Not Lost but Disconnected