A single English cucumber, wrapped in plastic, costs $3.69. Lettuce is upwards of $5 for three ounces. At one of the town’s three restaurants, a plate of French fries with melted cheese and gravy — yes, three great fats, together known as poutine — is about $8.

This is the reality of the cost of living in Fort Chipewyan, where we recently spent four days at the beginning of October on a research trip. In northern Alberta, Fort Chip is accessible only by plane or boat until freezing temperatures and hard-packed snow create the “ice road.” During the winter, large trucks can haul in the essentials needed throughout the year: gasoline, construction materials, furniture, dry goods. The distance and difficulty mean everything for sale costs 50 to 200 percent more than I’m used to paying in San Francisco.

Long before the advent of the plane and the ice road truckers, native people in the area — the Dene, the Mikisew Cree, the Meti — lived off the land. Elders still recall setting trap lines, drying fish and moose meat for the winter, and mothers sewing new moccasins every year for their children to run across the snow and ice. They crossed the lake on dog sleds in the winter, and traded furs for a few special staples like flour and lard.

All of that changed when the children were sent to residential school. In a policy that the government has since apologized and paid compensation for, native children were (often forcibly) taken from their parents, prohibited from speaking their own languages, and as much as the priests and magistrates could dictate, stripped of their culture. Many elders have bitter memories of nuns abusing the children, even being made to sleep in the “proper” position or risk an ear pulling by the sister in charge.

This forced adoption of the Western culture and lifestyle has had a profound impact on the residents of Fort Chipewyan. Although a handful of people still live on the land, everyone is now reliant on the infrastructure of the developed world. (No doubt this is also attributable to the spread of modernization as well, but the residential schools created a dramatic cultural rupture.) That reliance means needing cash to pay for gasoline and phone bills and packaged cheese. It means needing a job and very often moving to Fort McMurray to work in the oil sands industry. And for those left behind, it means relying on precious cargo holds of the Cessna flights, and on the ice roads.

The difficulty and expense to acquire anything — be it rain pants for the trip across the lake or turkey meat that wasn’t processed loaf meat product — made me much more aware of how easily and unconsciously I usually purchase, consume, and waste.

How much more precious is that bottle of water ($3.75 for half a liter) when it had to be airlifted to reach my lips. How daunting to imagine remodeling a home, say, when everything — the nails and faucets and windows and wood — have to be weighed, loaded onto a truck, and hauled at considerable expense.

Consequently, there isn’t a lot for sale in Fort Chipewyan. No newsstands hawking the daily paper. No farmers markets offering locally grown produce. No Walgreens to pick up prescriptions and shoe inserts. No bookstores, fresh flowers, craft supplies, or boutiques selling cowboy boots and sparkly tights.

So it was a relief of sorts to return to the Bay Area, a consumer haven. I can have my sprouted wheat bread, my quick trip downtown for cuticle butter, the latest iPod accessory at the Apple store. I can have almost anything I want, for a lot cheaper.

Upon further reflection, though, it seems that feeling of scarcity is one that I should always have. The abundance that I enjoy in the Bay Area is an illusion. How much of the food and products I consume were shipped across the country or around the globe? How many times have I discarded something that could be salvaged? How many times have I bought something incredibly unnecessary on impulse?

I don’t need more in San Francisco than I needed in Fort Chipewyan, so why should I think about my consumption any differently?

An economist would argue that if I paid the true cost of my goods — the impact of the pollution created to produce, ship, and discard it — its price tag would be much higher. It’s not a new idea, to think of oneself as living on an island, living with thrift and valuing our possessions. But not until I visited Fort Chipewyan, where scarcity is a daily reality, did I truly understand what that experience should feel like.

I should think a lot harder about things that I buy. I should be careful not to let the precious fruits and veggies go bad. I should feel a pang when I fill up the car, knowing what it takes to extract and refine that fuel. It seems I will have to keep learning this lesson as I experience the consequences of our unconscious consumption.