Northern Living: Fall 2007

I have been lazy as of late about posting on the blog and now it seems I have a whole 5 months to catch up with. So to update everyone here are the highlights of fall 2007 in Kangiqsujuaq.


When we arrived back in town we were welcomed with open arms, or should I say paws.


Puppies, puppies everywhere. So cute, you wish you could take them all home with you....

On a very beautiful late August day we decided to go for a walk and take in the beautiful vegetation growing in the Tundra.

You would be surprised how many beautiful plants and flowers there are up here.




Taqa and his gift to us, a whole caribou leg. We consider ourselves very lucky, as it's not everyday someone gives away this much of a good thing. As the locals would say "Mamatuk" (yummy)!


Halloween

A couple of Neil's students were lucky enough to get to carve our pumpkin. I think they did a great job carving out a likeness of Neil.


Neil went all out this year and dressed up as a grandma. He was quite the hit at school.


To make my students happy, I went with their suggestion and dressed up as my alter-ego thethe wicked witch of the North.

The cutest monkey ever!


A Beautiful Winter Day

We decided to take advantage of the beautiful weather and headed out for a long walk.

James, Sophie, Baby Noah, Neil and I headed out around the lake.

Having to work at the student residence every 2 weeks, we haven't had many week-ends off to hike. We really enjoyed this day out.

Igak, James' dog joined us for our walk.

It's days like these that make us really appreciate where we live.

The view from our front door of our first snowstorm of the year.


The Premiere of Quebec, Jean Charest, came up to Kangiqsujuaq to officially open Nunavik's first Provincial park, Pingualuit. Pingualuit is the site of a very large crater which was left by the crash of a meteor some thousands of years ago. This was a very important day for our small village, as it was the first, and probably last time a Premiere will visit.
Our little friend Putalik taking in all the excitment, with Charest in the background.

In honour of the premiere's visit the town held a feast at the gym. Here Neil's former pupil Suzanne holds Noah (James and Sophie's baby).

Fellow teacher Christina and her family dig into some raw meat. There was tons of traditional food, such as raw caribou, whale blubber, seal meat and my favourite bannock.

Here is a close up of the raw caribou. Neil got an opportunity to taste this Northern delicacy of raw caribou dipped in whale blubber. He said it was very interesting. I got to taste seal for the first time, and to be honest it will probably be my last :)

The day did not end with food, as there were also several performances.


Beatrice Deer, a popular Inuit singer.

Local students doing some Traditional Inuit Dance

The throat singing was amazing. Everyone should have the opportunity to see this live.

Local Tradition


This was one of the weirdest things we have witnessed here. On December 1st, people get in their vehicles , Christmas music is played over the FM radio and everyone drives around the village in a parade procession. We took part this year with the students from the residence. This picture does not do justice to the sight of the traffic rolling through town.

A fishing trip with Jimmi and Arnaituq

My friend Jimmi and another teacher named Arnaituq went for a fishing excursion on a beautiful sunny day in late September. The area we visited took us 1 1/4 hour to get to by honda (that's northern talk for any ATV machine). We left at nine in the morning and while it was a very bumpy ride, especially for the poor white guy sitting on the back, the views were spectacular.



Of course there were no roads to get to where we had to go and anything in the way just had to be overcome. I was amazed by how quickly these two saw a way and just went for it as with this body of water.



A pic from my vantage point. Soon after this shot the mechanism for the honda's rear wheel drive hit a large rock and gave up. I figured we would pack it in since we still had half the distance to cover still and it could no longer pull itself up the steeper inclines. Nope. It was just too great a day to turn back according to these two and off we went with yours truly moving to Arnaituq's machine and helping Jimmi push his honda from time to time.



We finally made it and the scene was incredible. We had to leave the broken honda up on the ridge beacause it would not have made it back up. Jimmy and I walked down while Arnaituq motored down. This valley was massive and had sheer cliffs on the opposite side. It appears to me that water filled up the whole valley at one time and sediment has built up over time so that now there is only two small arteries flowing. Incredible sand dunes can be found upstream. I only saw one because we did not have the other ATV but apparently there are so many of the these formations that the Inuit around here joke that this is their Egypt. Who knows all the different marvels there are up here in this territory the size of France? (with a population of 11000 I might add).



This was a fairly big steam flowing down the side of the mountain. I can attest that this was the best water I have ever drank.

Another shot of the stream.





This shot gives a better idea of the immensity of this valley.



Jimmi and I laid this net in the water and then threw rocks upstream and downsteam so that the fish would rush into the netting. At first we did not have it deep enough but with a little persistence it finished by working. Jimmi however lost "the big one" when we puledl the net in and it struggled so fiercely that it ended bouncing off the rocks and back into the water.



Jimmi brewing up a little tea to go with our bannock.

My Class

This is picture of my class (Neil's) taken earlier this year as they sat down before gym class. I have since acquired one new student from another village. The kids can be very needy and most lack structure but I am thankful that this group has a good work ethic.



Silima. A little girl with remarkable energy.



Uttuqi. Very quick, especially in catching any mistakes I make.



Louisa. Always happy it seems.




Tukiqi. A very shy boy but with a large desire to succeed.



Mary. Quiet and reserved.



Levina. A girl who just wants to have fun, sometimes too much fun for her teacher to take.



Adamie. A leader in class and a boy with heart.



Willie. A hard worker who is interested in just about everything but most of all, big machines.

Chicago

This summer Sayard and I made a special trip to Chicago for music, theater, baseball and .....


Sayard got her wish to see the musical Wicked. Based on the book of the same name it tells the "real" story of the witch of the west.


We discovered this quaint little courtyard, which was attached to a very old Church on the Magnificent Mile.

A view of the Chicago River


The Water Tower, the only building to survive the Chicago Fire, making it the oldest building in the city.

Chicago Cubs!!! Perrenial losers they may be but at least they can boast of a team (unlike Montreal) and they still have one of the nicest stadiums in baseball.

The band Spoon were great live as usual.


Yeah Yeah Yeah's rocking out.


At the age of ten or so I remember going to see the Disney movie Flight of the Navigator at a theater in Regina when my cousins lived there. This thing reminded me of the the craft from the movie.

Our reflection in the “Cloud Scuplture”.

Buckingham Fountain at Grant Park. Lollapolooza was held here.
Sayard trying to hide from the heat, with Blonde Redhead playing in the background.

Dude, it's hot!

Skyline at night...with all the other revellers.

LCD Soundsystem, one of the best shows of the festival.


Chicago at night.

I managed to keep this special dinner a secret from Sayard until we walked through the door to this amazing Thai resturant

We both hope we can eat food this exquisite once again.

The surprise didn’t end with the resturant......