St-Patrick's Day, Northern Style.

With the sun shining and our Irish blood itching to get out into the great outdoors, we took Jimmy and Aurora's offer to go out on a ski-doo ride. We headed far out into the land where we stopped to collect some lake ice.

Jimmy, using the "mans" chisel to break off chunks of ice, which we brought home to melt for drinking water. Jimmy was born and raised in Kangiqsujuaq, and is the primary level phys-ed teacher. Jimmy is married to Aurora (unfortunatly no pictures of her), who is from Two Mountains and also a teacher at Arsaniq. They have a baby girl named Elsie who is about 7 months old.

Out on the lake in the middle of nowhere.

Here's Sayard doing it the lady way...taking a chisel and hammer to break up the ice.

Jimmy let Neil give it a go.


Later that night we headed over to Isabelles for some Irish festivities. Neil, being the only Irishman in town, was happy to celebrate his day!

Playing cards with the locals. Elijah and Taqa happily helped Sayard win the game.

What's so funny boys?

Group shot. Sayard, Lizzie, Elijah, Isabelle and Betsy.



With the Irish spirit flowing, the music came on and the dancing began.

Isabelle and Sayard pretending they're at a club down south.

The "hostess with the mostest".

Busting a move!

"It's my day!!!"

Happy St-Patrick's Day from Kangiqsujuaq!!!!

take a look from above....

There are a lot more people in town this weekend because of the hockey tournament so without a plane ticket or ski-doo at our disposal Sayard and I started climbing up the hills.


As you can see this section of the mountain has very little snow. Although we have received less snow than usual there is still plenty of the white stuff left I assure you.


Dogs a plenty up in the north and they will follow until they grow bored, tired or hungry.


Same goes for the kids.


Hey there bugs eyes!



Of course whatever goes up must come down.








I know Sayard is afraid of heights but this is pathetic.

Paraskiing

A paraskiing group was in town this week, and our students were lucky enough to get a go at this extreme sport.

The paraskiers say that Nunavik is their dream location, as the climate and the terrain make for perfect conditions.



The sun and wind were strong so these secondary students had a great day out on the bay.

Having fun until the sun went down.



Just our luck that while we were out one of the dogsled teams went out to practice. I wasn't able to get a good picture, as those dogs can really move it. The big race across the Ungava coast of Nunavik starts tomorow, so I hope to get better pictures when the race comes through town at the end of the week. I believe Kangiqsujuaq has three teams entered.

The fire

Tuesday morning as we were getting ready to head out to school, we recieved a call saying that school was cancelled due to a fire in town.

We rushed out to see smoke rolling towards us from the center of town.

It turns out that the Hydro Qc workers house had caught on fire.

The flames were pretty impressive, and at one point there were worries that the house next door would also catch fire.

Luckily the firefighters had it under control.

And down she goes

Dinner with our "adopted" Illimasaut kids

The Illimasaut's are a local family who frequently visit us. We don't mind one bit when they knock on our door, as they are the cutest kids we've ever met.
Here we have Markusie, Elaisa and Pitsula pretending to be big rough hockey players.


We recently discovered that the family is being split up, as their grandparents can no longer support all 5 children. The youngest three are being sent to live with their father in another village :(


So we decided to have Markusie, Leo, Pitsula and Putulik over for supper the another night (Elaisa couldn't make it).

It was a nice oppurtunity for them to have a care free night, with a decent meal in their bellies.


They really enjoyed the spaghetti. The noisy slurping and empty plates gave it away!