Comfort and Joy

I just went to my door because I thought I heard a knock. There was no one at the door, but there was a truck with flashing lights in front of my house. When I peeked out I saw that someone was delivering furnace oil and the knocking sound was the driver beating the ice off the pipe to my oil tank. The oil comes in on the ships during the short ice-free season in late August and early September. If that runs out, then more is delivered by military aircraft. I have meant to write about this from the beginning, but somehow the minus 40 temperatures and Christmas has placed this particular aspect of my life in Clyde River in a higher priority. In a land of permafrost it is utterly amazing to me how things run in these arctic communities. As the owner of two houses on a rocky island in Nova Scotia I am only too well acquainted with issues like home heating, sewage disposal and the acquisition of water ( I have two wells). Here, everything is so easy for me. I know that when I see the flashing lights of the trucks, that someone is delivering water, emptying the sewage tank or delivering oil. The houses here don't have basements because of the permafrost. Many, including mine, have crawlspaces underneath that house water and sewage tanks. I never have to make any arrangements, this all happens automatically. We haven't had much snowfall lately, but I notice that the snow removal guys are still very busy (in the dark) moving mountains of snow from former plowing efforts and relocating them down to the bay shore. I have come to associate the different trucks and their flashing lights with a feeling of well-being and comfort. Electricity comes from the local power plant. Some of my students have had job placements there, so I was able to get a tour. Back in Nova Scotia, the woman staying in my house wrote last week to say that there had been no electricity for a few days and the house was so cold "it was warmer inside the fridge than in the house". Go figure. I have been toasty warm up here.
Clyde River has been celebrating the Christmas season in its traditional way with indoor and outdoor games every day and a feast and church services on Christmas Eve. It has been fun to participate in some of the activities. The weather has been really cold since just before Christmas - wind chill of around -43. Tomorrow, there is supposed to be some snow and the temperature rising to -12!!!! I hope that happens - it would be nice to get Reba out for a decent walk.
Christmas vacation is proceeding as planned. I am making my way through turkey leftovers and a stack of books. I just finished reading The Long Exile by Melanie McGrath. This is the unbelievable story of some Inuit people who were relocated to the high arctic by the Canadian Government in the 1950's. They were removed from their communities and their families and dropped in the unfamiliar arctic desert as a way for the government to deal with the problem of arctic sovereignty. The detail and description are so vivid that I found myself actually holding my breath through some parts. I stayed up most of the night last night finishing it. What a luxury to stay up all night reading with no commitments for the next day. I am sure that the book was immensely more real to me because I was reading it here. I was so transported by the story of how these people survived that ordeal that I was always in shock to look up from the book and hear the furnace coming on again and see the lights and the fridge full of food and my snoring pets and then step outside from time to time in the minus 40 temperatures and try to imagine none of those comforts and almost no tools for survival. I am sure that nothing up here will ever look quite the same to me.

Winter Solstice

Today is winter solstice, the shortest day of the year - although you'd be hard-pressed to see the difference here. Here is the view over the bay at 10 AM the other day. There is a bit of light every day, but the sun does not come above the horizon. It is unbelievably beautiful during the bit of daily light.

From here on, it will start getting brighter every day until the sun finally peeks above the horizon around the 22nd of January. It is very cold here now, I can feel the difference yesterday and today (wind chill of minus 42). I am still getting out for walks every day. Reba will not go far now, though. When she starts lifting her paws off the ground and shaking them I know it's time to take her in. So, it's Christmas vacation. Yeah!! I'm ready for for a break. Most of the teachers left on Saturday (2 left on Friday). We had a very fun get together on Thursday night. The school's Christmas dinner was held last Monday. We cooked 25 turkeys and side dishes and served all the kids during the day. Then, during the evening we did the same thing for the District Education Authority members, staff and families. We served well over 300 dinners. It was a fun, if exhausting, day.

Then, on Wednesday, was the Christmas concert. I organized the decorating of the gym. It was sort of like graduation all over again. All the classes made decorations and I got together a group of students to hang everything and to make the backdrop for the stage. The fireplace and stockings were made by the grade 7 class.
These decorating efforts are made much easier because the school is so well-equipped. Everything you need or want is there and the kids are a pleasure to work with.

Here is the grade two class posing in their costumes before the dress rehearsal.......

.......and during their performance of Christmas in Hawaii.
You'd never know it was minus 30 outside in Clyde River because these kids really heated up the stage with their singing, drumming and dancing. Very fun. The last day of school was the usual - just the morning. My class made pizza and a cake and watched movies. We also invited grade 2 and grade 7 in to share our treats and movie. A few more photos .....

My classroom Inuktitut bulletin board with some of our stockings. We sewed them and I filled them!Two of the lovely handcrafted gifts I received. A soapstone pin from my student Pia and a beautiful beaded bracelet from Sarah, one of our student support assistants.
And last, but certainly not least, Barney checking out my (first fake) Christmas tree. Martha Stewart special from the Sears Catalogue. Now it's into the Polar Bear flannel jammies (also from the Sears Catalogue) and the stack of books on my coffee table - and to all a good night!

Graduation

What a busy time lately! Our graduation was held on November 28. Although (or maybe because) we only had four graduates, this event was of huge importance in the school and in the community. Decorating the gym was a whole-school activity and the result was so beautiful. I was amazed at the amount of time and effort the kids were willing to put into this. My classroom was the center of activity for making decorations. This was really fun for me because I got to know so many of the other kids that I don't teach. All the classes contributed to the effort. On the night of the graduation, I did grad photos before the ceremony started. Here are our grads posing with superintendent of schools Hughie Butt. The stoles they are wearing over their gowns are made of tanned seal skin with a polar bear insert. They were made this year by the principal's mother.

After the grads arrived in the gym, the ceremony began with the lighting of the quilliq, a traditional lamp fueled by seal oil. The quilliq is lit by an elder and then each student lights their candle from it. This is symbolic of elders passing on wisdom to youth.

Then there were the usual speeches and acknowledgements and two grads shared a bilingual (Inuktitut and English) valedictory speech.

My Favourite part came towards the end of the ceremony. It is the tradition at graduation here that grads go into the audience and hand out roses to the people they want to thank for helping them through their years of schooling. It was a joyful and tearful time as family members, friends and teachers were recognized with roses.

After the ceremony, the graduates cut a cake that was baked at the local hotel and decorated by one of the teachers.

In other news, this is the last week of classes before Christmas break. Next week is another busy week. On Monday the school staff is cooking Christmas dinner for the students. We will all be cooking turkeys at home this weekend as part of the effort. The Christmas concert is on Wednesday evening with rehearsals during the day. Teachers who are leaving are getting very excited to go home or on vacation in the sun. I was expecting food mail yesterday but the plane had mechanical problems and had to turn back to Iqaluit. I expect that my vegetables will be as frozen as the turky by the time it gets here.

We've Got The Moon in The Morning and The Sun At Night

Sunrise 10:34 Sunset 12:07

I've been trying to get some "last minute" pictures before we totally lose light. Yesterday the sun was a huge fiery red ball at 11:30 and in the minute it took me to get my camera and go outside it had disappeared.The wind chill temperature today is -33. We even had inside recess. Some recess pictures from this week:

It's amazing, but even with these extreme temperatures and lack of light, this place is becoming even more beautiful. There is enough light remaining in the morning to see the mountains across the (now frozen) bay. The snow is filled with colour and even when it is very dark walking home after school the air literally sparkles under the streetlights. It's interesting how the snow changes the landscape. When drifts form they are rock-hard and stationary. Then, as many snowmobiles drive over them they become a hill. It's a bit disconcerting when navigating around in the dark, as the scenery is constantly changing. Other news - The Northern store is stocking up for Christmas, the Sears catalogues I receive in the mail are popular all around the school and graduation is next Friday. I am chairing the graduation committee and it will be very exciting to see everything coming together. We have four students graduating. Two of them are still living in Clyde River and one is in school in Ottawa. I was able to get a great donation from First Air to get her a ticket home for the ceremony. The whole school is working on decorations. Pictures to follow next week. Christmas break is getting close. On the last day before break, teachers are cooking an enormous dinner for the community. There will be 25 turkeys and 5 whole caribou. Another one of those teacher appreciation celebrations. I am going to stay here for Christmas. Among the southerners staying for Christmas will be two other teachers, some health center staff and RCMP officers. Some of us plan to attend local events like a feast and Inuit games. On New Year's Eve there is a ski-doo parade around town and then something called a "crazy dance" which starts at midnight. Hmmmmm.... I wonder what crazy looks like in Clyde River?
Crystal and Nanoo on our afternoon walk last weekend

Some school staff members proudly posing in front of our new school sign. The sign was designed, carved and painted by staff members over a period of three years.

Jennie Who?

Sunrise 9:22 Sunset 13:15
As I've mentioned in previous posts, I am teaching a program which is designed to get kids out in community job placements to build skills, resumes and portfolios in preparation for the workplace. It came to my attention early in the year that a number of my students didn't have social insurance numbers. Simple, I thought, I can help them get that. Just fill out the forms and send them in. That was o.k. for some of them. But, in order to get a SIN you need identification. Picture ID cards can be issued locally by a Government of Nunavut official, except that position was cut and there is no one in the community who can issue ID cards. To further complicate matters, some of my students don't have birth certificates. Again I thought, simple, I'll just fill out the forms and send them in. Keep in mind that my students have very limited spoken or written English so I had a hard time understanding why they don't have birth certificates. Apparently Jennie has been trying to get one for years. She is in her early twenties and is the mother of two children, but she doesn't possess a single piece of paper that says she exists. She can't work, file income tax, receive the child tax credit, GST refunds, or even travel any further than Iqaluit. Another teacher here tried to get her a birth certificate a few years ago and he filled me in on the issues. Jennie was born in Iqaluit and adopted by a local family. The problem is that the adoption wasn't registered. Apparently this is common among Inuit. Adoptions have been informal. So, I made contact with a number of government officials and we were able to trace the paperwork from the Court of Justice to the local adoption commissioner. An effort was made a few years back to register the adoption, but a glitch occurred somewhere along the line and the whole process just froze. Finally, I made phone contact with a very helpful woman in NWT Vital Statistics (don't forget that Nunavut was NWT when Jennie was born) who filled me in on some of the issues regarding Inuit identification. She has set the process in motion once again and although we are somewhat more optimistic, it is clear that this is going to be a lengthy process. All I can do now is keep calling on a regular basis to make sure that things keep moving.I learned so much from this experience about how the Inuit got their current names. Ancient names that had been passed on through the generations were changed by the missionaries who could not pronounce the names and (some would argue) feared their pagan power. Then, from the 1940's through the early 1970's Inuit were issued government Disk Names which they wore around their necks. These disks identified individuals by a combination of letters and numbers that were assigned in accordance with where they lived and when they were added to the census. In 1969 Project Surname was started when some Inuit people decided that they should no longer be called by numbers. A man named Abe Opik is said to have visited every Inuit home (quite an undertaking) and asked families to choose their surnames. So, imagine all these issues and add in the creation of Nunavut as a territory (with all its fledgling bureaucracies) and you have a picture of personal paperwork in the arctic.

Halloween

Sunrise 8:22 Sunset 14:14

It is just after 4PM and it is totally dark outside. It started to get dark around 2:30. I took this picture at the outside school door at 2:30 this afternoon.

I am writing in my classroom and putting off the inevitable piling on of clothes and waddling out the door. This part of arctic living I don't like. There is a windchill of -26 today and blowing snow, so I really need to have everything covered well. It seems to take forever to get dressed and out the door. I will have to develop some patience about this as it will be a large part of my life until April or so. We had another blizzard/school cancellation day on Thursday. This is what it looked when I opened the door in the morning on Thursday.
A cat's view of the blizzard

Friday was Halloween, and what a great celebration it is here! The trick or treating is held between 5 and 7 and then there is a celebration at the community hall. So, at exactly 5 the community sprang to life - there were skidoos everywhere. The kids were piled on long sleighs that were pulled behind the snowmobiles. A rather unsettling juxtaposition of Christmas and Halloween. People of all ages go trick or treating.The costumes were great, very innovative and lots of homemade masks and face paint. Everyone was clearly having a blast. I had over 300 people come to my door. It was so busy that I just got dressed for the outside and stood on the porch. Then at 7, the sound of skidoos faded away and the community was silent. It was the most fun I had at Halloween for years.

Cup Jammin' In Clyde River

Sunrise 8:51 Sunset 15:45

I have been having the most fun imaginable in the past month or so since I introduced Sport Stacking to Clyde River. As a recent arrival at the school cup stacking has been a great tool for connecting with the kids. This is a sport for kids (and adults) of every age. It doesn't require athletic prowess, or language (most kids here speak a limited amount of English) and it certainly breaks down cultural barriers. Our wheelchair-bound student can stack with one hand. Sport stacking started in the 1980's in (where else?) California. A very simple premise (stacking and unstacking plastic cups) with lots of complicated twists - the number of cups used, the sequence they are stacked in, competitive timing - and lots of fun. There are tournaments all over the world. So, also a great way for remote kids to connect with other kids in the world. Crystal (grade 7) has really take an interest in this and she has been working with her kids on a really neat rhythm circle using the cups. The sport has all kinds of benefits (hand-eye coordination, using both right and left brain, engaging at-risk kids in a fun activity they can share with adults). This is a K-12 school and all grades have gone absolutely CRAZY over it. All over the community I hear them calling out "Deborah, can we play speed stacks?" We are going to have to order lots more equipment. One of our local RCMP officers dropped by a couple of times and had a great time stacking with the kids. On Friday we launched a positive participation program which began with an assembly and school-wide Sport Stacking competition. Kids got to choose which staff member they wanted to challenge. It was such a great event. Everybody left smiling and laughing, and of course the kids got the best timing score. I have never seen that many kids of so many different ages so engaged. We are planning tournaments in the school and it would be great if other Nunavut schools would let us know if they are already Sport Stacking or if we could help them get started. As I write this there are high school students practicing in my class (which has become Sport Stack Central). By the way, it is a noisy sport.

Grade 3 challengeGrade 4 building a pyramid which they will attempt to systematically down-stack.Grade 7 (Andy from this class was the fastest stacker at our school-wide challenge)

On another note, I received two calls about polar bears in the community over the weekend. On Saturday morning it was a warning call from the vice-principal telling me that a bear had been spotted close to my house. On Sunday afternoon the principal called to tell me that there was a bear near the oil tanks and that there were hunters in the area so it was safe to go look. So, five teachers armed with cameras arrived, only to find that the hunters had chased the bear way with skidoos. It is dark in the morning when I go to school so I am sticking close to the houses as I walk.
No polar bear to photograph on Sunday, but used the telephoto lens for this instead. Late afternoon sunset behind the mountains.

Culinary Clyde

Sunrise 8:22 Sunset 16:15

I am sure there are many things that I will no longer take for granted when I return to the south. My south, by the way, is no longer the Caribbean - it's Nova Scotia. Can you believe it? So, when I return to the south I will have an enhanced gratitude for so much, food in particular. Or, I should say, the easy acquisition of food- or eating in a restaurant, or take-out junk food. Acquiring food in Arctic communities is quite an effort. Locally, there is the Northern Store which provides the community with food, electronics, all-terrain vehicles, snowmobiles, clothes and much, much more. It is incredibly expensive as everything has to come in by air or ship. There is a very short ship-arrival season when the sea ice melts, so mostly by air. Now I swore that I would not be one of those people who is always complaining about the price of things in the north - so, purely as illustration, this pumpkin costs $34.98.

There is another, smaller, store in the community (a co-op). Also available is a program called Food Mail which is run by Canada Post. The air freight is subsidized, and most food is available through the program except junk food. So far I have found this to be a great option. Some teachers, though, have had problems with food not arriving until after it was no longer recognizable as food. Food mail orders go by fax or e-mail on Mondays and the food usually arrives on Thursdays, but I have had it arrive as late as Saturday (even though it is given priority with the airline). Our vice-principal, who is incredibly generous with his time, picks up our Food Mail at the airport in the new school van and delivers it to our houses. So, I can get just about everything I need, with considerable effort.
We have had some wonderful group dinners recently (teachers from the school and the Arctic College and RCMP officers). The Newfoundland teachers and their wives hosted an enormous Thanksgiving dinner. Turkey and all the trimmings brought in from Montreal by food mail. They did every bit of the shopping and cooking.

Last Saturday night Crystal (Grade 7 teacher) and I cooked a pasta supper for 17 people. I made spaghetti sauce, boule (French, ball-shaped bread) and pineapple-upside cake for desert (a relic from my Joy of Cooking/Fanny Farmer childhood, also I have a case of canned pineapple from the sealift). I am baking more than I did at home. Something about the endless winter - comfort food. I brought up a book on baking artisan breads and have been experimenting with surprisingly good results in spite of the iffy oven in my house. This has been really fun and I have learned so much - I need to write a post about my bread baking experiments. The smell alone is worth the effort.O.K so no connection to Culinary Clyde, but I couldn't resist. That was the happiest puppy I have ever seen (except for Angus).

Marvelous Night For A Moondance

Sunrise 7:55 Sunset: 16:45

Arctic full moon. I was headed home late from school yesterday feeling tired and looking forward to some couch potato time - until I noticed the sky. It was around 5 PM and the moon was full and high in the twilight. I went home for Reba and the camera and took a walk up towards the airport, towards the moon. The snow changed in colour from white-white to pink to blue as the sun went down. It was hard to know which way to look as the sun was setting behind me and the moon rapidly rising ahead of me. My dog is old. Her participation in outings for the past while has been more about endlessly sniffing everything than walking. Last night, though, she was pulling hard on the lead, dying to run free. It was if she would run forever if I let her go. I understood how she felt. We could have walked on and on, but fear of polar bears sent us home. Instead, we forced ourselves, slowly and reluctantly, up the steps to the house like kids called in too early from sledding.

Night and Day

Sunrise 7:46 Sunset 16:45

The days are getting shorter at a crazy speed. In another month or so, it will become totally dark. I am curious about what it will be like to live in darkness for months on end. In preparation for this I brought lots of vitamin D and full spectrum lighting for my home and classroom. When I first arrived here it was dark for only a few hours during the middle of the night. My bedroom has excellent blackout blinds, so I wasn't aware of the darkness. I found that I was bothered by the long days. For me, it was eerie and unsettling. I expect that I will adapt more easily to the constant dark than the constant light, which will return in the spring. I wonder how the cats will react? Maybe they'll sleep 24 hours a day instead of 23.5.

Around town today .... school closed at lunch for the funeral of the mother of one of our support staff members. She was a well-respected and much-loved woman and apparently the church is packed and many people were unable to get in. Today is also election day and I'll head out soon to vote and see what election day looks like in Clyde River.

Some pictures from the weekend. This one is my favourite of all the pictures I have taken here.Many families have been polar bear hunting in the past few weeks.The community was recently issued 25 tags (licence to hunt 25 bears). The hunt is a communal and social event. People stay out on the land in tents for a few days. All the bears are brought back into town and the meat is shared around the community. The hides are sold out of the community for around $2,000.00 each. A few tags are also issued regularly to outfitters who guide sport hunters.

World Teacher Appreciation Day

Apparently today is World Teacher Appreciation Day. I'm not sure how, but through some Olympian twist of logic the tradition at Clyde River School involves teachers cooking breakfast for all the kids, their families and other community members (this includes home delivery for elders). Having just finished 5 years of bed & breakfast I found myself manning four frying pans and an oven (all full of spattering bacon) all morning today. Time for a serious examination of past lives and any possible misdeeds involving pigs. A very fun time. I have mentioned the Newfoundland teachers, but have not written about my Inuk colleagues. They are seriously funny, kind, and great mentors for new northern teachers like me. So, the kitchen was quite wild this morning. I am so saturated in bacon fat that I am worried about attracting dogs and polar bears on the walk home. All in all, a wonderful week. On Wednesday my class celebrated the completion of a Workplace Safety course. This course is required before they can begin the work experience portion of the program. They faced enourmous challenges to get through this course, including child care, illness of their children (one of my student's children was taken out by medivac) part time jobs, other family members they look after and a terminally ill parent to name a few. It was also my birthday on Wednesday, so a great celebration in all. We made and ate pizza, I gave out certificates and they sang happy birthday to me. Thanksgiving dinner will be up the hill in the apartment block where the Newfoundlanders live. I call it Signal Hill. Should be lots of fun. I am posting some pictures of the Terry Fox walk held here on September 26.

Po-lar Bears Are Com-ing To Town

There is really only one thing that has been a disappointment to me since I moved to Clyde River. I love walking and hiking and was looking forward to exploring the area on foot. However, I found out pretty quickly that I couldn't do that. On one of my first days here, I walked to the airport and was excited to see lots of trails in the hills outside of town. I was told by a number of local people that I shouldn't leave town this time of year because this is when the polar bears come close. Apparently, they also wander into town on a regular basis. I was also advised that it would be ok for me to walk around if I got a rifle. I knew there was something I forgot to pack. So, I have to be content to walk Reba around town.
Speaking of Reba, my whimpy little dog who refuses to go out on the step if it is wet seems to have heard the call of the wild. We get followed by a friendly little pack of dogs and Reba plays top dog, nipping the other ones if they try to walk ahead of her. So, I was feeling very relaxed about this whole situation until Reba slipped out of her collar one day while she was playing with the husky pup next door. Unfortunately this was also the day that a large, mean dog was loose in the neighbourhood. To make a long story short, the encounter between them was unpleasant. After I searched for an hour with the help of the local kids, Reba arrived home much the worse for wear. Some bites and a pronounced limp. Anyway, all was well within a week and lessons learned for both of us. The kids love Reba. Every time I leave the house with her I hear "DeborahReba! DeborahReba! and they all come running and take turns walking her on the leash. The cats have been quite a curiosity to the kids. I often find kids lined up looking in the window. Every now and then I drag poor long-suffering Buddy out on the step for them to hold. Thankfully, Buddy loves kids. One little girl's first word when she petted Buddy's long, black hair was "mittens!".

Storm Day!!!

I just had to let my teacher friends in Nova Scotia know that school was cancelled today because of blizzard conditions. I'm serious. So, this is a good chance to write about my new community. Clyde River is an Inuit hamlet on Eastern Baffin Island. The setting, on Patricia Bay, surrounded by the Baffin Mountains is spectacular.

There are approximately 900 people living here (95%Inuit). It's a friendly town with an astounding number of small children. The only way to get to Clyde River is by plane. Some supplies come by ship during the short time when there is no sea ice. Orders are placed in late spring with a company in Montreal and are delivered to Clyde River (and other arctic communities) in late August, early September. The sealift order can contain anything from groceries (including frozen food) to snowmobiles and cars. When the ship arrives, the crates are brought from the ship to the beach by barge. From there they are delivered to the houses and businesses by forklift. My sealift order consisted mainly of cat food, dog food and cat litter with a bit of stuff for me. During the last 2 weeks of August I was very anxious for the ship to arrive as I had run out of litter and was collecting sand off the beach. I came home from school one day in early September to find my crate in front of my house. The vice-prinicpal, other teachers and community kids unloaded it into my houseafter it was opened by crowbar first.

The ship

My crate

Behind, you can see neighbour's crates.Vice-principal opening the crate(school administration takes on a whole new meaning here)Part of the pet's portion of the sealift order.