I have lots of stuff to write about for once. Time is the only thing standing in my way. I think this is going to be a long post. One of the great things about writing a blog is that you can “meet” lots of really cool people as they stop for a read. One of the great things about living in a remote arctic community is that you can meet lots of really cool people as they pass through for a visit. Well, Susie fits both those scenarios. Susie contacted me a few months ago looking for information about Igloolik during Return of the Sun; where to stay, when to come, things to do, etc. By and by our emails back and forth resulted in Susie and I planning her trip here and her staying with us. Susie is from Scotland and I’m willing to bet our paths would never have crossed otherwise. She decided she wanted to visit Nunavut and learn a bit about the tourism industry by sort of being a tourist herself and talking to people around town. She got some financial help from the UK government who gives grants to its citizens who wish to expand their horizons, learn new things, become more worldly. Nice, eh? She arrived on the 8th after a frustrating stopover in Newark. Do you know this new fingerprinting policy for people travelling through the USA even applies to people making connecting flights? People who will never even leave the airport must get their fingerprints taken. Originally when we were planning her trip everyone I asked said that ROTS festivities would take place the Friday closest to January 13th. Susie had booked her flights accordingly. Well as she was travelling here, word spread around town that things were going to be different this year. The hamlet wanted to create a buzz about ROTS to attract tourists so they were doing it up big this year. Not just the usual one-night huge celebration, but even bigger and spread out over a week! Unfortunately, this meant that Susie had to change flights and other plans so she could stay longer and wouldn’t miss everything. I had some day trips planned for her already and luckily those were early in her visit and made it easy to pass the time waiting for everything to get going. Her first day here she spent an hour or two learning how to build an igloo from an elder. I think she referred to herself as “rubbish” when comparing her skills to the elders. I’ve never tried to build an igloo, but from watching local guys build them it is easy to see that it takes a great amount of skill and knowledge. I didn’t want to keep Aowyn outside on that very cold day so I watched from the window and took pictures. The next day I left Aowyn with Julie and Susie and I went on a trip to the floe edge. Our guide, Alvin, whom I trust greatly, had taken Ian out last year during PI week. Susie and I hunkered down under a caribou skin in the kamotik, while Alvin directed the ski-doo across the island and then over the ice in search of the floe edge. Susie and I soon realized that the cold wasn’t necessarily our worst comfort concern. Riding in the kamotik is very bumpy. We got some serious air a couple of times and boy did my back pay the price the next day. You pretty much have to sit on your bum and try to keep your body balanced while being heaved into the air and crashing down hard. This can be difficult if your core muscles are not, say, “toned”. I have got to get back in shape. Alvin was great about taking breaks so we could get out and walk around -both to let the blood flow back into our very cold toes (WHY oh WHY didn’t I think to borrow some kamik??) and to prevent our muscles from seizing from the strain. Twice Alvin spotted polar bear tracks; one set two days old, the other mere hours old! The breaks also served to keep us safe – Alvin was constantly looking around for signs invisible to our untrained eyes. He would stop and take out a long pick and walk a little way, poking the ice in front of him to determine if it was safe. He would come back and say something like “Nope, we can’t go that way. That ice is only a day old.” Amazing. The fact that he saw something and knew to check it is one thing and then to actually know what he was looking at – here’s my naive qallunaat shining through. It’s just incredible the amount of knowledge that was and still is, used to survive up here. Alvin is coming back from one of the ice testsAfter about an hour and a half of driving and breaks, we stopped for coffee at what Alvin felt was going to be the closest thing to a floe edge that we would see that day. I had pictured that we’d drive across the ice for a long time and eventually come to an…edge, after which would be open water. Duh! I discovered it’s not that simple. The undercurrents move chunks of ice around blocking off open areas while other areas are opened up or frozen over. So the floe edge changes frequently and one is not guaranteed to see an actual edge. The first thing I noticed (next to the fact that it wasn’t an actual edge) was the mist coming off of the open parts. It is crazy to think that there was enough of a temperature difference between the water and the air for any kind of condensation to form. I mean, really, isn’t it all just COLD? The next thing I noticed was the sound the ice was making. It sounded a lot like the sound the kamotik makes as it moves across the snow; sort of squeaking like the sound styrofoam makes when you pull it out of a box. We stood and looked around for a while, listening to the creaking and cracking, and even the odd light bang of the ice as it moved in its confined spaces before we broke out the coffee, cookies and peanut butter and jam wraps that were just beyond frozen despite having been kept in an inside pocket! Not too long after we stopped, several other ski-doos came into sightAlvin recognized each of them from a distance by the shape of their kamotik. It seemed almost like this was a social custom. “Who is out today? Did you see anyone else out hunting? What do you think of this ice? Where will you look for breathing holes? Did you catch anything yesterday? I saw polar bear tracks on the way out.” That kind of thing. Maybe it’s a chance for the men to discuss hunting away from town and all its distractions. There are still quite a few men in town who frequent the ice and floe edge hoping to catch a seal at this time of year. If they can shoot one from the floe edge, they’ll hop in their boat and go out to get it before it sinks. Instead of watching the open water today, they were going to look for Saks (is that the correct word?)- holes in the ice that seals use for breathing. The hunter will stand above the hole with his gun ready and when a seal visits the hole to take a breath, he gets to bring home a tasty treat! The men chattingThe other men went off looking for seal holes and we set off in the direction of home. We came upon a couple of seal holes but neglected to take a picture. At one point another of the hunters, Jake, joined us at a seal hole. Since Alvin wasn’t going to use it (Susie and I wouldn’t have been able to stand around long enough), Jake would try. If we had all scared a seal away, the noise of our little group leaving would trick the seal into thinking it was safe to come up, making it better for Jake.
On the way back, Alvin said it didn’t look like there was going to be much floe edge to see today but if we wanted to keep looking we could. By this point, I think it had been about 3 hours and we’d used up our little hot-pack things for our toes. I wasn’t too proud to say that I was ready to head home and 30-45 minutes later Alvin dropped us off at Julie’s to regain feeling in our toes. It was an experience I’ll never forget and I’m so glad I got the chance. The next day my body was angry with me, especially my back. But after a day of rest, we were ready to go out again. This time we took a dog-sled ride. Susie’s first; my third! We also brought our friend Natasha. Our guide Simon has a great team and we’ve gone out with him before. He took us out to Igloolik point across the frozen bay. It was a pretty smooth ride, thankfully. We had stopped for a hot drink and were just thinking about heading back when the dogs decided to get a head start! They began to run away but thankfully Simon stopped them. While we were out, we saw the sun for the first time since late November. It was a beautiful sight. I hadn’t noticed the darkness as much this year (honestly, it didn’t seem as dark) but it is still nice to see Mr. Sun again. Ian went out after the sun returned and got some great shots to show what it looks like at this time of year. With the sun’s return came the celebration. This year, they must have gone with the “go big or go home” idea. What is usually only a one-night thing was added to for a week-long celebration. There were throat singing competitions, drum dancing competitions, games out on the ice, qulliq ceremonies, dancing, a talent show, dog-sled rides, and fashion shows. To top it all off, there was a surprisingly long and impressive fireworks demonstration. Isuma was on deck all week to document it. We believe they will use some of the footage they took to put together an ad or something; help the word get out there that Igloolik is open for tourists during the Return of the Sun Celebrations. At the talent show, the audience was able to see Silas, Igloolik’s best high kicker. The high kick is a traditional sport in which a person attempts to kick a target hanging high above them, using different styles of jumps. I don’t know the different names of the jumps. The jumps start from standing, sitting holding one foot or a running start and the target is kicked with either one foot or two. Here Silas demonstrates one of the jumps. This one Ian estimates was about 9 feet tall! For further, even better photographs, check out Steve’s Return of the Sun pictures at ArtClip. While all of this was going on, Eowyn had a very exciting week as well. She got her first two teeth and we started her on solid food! The teeth weren’t much of a surprise as she’s been showing signs for quite a while but one morning, there they were! It is the two bottom ones that have arrived. That, added to the other signs that she was ready for solids, convinced me to start. Well, there you have it. A visitor, the sun and some teeth. It was great to meet Susie and make a new friend. It was great to reacquaint ourselves with the sun. And it’s great to see Aowyn’s first teeth. And, I was right. Long post. Took me two days to get it done! Written by Jennifer
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On Thursday all of the Elementary school teachers were taken on a boat ride. Six or seven local elders and fishermen were commissioned to take us through some very cold water, across the straight and over to Baffin island which is said to be the original settlement of Inuit people in this area. On the way we stopped briefly on another island where we were greeted on the beach by a very excited sled dog team. These dogs are left on the island all summer where they run free together. Their owner visits the island regularly to bring them meat. These nine dogs were very healthy-looking, even more so than most here in town. What a life. An island all to themselves to run and play and rest in the sun and someone to bring them rich, delicious food! And they have each other to keep warm at night. As our boats approached the beach, many of us were apprehensive because the dogs were jumping over each other, barking and some even strode out into the freezing water to get closer. Three of our boats beached and Ian and I got out to explore. One of the guides’ sons kept the dogs busy so they wouldn’t run us over. Just a few meters up the beach where there were short grasses and mosses, bones littered the ground. There were mostly large vertebrae and rib bones but a couple little skulls, probably of ermines or lemmings. One bone Ian picked up had maggots on it, indicating that indeed the life cycle of decomposers works in the arctic. Once we got to Baffin, we climbed the rocky shoreline over boulders to get our instructions. Our guides would get the stoves hot for lunch while we explored the island, making our way to an old church. On the way across the island it was somewhat difficult to walk over boulders and rock crevices, avoiding the odd puddle formed in a rock’s indentation. Many children had run across the entire island’s length to greet our boats and as we carefully made our way across the landscape, they gingerly jumped and ran ahead and back to us, anxious to see their old teachers and meet the new ones. These children camp on the island with their families for the summer and return to their communities when hunting and fishing is done for the island. Eventually the land softened into a flatter area covered with thick mosses and short grasses. The earth underfoot was so thick and soft your feet would sink into it at each step. This ecosystem was so incredibly different from our own community. There was so much plant life, so much green compared to our hard-packed gravel. Two of the bright-eyed children offered us a plant saying, “We eat this”. We aren’t sure what it was but it was sweet and yummy. Arriving at the old missionary church, an elder, full of historical and cultural knowledge gave us a talk about the church and the settlement. The church had been rebuilt in 1922 after the original had burnt down in 1920. It was constructed of wood with some remaining sod stacked on the outside walls for insulation. The wood had been brought by early European arctic explorers. Once you stepped through the very low door, inside were a few rough benches along the walls and a simple wooden cross at the front where the alter would have been. The bell had long been removed from the bell housing and the hole in the roof could still be seen where the stove would have been. Not too far from the church was an amazing sight. Many collapsed sod houses could be seen scattered across the land. They had been built in the mid-1800s and were still in use as much as 50 years ago. There are people living in our community that were born in these sod houses. You could still make out the piles of sod strips stacked up for the walls but the roofs had collapsed into the middle. Short, slender stones still stood at the doorways where they would have supported the sod atop them. The children jumped in and played as if in a sandbox, while we listened to the elder detail the life of the people who would have lived there. Julie, the archeologist who had accompanied us on this trip, reminded us of the fines and jail time associated with removing or disturbing anything in an official archeological site, which this most certainly was. Julie had an interesting discussion with the elders about the Inuit’s access to their own historical sites. What a rare experience. Scattered all across this area were walrus skulls and vertebrae. The people living there would have dragged them from the ice up to the settlement and used every part that they could. Not finding any other bones indicates that the rib cages would have been used as well as all organs and skins. Lemmings and ermines now inhabit the island. Further across the island was a cemetery. Bodies had been laid on the ground and possibly covered in sod and then had large stones piled atop the graves, each with a cross to mark it, held in place also by a pile of rocks. One grave in particular had not had sod to fill in the grave so what was left was a pile of stones hollow inside but for the bones of the person who had long past. The children were anxious for us to peak through the holes between the stones to see the remains. It felt odd to experience this. Having seen many skeletal remains on television with all the crime-related shows we like, it seemed ordinary at first followed by the realization of how profound it was. This person had been incredibly resilient and resourceful, using knowledge now largely lost and experiencing a life, only known now by a few, having been passed down by his or her children. And here we were peering into his or her final resting place. Amazing. One very large, stark-white cross marked a grave across a bluff from the cemetery, high on a cliff over-looking the ocean. This marked the grave of our guide’s grandfather. After our historical lesson, we returned to the boulder shore where our boats were anchored. We each found a spot to sit and enjoyed our bagged lunches and cup-o-noodles. Some of the children had followed us all the way back and waited patiently to have a teacher share their noodles or grapes or cookies. Julie brought 2 boxes of girl-guide cookies, which were a big hit. One of the elders had thrown out a net and caught some char for the elders to eat. Our principal had taken some to give to us newbies to eat raw. The flavour was almost non-existent but Ian and I both had difficulty getting it down due to the texture. I have never been a sushi lover and while I was glad to have the experience I must say I did not enjoy the raw char. The elders loved it saying that raw was the best way to eat it. Crouched low to the ground, surrounding the dead fish, they would take a large piece, place one end between their teeth and, holding the other end with one hand, cut it off at their lips with a large knife.
On the boat ride back, the water was a bit rougher – thank goodness for Gore-tex! Ian’s guide seemed to enjoy hitting the waves at just the right angle and speed so as to cause a splash of water to hit Ian square-on. I too got pretty wet and was thankful someone had told me to wear my heavy parka. It was a fabulous experience and we hope to have more like it, perhaps with more wildlife. -posted by jennifer Our little hamlet has seen quite a flurry of activity lately that will culminate with some big events this weekend. It all started about two weeks ago when Ralph Fiennes came to town. Jennifer met him while walking Kuniq and played it cool. We understood him to be rather shy so she didn’t want to invade his privacy. Then we had a couple of pilots stop by who are trying to be the first to fly around the worldvia the south and north poles. They are doing it in a helicopter and should finish in Texas very soon. Just as the helicopter was leaving us, the Nunavut Quest dog team race started. It finished a few days ago in Repulse Bay and the only female entrant came in first. She wins $10 000. Hopefully her experience will encourage more women to enter in future races. She was the first female to participate in the ten years of the race, and she’s only 19! Now Igloolik will play host to the big finale for Global Warming 101. This has been a four month long, 1 900 kilometer dog-sled expedition organized and led by explorer Will Steger. They are trying to draw more attention to global climate change and specifically how it will affect this brutal yet fragile land.
The expedition includes 3 Iglulingmiut (local Inuit men) who will be very happy to be home with their families after four long months. However, first we need a media and publicity spotlight for the big finish. The teams will arrive around lunch time on Friday. School will be dismissed at 10:30 a.m. so we can go down to the ice to greet them. One of the arriving members will be Richard Branson (british ‘Virgin’ billionaire), whom none of the kids had heard of. His presence has already started to bring in the media and a film crew. Friday afternoon will consist of a concert by Jewel (remember her: who will save your soul?). Personally, I would be a bit more excited if it were a White Stripes show. Events will finish with a community feast on Saturday. All of these ‘celebrities’ and necessary entourage have resulted in the 20 hotel rooms being double and triple booked. So we’ll be putting up a couple of people at our house. I’ll let you know if it turns out to be either Branson and/or Jewel. |
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