Cody bumps his head at the old dear bar in Ireland.
Shawna looks at pretty while we sit at the patio of the olde bar
.
Tuesday 3 July 2018
Ireland
Shawna looks at pretty while we sit at the patio of the olde bar
.
Sunday 27 July 2014
First Post - 2014/2015 School Year.
Alright. If you scroll down you see a similar named post for a school year two years ago. I'm going to try this again. People keep telling me that they read this little operation when I do update it, so I might as well try. I'm going to do shorter posts to start, ease into things.
Here's what's up: We left Otter Lake at 4am today, arrived at the Ottawa Airport by 5am, boarded and left for a connection in Toronto - hour-ish flight. We walked off and walked back on for our Toronto - Edmonton leg - perhaps 4 ish hours. Hopped off there for about 15 minutes and boarded for Yellowknife. Arrived safe and sound in about 1hr 25min.
Here in sunny Yellowknife the weather is hot, the town looks beautiful, and the sky is full of smoke. Forest Fires are ravaging the surrounding area resulting in a steady smell of smoke and even delayed flights due to viability. Friends in Taloyoak told us to stock up while laying over here in YK because cargo has been affected by the fires. Apparently the stores are a bit bare.
No pictures of anything up here now, but here's a picture from our honeymoon so there is a visual aid to accompany the post. Find the "H" for Harry and "A" for Anne. Some of the only remains of King Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn's marriage at Hampton Palace.
Here's what's up: We left Otter Lake at 4am today, arrived at the Ottawa Airport by 5am, boarded and left for a connection in Toronto - hour-ish flight. We walked off and walked back on for our Toronto - Edmonton leg - perhaps 4 ish hours. Hopped off there for about 15 minutes and boarded for Yellowknife. Arrived safe and sound in about 1hr 25min.
Here in sunny Yellowknife the weather is hot, the town looks beautiful, and the sky is full of smoke. Forest Fires are ravaging the surrounding area resulting in a steady smell of smoke and even delayed flights due to viability. Friends in Taloyoak told us to stock up while laying over here in YK because cargo has been affected by the fires. Apparently the stores are a bit bare.
No pictures of anything up here now, but here's a picture from our honeymoon so there is a visual aid to accompany the post. Find the "H" for Harry and "A" for Anne. Some of the only remains of King Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn's marriage at Hampton Palace.
Friday 3 August 2012
Blog Numero Uno of the 2012 - 2013 School Year
Blog Numero Uno of the 2012 - 2013 School Year
Topics of discussion:
Introductory rant
Northern flying habits
News on the school front
Land walking bonannza
Blizzard in August! (Bazinga! No blizzards yet)
So we are here for our second year of living in the wonderful North. We began our journey early on the morning on July 27th from Ottawa Airport. From Ottawa we proceeded onward to Pearson Airport, then to Edmonton, and to Yellowknife. The quick layover in Yellowknife was at the classy Explorer Hotel. Interestingly, Yellowknife is quite the happening spot in the summertime. At the hotel were many, many fishermen, a number of northern professionals on their way back to work, and the cast and crew of CBC's Arctic Air. They are there for 11 days to complete some exterior shots and then are back to B.C. for the rest of the stuff they do. We left Yellowknife with a few issues - which I'll go over later - and arrived at the Taloyoak airport safe and sound. With dog in hand. Oh ya, we got a dog. His name is Kahlua.
Northern flying. The north is quite the operation. There's a word that is used up here when any number of things are going wrong with the airplane. This magic word can encompass anything from a blown up engine, to flat tire, or a lazy pilot. Maybe not a lazy pilot, but it's a pretty broad term. The term is "mechanical" - as in "We got stuck in Yellowknife for an extra day because our plane went mechanical." or, "We went down the runway three times, tried to take off twice, then the pilot said we're staying on the ground. The flight attendant said the plane went mechanical.". To get back on track, our plane went mechanical the morning we were supposed to fly out. They got the issue worked out so we did leave on the proper date - but like 6 hours later. Jordan - a new hire and an old friend (we will talk about him more in News on the school front - got stuck in Yellowknife for the reasons used above to explain mechanical. Back to us, mostly everything went well. A few of our bags didn't fit on the airplane, but they eventually caught up with us a few hours later.
These fun activities and situations are just the joys of flying in the North. Things rarely leave on time, bags rarely fly with you, the food and service is always top notch. Is it just me or are the jokes about airplane food bologna. I think the food is awesome.
News on the school front. So we have started our school year. The first three days for teachers have been without students. We have had our first staff meeting, begun to set up our classrooms, and had a Professional Development day. There are some new staff at the school. Three ladies and one fella. The fella is Jordan, my good buddy from university. He, Shawna, and I will be living together this year. Jordan is teaching Phys Ed and Shawna and I are teaching Grade 7 again. Everything at the school is going well and we are all excited for the upcoming school year. As we walk around town it's been nice to see our old students and the new ones too. Quite nice coming back home and seeing all the familiar faces. Not a whole lot to comment about on the school front. Our first day is on Tuesday, so sometime thereafter I can speak more to that.
Land walking bonannza! I always like an exciting preface. Bonannza is as good a word as any I do declare. We've had some nice walks out on the land. The land is unreal this time of year. Shawna describes it as Scotland without the trees. In Taloyoak and surrounding area we are lucky enough to have a very diverse landscape. We have the tundra and the plains, mountains and rock and things to climb, beaches with beautiful sand along the Arctic Ocean, and of course oodles of lakes. We are currently on the tail end of 24hour sunlight. The sun doesn't really go down, but it mills around the horizon for a while as the moon does the same move. We were walking out on the land this week and looked around to realize something pretty interesting - on my immediate right was the moon and on my immediate left was the sun. There's not too many places on the earth that the sun and the moon are in place directly across from each other. If there are a lot of places like that, comment and tell me about them. I will respond with, "Oh neat. I didn't know that.".
Anyways, Kahlua has been having a ball out on the land. He is chasing siq-siqs (groundhog meets squirrel), climbing rocks, jumping in water, and tiring himself out. This is a good thing. When he is tired he sleeps, and when he sleeps he's not peeing in the house. Fact: puppies pee in the house. He's doing okay with the training - I think it's more or less our fault for not taking him out regularly enough. Don't worry, I get it, every half hour. He's been pretty good the last 48hrs, so fingers crossed.
Fishing has also been added to the repertoire. Jordan has obtained his fishing license from the interim Renewable Resources Officer - our good friend John Harris, who is also the local RCMP boss guy. He has a military term for his position, I'm not sure what it is right now. The point is that he calls the shots. But ya, fishing. Jordan is hardcore about it, I've got a short attention span but I like being outside, Shawna brings a book, and Kahlua runs around. In short, it's a good time.
So that's all for now. We're about to go for a walk and see if we can track down some fish. Oh ya, we had sushi the other night! One of our fellow teachers at the school gave us a char from the bunch she, her husband, and son caught. Fantastically nice gesture and delish fish. We made some rolls, ate some sashmai (straight up raw), and then pan fried up some pieces with glorious breading made by Jordan. Oh, and Jordan cut it up too.
So that's it now. More to come.
Topics of discussion:
Introductory rant
Northern flying habits
News on the school front
Land walking bonannza
Blizzard in August! (Bazinga! No blizzards yet)
So we are here for our second year of living in the wonderful North. We began our journey early on the morning on July 27th from Ottawa Airport. From Ottawa we proceeded onward to Pearson Airport, then to Edmonton, and to Yellowknife. The quick layover in Yellowknife was at the classy Explorer Hotel. Interestingly, Yellowknife is quite the happening spot in the summertime. At the hotel were many, many fishermen, a number of northern professionals on their way back to work, and the cast and crew of CBC's Arctic Air. They are there for 11 days to complete some exterior shots and then are back to B.C. for the rest of the stuff they do. We left Yellowknife with a few issues - which I'll go over later - and arrived at the Taloyoak airport safe and sound. With dog in hand. Oh ya, we got a dog. His name is Kahlua.
Northern flying. The north is quite the operation. There's a word that is used up here when any number of things are going wrong with the airplane. This magic word can encompass anything from a blown up engine, to flat tire, or a lazy pilot. Maybe not a lazy pilot, but it's a pretty broad term. The term is "mechanical" - as in "We got stuck in Yellowknife for an extra day because our plane went mechanical." or, "We went down the runway three times, tried to take off twice, then the pilot said we're staying on the ground. The flight attendant said the plane went mechanical.". To get back on track, our plane went mechanical the morning we were supposed to fly out. They got the issue worked out so we did leave on the proper date - but like 6 hours later. Jordan - a new hire and an old friend (we will talk about him more in News on the school front - got stuck in Yellowknife for the reasons used above to explain mechanical. Back to us, mostly everything went well. A few of our bags didn't fit on the airplane, but they eventually caught up with us a few hours later.
These fun activities and situations are just the joys of flying in the North. Things rarely leave on time, bags rarely fly with you, the food and service is always top notch. Is it just me or are the jokes about airplane food bologna. I think the food is awesome.News on the school front. So we have started our school year. The first three days for teachers have been without students. We have had our first staff meeting, begun to set up our classrooms, and had a Professional Development day. There are some new staff at the school. Three ladies and one fella. The fella is Jordan, my good buddy from university. He, Shawna, and I will be living together this year. Jordan is teaching Phys Ed and Shawna and I are teaching Grade 7 again. Everything at the school is going well and we are all excited for the upcoming school year. As we walk around town it's been nice to see our old students and the new ones too. Quite nice coming back home and seeing all the familiar faces. Not a whole lot to comment about on the school front. Our first day is on Tuesday, so sometime thereafter I can speak more to that.
Land walking bonannza! I always like an exciting preface. Bonannza is as good a word as any I do declare. We've had some nice walks out on the land. The land is unreal this time of year. Shawna describes it as Scotland without the trees. In Taloyoak and surrounding area we are lucky enough to have a very diverse landscape. We have the tundra and the plains, mountains and rock and things to climb, beaches with beautiful sand along the Arctic Ocean, and of course oodles of lakes. We are currently on the tail end of 24hour sunlight. The sun doesn't really go down, but it mills around the horizon for a while as the moon does the same move. We were walking out on the land this week and looked around to realize something pretty interesting - on my immediate right was the moon and on my immediate left was the sun. There's not too many places on the earth that the sun and the moon are in place directly across from each other. If there are a lot of places like that, comment and tell me about them. I will respond with, "Oh neat. I didn't know that.".
Anyways, Kahlua has been having a ball out on the land. He is chasing siq-siqs (groundhog meets squirrel), climbing rocks, jumping in water, and tiring himself out. This is a good thing. When he is tired he sleeps, and when he sleeps he's not peeing in the house. Fact: puppies pee in the house. He's doing okay with the training - I think it's more or less our fault for not taking him out regularly enough. Don't worry, I get it, every half hour. He's been pretty good the last 48hrs, so fingers crossed. Fishing has also been added to the repertoire. Jordan has obtained his fishing license from the interim Renewable Resources Officer - our good friend John Harris, who is also the local RCMP boss guy. He has a military term for his position, I'm not sure what it is right now. The point is that he calls the shots. But ya, fishing. Jordan is hardcore about it, I've got a short attention span but I like being outside, Shawna brings a book, and Kahlua runs around. In short, it's a good time.
So that's all for now. We're about to go for a walk and see if we can track down some fish. Oh ya, we had sushi the other night! One of our fellow teachers at the school gave us a char from the bunch she, her husband, and son caught. Fantastically nice gesture and delish fish. We made some rolls, ate some sashmai (straight up raw), and then pan fried up some pieces with glorious breading made by Jordan. Oh, and Jordan cut it up too.
So that's it now. More to come.
Saturday 14 April 2012
Spring Times bring ... snow.
Synopsis - TBS Movie Night style:
Sun is up for a long time, 3am to 9pm
Weather is warming but is still chilly to -20 to -30 daily
YMCA Youth exchange is complete and went well
Seal and Ice Fishing is pretty fun
Shawna is allergic to nuts and eats them anyways - will power will defeat this allergy: #30Rock #Jack Donaghue
Extended Version - BlueRay style:
Well the sun is up it keeps on going up. I suppose the first thing I'll update about is the weather. Interestingly enough talking about the weather is sort of a traditional thing. I know that everyone talks about weather and it's always that dry topic that you go to when there's not much else to say. As I've learned in my introduction to Inuktitut classes that was taught by a local elder - commenting on the weather is the known first concern in conversation - traditionally. I say traditionally because there are many people who - operate I'll say - in the standard Canadian way just as everyone all over the country lives, and there are others that embrace traditional Inuit lifestyle. Past this ramble - the first question to an elder or traditional person is not "Hi." or "How are you?", it's "The weather's nice today.", or "That wind is terrible!". Just one of those things.
Today? The weather is quite nice. It's somewhere around -20 and there's no wind. The sky is clear and the tundra is bright with snow wildlife. Arctic Hares and Foxes and still the only land animals around right now. The crows are still here, and have never left. Notable for everyone: crows in the north do not sound like crows in the south. I am very versed in the sound of the crow from Ontario - another story - and the crow up here is quite different. I would categorize the noise of the Northern crow in the honk sound family, in contrast to the ear piercing yelp of the southern counterpart. There are also Musk-Ox and Polar Bears in and around the area, but you need to drive perhaps 2-3 hours in specific directions to track these fellas down. I haven't heard of anyone in town getting a musk-ox yet, but I do know of 3 people that have got polar bears. One is allowed to hunt these two animals if you obtain a tag from the renewable resources office. Both animals as per the NLCA (Nunabut Land Claim Agreement) have a TAH (total allowable harvest) put on them yearly by local boards in association with the territorial and federal governments. I teach social studies! haha
The sun is currently beginning to rise at about 3:30am and will go down around 9:00pm. Lots of sun light and lots of time for the kids to be "playing out". Local idiom for playing outside. The attendance in school changes in accordance with sun light hours. The recent week has been notably poor for attendance because we just finished our spring break and the kids are really into the routine of school. For spring break here in Taloyoak it is popular to go visit friends or family in the community over, Gjoa Haven. Gjoa Haven is either a 35minute flight or between a 6 and 12 hour snowmobile ride. Families and friends hop on their machines and sometimes drag a kamatic (traditional sled) behind the machine and make the trek. If you drive "full blast" you can get there in the 6 hours assuming you have goo weather and don't break down part way. If you have poor weather and have to drive slow, you're dealing with the 12 hour option. Back to attendance - some kids go to Gjoa Haven for the week then can't get back, don't come back, or leave for the town on the Sunday at the end of spring break and then they're there for the following week. Quite the operation.
Of general interest, a local fellow has been trapping foxes since about December. There's been a large influx in the fox population this winter - he suggested it was due to the increase in lemmings around town in the summer. Sounded good to me. Either way, foxes were milling their way into town scoring rabbies, biting dogs, sometimes biting humans - so this fellow decided to set up about 15 traps all around town. One of the kids in my class got bit by a fox back in February. He was wearing his big winter boots so the fox didn't get through. He went to the health center for his rabbies shot and promptly came to school the next morning. He's a good kid. Anyways, the fellow who set the traps was able to trap so far a little over 40 of them. I'm going to load some pictures next week due to my internet being close to it's capacity right now. He puts the foxes out once every week or so to air out. So you can walk by his house and see a large mound of frozen foxes with their mouth open and head cocked over like they're saying "dammit". Pretty cool site to see. He plans to sell the furs in a fur trade in the south.
In regards to our goings on at school we just completed the first half of our YMCA Youth Exchange with Riverside Public School in Mississauga, ON. 15 kids arrived in Taloyoak on the 21st of March and were here until the 29th. The kids stayed with their buddy's at their homes each night. All of our kids' families were very welcoming and provided a great experience for the Ontario kids. We were able to go out on the land on a Sealing trip and an Ice Fishing trip. Both trips we took the kids out to the respective spots by snowmachine and kamatic. We hired guides - people who know things about the land - to drive the machines. It's quite the operation setting up these trips. We set up 4 canvas tents at each location. A few warming tents, and then a cooking tent. We had caribou stew and char soup for lunch - made out on the land using coleman camping stoves.
Sealing is quite a venture. We only found 1 seal hole when we went sealing and didn't end up catching one. A seal hole is oh, about the size of a toonie or so. Below that toonie sized hole is a large opening and leads down through the ice. The seal will come up for air and as your standing over the hole you jab the harpoon down and stab him in the face. It's intense. We didn't get to see this happen. Sealing is a patient game. You literally stand over the hole for hours on end waiting for this silly thing to come up for air. The chances of us catching a seal on this day were slim because as soon as the hole was found a dozen kids fluttered around it. The seals are much smarter than to come up to a hole with all of that commotion around it.
Ice fishing is a much more rewarding activity. First off you must dig down in the snow until you get to ice level. Depending on the lake and the area that you are in the snow will vary in depth. I'll put the dig on average at 3 or feet or so. So you dig a circular hole that would have a diameter of maybe 2 feet. Then you pull out the ice auger. Start drilling and keep going. You will require an extension to get the whole way through. The ice we were chopping through was about 5-6 feet thick. If you don't have an extension long enough there is an instrument that is used that is about 8 feet long with a chizel head that you can use to get down to the water. Every few minutes of digging you jump down in the hole and clear our the ice chips. As you hit water the hole fills up! You drop your jigger (foot and half piece of hockey stick with line attached) and jig. When you feel the fish you pull the line up with your hands in a unique fashion, yank the fish out of the hole and get all wack-a-mole on it with your jigger. And that's nothern ice fishing.
So that's the major update for right now. Pictures to follow. All is well.
Ps. - Shawna is currently craving chocolate. I bought some Turtles on sale at the co-op yesterday for 75% off, sweet deal. For those of you who know her well, she has a nut allergy. It's minor, her mouth will just go a big numb. She's currently eating the turtle - "I wonder how many nuts are in these, I could eat around them." This is why I cannot take her allergy seriously.
Sun is up for a long time, 3am to 9pm
Weather is warming but is still chilly to -20 to -30 daily
YMCA Youth exchange is complete and went well
Seal and Ice Fishing is pretty fun
Shawna is allergic to nuts and eats them anyways - will power will defeat this allergy: #30Rock #Jack Donaghue
Extended Version - BlueRay style:
Well the sun is up it keeps on going up. I suppose the first thing I'll update about is the weather. Interestingly enough talking about the weather is sort of a traditional thing. I know that everyone talks about weather and it's always that dry topic that you go to when there's not much else to say. As I've learned in my introduction to Inuktitut classes that was taught by a local elder - commenting on the weather is the known first concern in conversation - traditionally. I say traditionally because there are many people who - operate I'll say - in the standard Canadian way just as everyone all over the country lives, and there are others that embrace traditional Inuit lifestyle. Past this ramble - the first question to an elder or traditional person is not "Hi." or "How are you?", it's "The weather's nice today.", or "That wind is terrible!". Just one of those things.
Today? The weather is quite nice. It's somewhere around -20 and there's no wind. The sky is clear and the tundra is bright with snow wildlife. Arctic Hares and Foxes and still the only land animals around right now. The crows are still here, and have never left. Notable for everyone: crows in the north do not sound like crows in the south. I am very versed in the sound of the crow from Ontario - another story - and the crow up here is quite different. I would categorize the noise of the Northern crow in the honk sound family, in contrast to the ear piercing yelp of the southern counterpart. There are also Musk-Ox and Polar Bears in and around the area, but you need to drive perhaps 2-3 hours in specific directions to track these fellas down. I haven't heard of anyone in town getting a musk-ox yet, but I do know of 3 people that have got polar bears. One is allowed to hunt these two animals if you obtain a tag from the renewable resources office. Both animals as per the NLCA (Nunabut Land Claim Agreement) have a TAH (total allowable harvest) put on them yearly by local boards in association with the territorial and federal governments. I teach social studies! haha
The sun is currently beginning to rise at about 3:30am and will go down around 9:00pm. Lots of sun light and lots of time for the kids to be "playing out". Local idiom for playing outside. The attendance in school changes in accordance with sun light hours. The recent week has been notably poor for attendance because we just finished our spring break and the kids are really into the routine of school. For spring break here in Taloyoak it is popular to go visit friends or family in the community over, Gjoa Haven. Gjoa Haven is either a 35minute flight or between a 6 and 12 hour snowmobile ride. Families and friends hop on their machines and sometimes drag a kamatic (traditional sled) behind the machine and make the trek. If you drive "full blast" you can get there in the 6 hours assuming you have goo weather and don't break down part way. If you have poor weather and have to drive slow, you're dealing with the 12 hour option. Back to attendance - some kids go to Gjoa Haven for the week then can't get back, don't come back, or leave for the town on the Sunday at the end of spring break and then they're there for the following week. Quite the operation.
Of general interest, a local fellow has been trapping foxes since about December. There's been a large influx in the fox population this winter - he suggested it was due to the increase in lemmings around town in the summer. Sounded good to me. Either way, foxes were milling their way into town scoring rabbies, biting dogs, sometimes biting humans - so this fellow decided to set up about 15 traps all around town. One of the kids in my class got bit by a fox back in February. He was wearing his big winter boots so the fox didn't get through. He went to the health center for his rabbies shot and promptly came to school the next morning. He's a good kid. Anyways, the fellow who set the traps was able to trap so far a little over 40 of them. I'm going to load some pictures next week due to my internet being close to it's capacity right now. He puts the foxes out once every week or so to air out. So you can walk by his house and see a large mound of frozen foxes with their mouth open and head cocked over like they're saying "dammit". Pretty cool site to see. He plans to sell the furs in a fur trade in the south.
In regards to our goings on at school we just completed the first half of our YMCA Youth Exchange with Riverside Public School in Mississauga, ON. 15 kids arrived in Taloyoak on the 21st of March and were here until the 29th. The kids stayed with their buddy's at their homes each night. All of our kids' families were very welcoming and provided a great experience for the Ontario kids. We were able to go out on the land on a Sealing trip and an Ice Fishing trip. Both trips we took the kids out to the respective spots by snowmachine and kamatic. We hired guides - people who know things about the land - to drive the machines. It's quite the operation setting up these trips. We set up 4 canvas tents at each location. A few warming tents, and then a cooking tent. We had caribou stew and char soup for lunch - made out on the land using coleman camping stoves.
Sealing is quite a venture. We only found 1 seal hole when we went sealing and didn't end up catching one. A seal hole is oh, about the size of a toonie or so. Below that toonie sized hole is a large opening and leads down through the ice. The seal will come up for air and as your standing over the hole you jab the harpoon down and stab him in the face. It's intense. We didn't get to see this happen. Sealing is a patient game. You literally stand over the hole for hours on end waiting for this silly thing to come up for air. The chances of us catching a seal on this day were slim because as soon as the hole was found a dozen kids fluttered around it. The seals are much smarter than to come up to a hole with all of that commotion around it.
Ice fishing is a much more rewarding activity. First off you must dig down in the snow until you get to ice level. Depending on the lake and the area that you are in the snow will vary in depth. I'll put the dig on average at 3 or feet or so. So you dig a circular hole that would have a diameter of maybe 2 feet. Then you pull out the ice auger. Start drilling and keep going. You will require an extension to get the whole way through. The ice we were chopping through was about 5-6 feet thick. If you don't have an extension long enough there is an instrument that is used that is about 8 feet long with a chizel head that you can use to get down to the water. Every few minutes of digging you jump down in the hole and clear our the ice chips. As you hit water the hole fills up! You drop your jigger (foot and half piece of hockey stick with line attached) and jig. When you feel the fish you pull the line up with your hands in a unique fashion, yank the fish out of the hole and get all wack-a-mole on it with your jigger. And that's nothern ice fishing.
So that's the major update for right now. Pictures to follow. All is well.
Ps. - Shawna is currently craving chocolate. I bought some Turtles on sale at the co-op yesterday for 75% off, sweet deal. For those of you who know her well, she has a nut allergy. It's minor, her mouth will just go a big numb. She's currently eating the turtle - "I wonder how many nuts are in these, I could eat around them." This is why I cannot take her allergy seriously.
Tuesday 6 March 2012
The Current ... and Igloos
This is a current picture at about 5:00pm or so. This picture was taken just outside Taloyoak - to the west of the town I think. Notice the Arctic Hare to the right of the little shack. The left of the photo is the frozen Arctic Ocean. Looking on a map, Taloyoak is within Spence Bay which is a small inlet on the East side James Ross Strait. On the East side of the Strait is the Boothia Peninsula and on the West is King William Island. At the bottom of King William Island is the closest community to Taloyoak, Gjoa Haven (pronounced JOE HAVEN). I'm sort of on tangent right now, running between the computer a map of Nunavut I have on the fridge. Oh well, I'm getting to some interesting stuff.
I was talking with one of my students this last week about getting to Gjoa Haven. A lot of people will make the trek from this community across the ocean when the sun gets nice and high. We're almost at that point right now. I think we're dealing with around 12 hours of sunlight - gaining 20 minutes a day. She told me that it would take about 8 hours on ski-doo, depending on how fast you like to drive! Coming up soon will be the Classic Hockey game between the two communities. The ice in our arena is pretty sketchy right now, so apparently we might not host a game - but Gjoa Haven's rink is doing well. I'm told everyone and their dog hops on a plane and zips over to watch the game. Once the tickets are sold out many will gather on their ski-doos and kamatics and drive on over. Kamatic is a sled that is towed behind the snowmobile. It's a big sled made from 2x4s - the sled runners were traditionally caribou skin attached to probably a big whale bone or any other wood that could be found. Today the sled runners are a hard plastic that you can buy at the co-op!
Anyways, that picture up there is of the ocean.
So it seems like the warm spell we were getting not too long ago was some sick joke. The last two weeks have been quite cold and there are no signs of it slowing down. Not to be too misleading, I should mention that the cold up here is a dry cold. As some of you may have recall my great interest in the difference between dry and wet colds before I left to come up, there is a major difference. Our lack of humidity makes a big difference in what we call -50 here versus Ontario. Someone once explained the North to me as a sort of desert. It's a huge frozen desert, no humidity - thus barely any precipitation.The snow that we have all came in the early winter. Since around December there hasn't been much snow fall at all. In the picture on the right I'm standing with one of the elders in the community, Nauyak, he taught Shawna and I how to build an igloo. The stick that he's holding is used to measure how deep the first layer of snow is. A good amount of snow for igloo building is about 3/4s of the way up that stick. To bring this all back together before I go on about the igloo - the point is that the cold weather causes the snow to harden and create layers. The first layer varies in size, but is anywhere between 1 foot to 3 feet thick or so.
The first step in building the igloo is to fin a nice flat spot where the snow is good and thick. The snow can't be too hard or it will cause the blocks to break when you pull them out - and the snow can't be too soft of the blocks won't hold together at all. The circle that you can see in the picture on the left is how you plan out the basic size of the igloo. The one we are about to build is suitable for 2 adults to sleep, probably 4 to sit in comfortably.
Technically you should be able to build the whole igloo with just the blocks inside the circle that you draw - but if the blocks start to break then you can always get some snow somewhere else - there's no lack of it! We cut the blocks out of the snow with a tool called a Pana - which is the man's knife. We also use regular wood saws to cut the snow too. You can see the saws in the back there. There's a process to cutting the first block - but it's too much to type out.
On the right hand side beside Shawna you can see all the botched snow blocks. The majority of those are my fault. You have to be really patient when you cut the blocks out of the snow to a) make sure you are cutting in a straight line, b) make sure all the edges are cut away from the outside snow well, and c) pull the block out of the snow evenly and slowly. It took me a while to get the hang of that. Plus, the blocks were heavy, so heavy that Shawna couldn't pull them out. Well, I think she could pull them out, but she was too satisfied seeing me butchering them to do it too.
Also, I should mention that the hole there is the door to the igloo. Usually you don't cut the door out until the very end. Quite literally, you cut a hole out while you're inside because if you build the igloo properly you use all the snow from inside it's quarters for the walls and roof so by the end you've built a perfect circle around yourself. Due to my botched blocks we had to cut the door early to get out and get a hold of some more materials. The igloo floor is probably about a good foot and a half below where Shawna is standing.
I'm going to wrap things up here and leave you with a bunch of pictures from finishing up the igloo and then from later that weekend when we went out to the igloo with our friends Phil and Isabelle. The plan was to go out with a stove and firm up the igloo. Within a day or so of building the igloo you need to light a fire with a stove or something inside the igloo to the blocks and the snow on top have a chance to melt, then freeze together to build strength. That's the key to the whole thing. If you don't light the fire then it will collapse eventually. As you will, there is a gaping hole in the igloo in the later pictures. Some fierce wind, or bored kids, caused it it fall in.
All in all the basic process for building an igloo is outladishly impressive and those who know how to do it well have a serious grasp in masonry, some form of engineering - I suppose civil? Fournier brothers comment here. The whole thing spirals up and holds itself together, and is so strong, I'm told, it can bare the weight of a full grown polar bear on top of it. I don't think mine could do that. But a good one could!
Sunday 12 February 2012
Flying on the ground is wrong
So Iqaluit is further than we may have initially thought. Here's our current day's day-to-day, so to speak. We woke up at 8:00 and packed up our bags to head to the airport. The local school bus picked us up promptly around 9:00ish, along with most of the other teachers at the school. We arrived at the Taloyoak local airport -
[Attention Deficit Caused Discussion - skip over if you want continuity]
I say local because from our location you can only fly within Nunavut and or to Yellowknife. For those interested, we have no security check nor do we have any sort of 'southern esque' airport situation. I'm sure something about us is checked up upon when we give our photo ID to the fellow behind the desk - but there is no guy behind a desk looking into a black and white monitor that may or may not show the contents of our bags going through a luggage car wash. I think, and I may be wrong about this, the idea is that you can't get to the North without going through a legit security check further south, so anyone who is up here is not a threat anyways? I'm not sure. It's all good though. I have great faith in our airlines. To be fair we are flying in the Arctic and the track record is solid.
- and sat around the nice space, which is basically a 20 x 40 (I'm not awesome with my spatial sense, but it's small is the point) modest airport terminal. We got word that the ceiling was too low for the plane to land. I asked what a ceiling was. My principal and vice-principal then asked me simultaniously if I knew what the thing above me was, and then if I knew how to teach geography, then I realized I kind of do teach geography, then nothing much was said. A fellow later went outside with a balloon, to which my VP told me to go out and watch to see what a ceiling was. I thought he was messing with me, so I chuckled and didn't go out. More on that later. We were soon told that the flight was delayed and we should come back in a few hours. Shawna and I went home and had a nice perogy lunch, and then headed back to the airport at 1:00.
When we arrived back at the airport we continued to sit. The fellow went back outside with the balloon, and this time I believed the VP and our Student Support Teacher who told me to go watch him. Shawna and I went out to see the situation. So I guess a ceiling has to do with the plane's visability, as you might have gathered. When this guy lets go of this big red balloon he starts his timer and then watches the balloon. When he can't see the balloon anymore he stops his watch. Then he goes inside and checks out the time against some chart and then calculates the ceiling. If the ceiling is less than 2000ft (I heard) then the plane can't land. So my sources tell me earlier in the day this was the case.
Our ceiling was actually ok to land by 3:00, but we are still in Taloyoak right now because our charter to take us to Iqaluit from Yellowknife that was also supposed to take teachers from Gjoa Haven and Kugaaruk could simply wait no longer and had to leave. So, alas, teachers from Kugarruk are proabably arriving in Iqaluit now as we others are kickin it at home. I'm told this is the standard for Northern travel. Regularly, planes get cancelled and schedules get moved around. This is the life, move on.
We are now settled in our new house, it is quite nice. We have our living room generally set up and our surroundings have been decorated to about 3/4s of what they will be. Things we enjoy about our new place: #1 It is nice and quiet, which is a joyful change from the elders complex. Don't get me wrong, the socializing with grandchildren was quite nice each day - but I will admit that I prefer living life by our lonesome. Oh, lonesome me (Neil reference #2 for this blog. Good for you if you got the first one). #2 We have made a major improvement in the shower department. Now I know you would agree that a bench in your shower is a huge plus, the only issue with the elders complex shower was that there was not enough pressure to reach the bench at the back of the shower. Nor was there enough pressure to reach you standing in the middle of the shower. You must stand directly underneath the shower head to score some water. This is a terrible time. Our new shower has the same pressure as your standard 'jet' setting on the hose attachement. It's awesome. #3 The view is simply glorious. Our new house has a very nice view on one side looking down the main street toward the school, and on the other out to a great view of the Arctic Ocean. It's not the open Ocean, but it's still a big body of water you can't see across.
Things that might be interesting to one that has never been north: the caribou aren't back yet, the sun comes up around 8:00 am or so and goes down by about 3:00pm. It's been mild lately, between -20 and -30 pretty steady. Canada Goose does infact make the best outterware other than something locally made. If it's fur it's better. I almost bought a pair of polar bear pants the other day. They were only $700. If they were more fitting I would have perhaps made the deal, measurements were 48x32. Big pants. We had a few storms last week - snow drifts that are over 10ft in height are normal. It is not safe to walk a dog in a snow storm.
[Attention Deficit Caused Discussion - skip over if you want continuity]
I say local because from our location you can only fly within Nunavut and or to Yellowknife. For those interested, we have no security check nor do we have any sort of 'southern esque' airport situation. I'm sure something about us is checked up upon when we give our photo ID to the fellow behind the desk - but there is no guy behind a desk looking into a black and white monitor that may or may not show the contents of our bags going through a luggage car wash. I think, and I may be wrong about this, the idea is that you can't get to the North without going through a legit security check further south, so anyone who is up here is not a threat anyways? I'm not sure. It's all good though. I have great faith in our airlines. To be fair we are flying in the Arctic and the track record is solid.
- and sat around the nice space, which is basically a 20 x 40 (I'm not awesome with my spatial sense, but it's small is the point) modest airport terminal. We got word that the ceiling was too low for the plane to land. I asked what a ceiling was. My principal and vice-principal then asked me simultaniously if I knew what the thing above me was, and then if I knew how to teach geography, then I realized I kind of do teach geography, then nothing much was said. A fellow later went outside with a balloon, to which my VP told me to go out and watch to see what a ceiling was. I thought he was messing with me, so I chuckled and didn't go out. More on that later. We were soon told that the flight was delayed and we should come back in a few hours. Shawna and I went home and had a nice perogy lunch, and then headed back to the airport at 1:00.
When we arrived back at the airport we continued to sit. The fellow went back outside with the balloon, and this time I believed the VP and our Student Support Teacher who told me to go watch him. Shawna and I went out to see the situation. So I guess a ceiling has to do with the plane's visability, as you might have gathered. When this guy lets go of this big red balloon he starts his timer and then watches the balloon. When he can't see the balloon anymore he stops his watch. Then he goes inside and checks out the time against some chart and then calculates the ceiling. If the ceiling is less than 2000ft (I heard) then the plane can't land. So my sources tell me earlier in the day this was the case.
Our ceiling was actually ok to land by 3:00, but we are still in Taloyoak right now because our charter to take us to Iqaluit from Yellowknife that was also supposed to take teachers from Gjoa Haven and Kugaaruk could simply wait no longer and had to leave. So, alas, teachers from Kugarruk are proabably arriving in Iqaluit now as we others are kickin it at home. I'm told this is the standard for Northern travel. Regularly, planes get cancelled and schedules get moved around. This is the life, move on.
We are now settled in our new house, it is quite nice. We have our living room generally set up and our surroundings have been decorated to about 3/4s of what they will be. Things we enjoy about our new place: #1 It is nice and quiet, which is a joyful change from the elders complex. Don't get me wrong, the socializing with grandchildren was quite nice each day - but I will admit that I prefer living life by our lonesome. Oh, lonesome me (Neil reference #2 for this blog. Good for you if you got the first one). #2 We have made a major improvement in the shower department. Now I know you would agree that a bench in your shower is a huge plus, the only issue with the elders complex shower was that there was not enough pressure to reach the bench at the back of the shower. Nor was there enough pressure to reach you standing in the middle of the shower. You must stand directly underneath the shower head to score some water. This is a terrible time. Our new shower has the same pressure as your standard 'jet' setting on the hose attachement. It's awesome. #3 The view is simply glorious. Our new house has a very nice view on one side looking down the main street toward the school, and on the other out to a great view of the Arctic Ocean. It's not the open Ocean, but it's still a big body of water you can't see across.
Things that might be interesting to one that has never been north: the caribou aren't back yet, the sun comes up around 8:00 am or so and goes down by about 3:00pm. It's been mild lately, between -20 and -30 pretty steady. Canada Goose does infact make the best outterware other than something locally made. If it's fur it's better. I almost bought a pair of polar bear pants the other day. They were only $700. If they were more fitting I would have perhaps made the deal, measurements were 48x32. Big pants. We had a few storms last week - snow drifts that are over 10ft in height are normal. It is not safe to walk a dog in a snow storm.
In sum, Shawna and I will continue to reside in Taloyoak until we head out for our exchange trip in early April. Shawna has been working tirelessly (that's a tough word to spell. I just typed it into word and had no close word come up - like the times I always spell bureaucrat wrong, and it always suggest bearcat - I'm like, clearly I'm not talking about bear cats in this discussion on foreign policy. Either way, Shawna was able to spell tirelessly withing two tries. I was impressed. If you're not, then I'm impressed by you) on the YMCA Exchange Program and deserves major kudos. I have totally been slacking on her behalf, and she's doing a great job getting this thing together. If you've not heard, 15 kids from Mississauga are coming here in late March. It's a big deal.
Summing up the sum, we are doing well and things are moving along swimmingly. We are excited for summer soon, but are equally excited for the last third of our first year of teaching! It's been hard, fun, telling, and we are certainly looking forward to the years to come (I wanted one word for that last comment, but couldn't find one in my head).
More pictures to follow soonishly.
Monday 30 January 2012
Excessive Ignoring of the Blog
Good day to all,
Cole's Notes:
- Air Canada baggage is expensive, Canadian North is nice and cheap.
- It's been quite cold up here, but comparatively mild looking at past years. Average is around -35 day to day. As long as you wear a parka it's all good.
- We no longer live in the elders complex
- carvings and other such things around town are nice to buy
- life is good and we're living well
So we have totally ignored this blog for sometime, but new circumstances are allowing us to get back into the kick of things. I'm not sure if that's a turn of phrase or not, but you get the idea. So we got back to Taloyoak from Christmas break just fine. Not too much to report on those goings ons. I suppose something pertinent would be that if you're planning on travelling North, Air Canada are jerks for bags. Well, not jerks, but they make you pay a lot of money if you want to being heavy things. I suppose that's fair. In any case, we got dinged pretty hard in Toronto on our way out due to our fantastic Christmas presents and purchases. Things looked up after we paid the overages because in Yellowknife and beyond they don't really pay much attention to overages, they just push it along.
We arrived back into town on a blistering afternoon of -40 or so, balmy. When we arrived into town the sun had still not broken the horizon. Within our first week back or so - second week of January, the sun came up for the first time. Just sort of poked over the horizon. It was about 10:50am - I know this because I was on recess duty. Since then we have been gaining about 15 minutes of sunlight per day. Sun usually comes up around 7:00am, and by now the sun goes down by about 3:00pm.
We've been told by locals and such that this winter has been mild. That is not to say it's been warm, however. We've scored some pretty intense days, I think the coldest has been somewhere around the -55 point. Your standard day this year I'd say is between -25 to -35 -- any colder or warmer and you can say, "Wow, it's warm", or "Wow, it's cold". I just double checked with Shawna on that last sentence, and she seconds it.
To the reason why I'm updating this blog. We've got a new house! Exciting stuff for sure. On account of having a home we also got a new router for internet. We can use this router inside our quarters so there is much less chance of it getting stolen by hooligans. The place is very nice. It's actually a three bedroom house, but apparently the government decided they wanted to buy it so here we are. Housing up here is split between a few different options. You could buy a house, pfft. That would be called private. If you're purchasing a house you are usually planning on being a lifer. There's not much for 'flipping' houses up here. You can apply for Public Housing through the local housing authority - which is what the majority of people in town have. That is a government run and subsidized operation. You go on a list and get a house when availability allows for it. You can rent from a Real Estate company, like NPRIET (Northern Properties something something). Finally, if you are a Government of Nunavut employee - GN is the lingo - then you can be placed in a location of their choosing based on I'm not too sure. That is what we are now living in. It's managed by the local housing authority but rented out by the Government of Nunavut.
In regards to things that might be interesting to one that has never been in the north: around Taloyoak there are a ton of Arctic Hares milling around. They are the size of a small dog and can run like the dickens. They seem plump when they are sitting, but when they get moving - in the words of one of my students - they run "full blast". Foxes can be spotted around town. If the fox is rabid, it will be hunted. One of Shawna's students tried to seek out one fox that bit a few dogs around town with a shovel. He did not find it. The foxes are quite cool to see. They are very sly looking, and look like a fox from the south. Of course, the major difference is that they are entirely white - as are the hares.
The snow up here is still piling up. The base that we're dealing with in some areas is easily over 12 feet. The area that I'm thinking of is beside the power plant. The high wires around it aren't so high. It's probably dangerous, but I think the real scary wires are out of reach - it's just the telephone stuff that's at eye level.
We have also been buying some nice carvings and other nic nacs lately. A fellow in town named Simon makes very nice stuff, so we often buy his things. He is really talented at making dancing things. We have a dancing seal hunter, a dancing polar bear, and I got Dan a drum dancer for Christmas. The polar bear is at school, I'll post a picture of it later on. Shawna has been making out like a bandit getting mittens. The ladies around town often make very beautiful mitts for women. Not so much for men. I'm told this is because a man's mitts need to be made specifically for their hands. The mitts for women don't have to be so warm, they can just be pretty. The white and black ones are Arctic Hare (we are operating under the assumption that hare is now mittens because he was black and white - not very effective for camouflage). My mitts are made out of seal, and they are the big ones. The beige mitts are some sort of regular material and then fox fur around the outside. The purple ones are a regular material with stiching and are died black fox fur. If my Mom is reading this, we are sending those ones down to you. Go ahead and keep your white ones on display. The boots are called kamiks. They are indoor kamiks, made out of caribou leather and some other random stuff. Everything was made here in town.
I suppose that's good for an update right now.
Cole's Notes:
- Air Canada baggage is expensive, Canadian North is nice and cheap.
- It's been quite cold up here, but comparatively mild looking at past years. Average is around -35 day to day. As long as you wear a parka it's all good.
- We no longer live in the elders complex
- carvings and other such things around town are nice to buy
- life is good and we're living well
 |
| Muskox in Cambridge Bay |
 |
| Yellowknife Airport |
We've been told by locals and such that this winter has been mild. That is not to say it's been warm, however. We've scored some pretty intense days, I think the coldest has been somewhere around the -55 point. Your standard day this year I'd say is between -25 to -35 -- any colder or warmer and you can say, "Wow, it's warm", or "Wow, it's cold". I just double checked with Shawna on that last sentence, and she seconds it.
To the reason why I'm updating this blog. We've got a new house! Exciting stuff for sure. On account of having a home we also got a new router for internet. We can use this router inside our quarters so there is much less chance of it getting stolen by hooligans. The place is very nice. It's actually a three bedroom house, but apparently the government decided they wanted to buy it so here we are. Housing up here is split between a few different options. You could buy a house, pfft. That would be called private. If you're purchasing a house you are usually planning on being a lifer. There's not much for 'flipping' houses up here. You can apply for Public Housing through the local housing authority - which is what the majority of people in town have. That is a government run and subsidized operation. You go on a list and get a house when availability allows for it. You can rent from a Real Estate company, like NPRIET (Northern Properties something something). Finally, if you are a Government of Nunavut employee - GN is the lingo - then you can be placed in a location of their choosing based on I'm not too sure. That is what we are now living in. It's managed by the local housing authority but rented out by the Government of Nunavut.
In regards to things that might be interesting to one that has never been in the north: around Taloyoak there are a ton of Arctic Hares milling around. They are the size of a small dog and can run like the dickens. They seem plump when they are sitting, but when they get moving - in the words of one of my students - they run "full blast". Foxes can be spotted around town. If the fox is rabid, it will be hunted. One of Shawna's students tried to seek out one fox that bit a few dogs around town with a shovel. He did not find it. The foxes are quite cool to see. They are very sly looking, and look like a fox from the south. Of course, the major difference is that they are entirely white - as are the hares.
The snow up here is still piling up. The base that we're dealing with in some areas is easily over 12 feet. The area that I'm thinking of is beside the power plant. The high wires around it aren't so high. It's probably dangerous, but I think the real scary wires are out of reach - it's just the telephone stuff that's at eye level.
We have also been buying some nice carvings and other nic nacs lately. A fellow in town named Simon makes very nice stuff, so we often buy his things. He is really talented at making dancing things. We have a dancing seal hunter, a dancing polar bear, and I got Dan a drum dancer for Christmas. The polar bear is at school, I'll post a picture of it later on. Shawna has been making out like a bandit getting mittens. The ladies around town often make very beautiful mitts for women. Not so much for men. I'm told this is because a man's mitts need to be made specifically for their hands. The mitts for women don't have to be so warm, they can just be pretty. The white and black ones are Arctic Hare (we are operating under the assumption that hare is now mittens because he was black and white - not very effective for camouflage). My mitts are made out of seal, and they are the big ones. The beige mitts are some sort of regular material and then fox fur around the outside. The purple ones are a regular material with stiching and are died black fox fur. If my Mom is reading this, we are sending those ones down to you. Go ahead and keep your white ones on display. The boots are called kamiks. They are indoor kamiks, made out of caribou leather and some other random stuff. Everything was made here in town.
I suppose that's good for an update right now.
 |
| View from our new house looking out onto the Ocean |
A few pictures of the kids in my class.
Thursday 8 December 2011
The Blizzard
Well. Now that we are back to writing in our blog...we had a true Northern experience this past week, that I figured we could share with all you folks back home...most who still don't even have snow!
Monday afternoon we got word that a crazy blizzard was coming in. We were not at all surprized to get the news that we wouldn't be headed into school on Tuesday morning. We got the whole day off, but we took a wander out over to the school- mostly to use the internet. There wasn't too much snow, it was the wind that was crazy. Most storms in the north aren't too snow-based. The winds just rip across the tundra with nothing to slow them down and create these massive snow drifts. They absolutely tower above your heads and can bring the town to a stand still. The weather is comparatively warm during a blizzard though, which is nice.
When we settled in for the night on Tuesday, we couldn't help but notice the wind picking up. We stuck our heads out the front door and we're blown away. We could not see across the street. It was a complete white out. When we tried to check our water light (it turns on red when you run low, and we were betting with the storm the water trucks would not be out) the garbage bag we use as a curtain got ripped out through the window. It was like a vaccuum.
Wednesday was easily the worst day. The snow was piled up against our door well past my hip, and we were told to stay inside no matter what. As if we would want to do anything else. We were officially snowed in- a la Little |House on the Prarie. The winds got up to 90 km an hour. It was simply not safe to go out. It ended up being kind of a surreal day. We haven't had such a lazy day since we got here. We woke up at 11 and it was pretty grey outside, watched a movie and by 1 in the afternoon it was midnight dark outside. The day flew by and it was eleven at night before we knew it.
It was definite confirmation that we need to come home for all our Christmas breaks. With storms like that, we would end up spending most of our holiday holed up on the couch. We're looking at two crazy weeks at home, but it will be worth the plane ticket just to see everybody.
Anyways, the storm finally calmed down mid-morning. This afternoon we were back in school. Everyone is gearing up for the Christmas concert, and school is just down right pleasant, so I was happy to get back and see all the kidlets. We are also planning our big YMCA exchange trip to Toronto for the spring and we wanted to get a parent meeting in before we leave for the break- hopefully the weather will cooperate!
One last thing...anyone looking to learn more about the north, try giving 'An Arctic Man' by Ernie Lyall a read. He lived in Taloyoak in the 70s- or Spence Bay as it was known then- and he puts a really interesting spin on it. Tons of his descendants are still in town today and we know them well.
Monday afternoon we got word that a crazy blizzard was coming in. We were not at all surprized to get the news that we wouldn't be headed into school on Tuesday morning. We got the whole day off, but we took a wander out over to the school- mostly to use the internet. There wasn't too much snow, it was the wind that was crazy. Most storms in the north aren't too snow-based. The winds just rip across the tundra with nothing to slow them down and create these massive snow drifts. They absolutely tower above your heads and can bring the town to a stand still. The weather is comparatively warm during a blizzard though, which is nice.
When we settled in for the night on Tuesday, we couldn't help but notice the wind picking up. We stuck our heads out the front door and we're blown away. We could not see across the street. It was a complete white out. When we tried to check our water light (it turns on red when you run low, and we were betting with the storm the water trucks would not be out) the garbage bag we use as a curtain got ripped out through the window. It was like a vaccuum.
Wednesday was easily the worst day. The snow was piled up against our door well past my hip, and we were told to stay inside no matter what. As if we would want to do anything else. We were officially snowed in- a la Little |House on the Prarie. The winds got up to 90 km an hour. It was simply not safe to go out. It ended up being kind of a surreal day. We haven't had such a lazy day since we got here. We woke up at 11 and it was pretty grey outside, watched a movie and by 1 in the afternoon it was midnight dark outside. The day flew by and it was eleven at night before we knew it.
It was definite confirmation that we need to come home for all our Christmas breaks. With storms like that, we would end up spending most of our holiday holed up on the couch. We're looking at two crazy weeks at home, but it will be worth the plane ticket just to see everybody.
Anyways, the storm finally calmed down mid-morning. This afternoon we were back in school. Everyone is gearing up for the Christmas concert, and school is just down right pleasant, so I was happy to get back and see all the kidlets. We are also planning our big YMCA exchange trip to Toronto for the spring and we wanted to get a parent meeting in before we leave for the break- hopefully the weather will cooperate!
One last thing...anyone looking to learn more about the north, try giving 'An Arctic Man' by Ernie Lyall a read. He lived in Taloyoak in the 70s- or Spence Bay as it was known then- and he puts a really interesting spin on it. Tons of his descendants are still in town today and we know them well.
Sunday 4 December 2011
Part 2 of Hiatus of Sorts
Housing Update:
So we do enjoy where we live. The place is quite nice and we would be quite content to stay there. However it is an elders complex so we are not allowed to stay. We're waiting on word from our Education Authority on what progress has been made on getting us our own house right now, so we'll see on that.
Shawna posted on facebook some pictures of the house and things. If you didn't see - I made an awesome walk-in freezer. It's approximately the size of our porch. It consists of snow and boxes. It works well.
So at this point I've got a few fish in one of the boxes, a bunch of bread that was on sale in another, and I think there's some Ice Cream somewhere in there too.
This is me with my spoils.
And defrosting the fish.
An important update in regards to the house is that it is really handy for hallowe'en. There's a little hallway that leads to each of the four units in our building. So I set up shop just inside our doorway to scare kids. A few small ones cried and many others jumped. The scheme: Shawna would open the door and invite the kids in holding a bowl of candy (to give a false sense of security) and as they entered the house I would yell and jab them with my pole.
We also put up our Christmas Tree. I picked up a bunch of decorations when I was away in Iqaluit. We got the tree from one of the RCMP officers that was leaving town. He forgot to give us a tree stand, so in the picture below the tree is held up with a box that has a hole in the top filled with a case of cream of mushroom soup to weight it down. It works, you just can't walk real quick by the tree as it's not terribly stable.
Weather Update:
The weather hasn't been too bad - it's totally manageable. Rule of thumb, as always, is be prepared. Everyday is a parka day now. The big thing, as always, is trying to stay out of the wind. The air is certainly cold, but the wind is the killer. Our parkas have huge hoods that work really well, so we've never really been that cold. If we didn't have those, I'm not sure how we would fare. Probably poorly. I should mention though, Shawna has said she's been cold a few of the bad days - but I've written that off as an effect of her poor circulation. I don't think any boot or coat could keep her warm. Her toes seem to get cold even though her boots are rated to -100. So, we're going to have to get that figured out.
We're pretty well in 24hr darkness. It's more like 20hr darkness and four hours of dusk sort of thing. We don't see the sun anymore, but there is horizon that suggests a sun is nearby. The picture below was taken at about 1:00pm. The suggestion of the sun hours are from about 10:00am - 1:30 or so right now. I'm pretty sure when at the end of December its totally dark, but I'm not positive.
Last week we scored two days off of school. There was a blizzard zipping through the area that began on Sunday night and carried through to Tuesday night. We were told that our principal rarely cancels school even once in a year, so to have two days off was quite the treat! We did venture out during the storm. The winds were the main concern that prevented school from going on. The snow drifts that were built up on account of the winds were insane! We're dealing with like 15' snow drifts. Simply nuts. Two of them spread across roads that were that large. Due to this, the school bus can't get around, so school was cancelled for that reason. We took some pictures of our adventure outside during the storm, but the pictures don't really do the winds justice. I didn't get pictures of the drifts, my bad. Perhaps next time. The plow has taken care of them by now.
So there's a bit of an update for now. We'll be home in two weeks as mentioned before. We're both uber excited to see everyone! Post a comment if you have a question about anything at all!
So we do enjoy where we live. The place is quite nice and we would be quite content to stay there. However it is an elders complex so we are not allowed to stay. We're waiting on word from our Education Authority on what progress has been made on getting us our own house right now, so we'll see on that.
Shawna posted on facebook some pictures of the house and things. If you didn't see - I made an awesome walk-in freezer. It's approximately the size of our porch. It consists of snow and boxes. It works well.
An important update in regards to the house is that it is really handy for hallowe'en. There's a little hallway that leads to each of the four units in our building. So I set up shop just inside our doorway to scare kids. A few small ones cried and many others jumped. The scheme: Shawna would open the door and invite the kids in holding a bowl of candy (to give a false sense of security) and as they entered the house I would yell and jab them with my pole.
We also put up our Christmas Tree. I picked up a bunch of decorations when I was away in Iqaluit. We got the tree from one of the RCMP officers that was leaving town. He forgot to give us a tree stand, so in the picture below the tree is held up with a box that has a hole in the top filled with a case of cream of mushroom soup to weight it down. It works, you just can't walk real quick by the tree as it's not terribly stable.
Weather Update:
The weather hasn't been too bad - it's totally manageable. Rule of thumb, as always, is be prepared. Everyday is a parka day now. The big thing, as always, is trying to stay out of the wind. The air is certainly cold, but the wind is the killer. Our parkas have huge hoods that work really well, so we've never really been that cold. If we didn't have those, I'm not sure how we would fare. Probably poorly. I should mention though, Shawna has said she's been cold a few of the bad days - but I've written that off as an effect of her poor circulation. I don't think any boot or coat could keep her warm. Her toes seem to get cold even though her boots are rated to -100. So, we're going to have to get that figured out.
We're pretty well in 24hr darkness. It's more like 20hr darkness and four hours of dusk sort of thing. We don't see the sun anymore, but there is horizon that suggests a sun is nearby. The picture below was taken at about 1:00pm. The suggestion of the sun hours are from about 10:00am - 1:30 or so right now. I'm pretty sure when at the end of December its totally dark, but I'm not positive.
Last week we scored two days off of school. There was a blizzard zipping through the area that began on Sunday night and carried through to Tuesday night. We were told that our principal rarely cancels school even once in a year, so to have two days off was quite the treat! We did venture out during the storm. The winds were the main concern that prevented school from going on. The snow drifts that were built up on account of the winds were insane! We're dealing with like 15' snow drifts. Simply nuts. Two of them spread across roads that were that large. Due to this, the school bus can't get around, so school was cancelled for that reason. We took some pictures of our adventure outside during the storm, but the pictures don't really do the winds justice. I didn't get pictures of the drifts, my bad. Perhaps next time. The plow has taken care of them by now.
So there's a bit of an update for now. We'll be home in two weeks as mentioned before. We're both uber excited to see everyone! Post a comment if you have a question about anything at all!
Saturday 3 December 2011
Hiatus of Sorts
Alright - so we took a brief hiatus from blogging, but there were sort of some reasons. Well, not great ones, but ones at least. We became real busy with school around report card time getting final assignments done, catching up on marking and record keeping, then doing comments and such. Then we just neglected the blog pretty much. We couldn't blog from home either because Shawna conveniently let our router fall from the window sill. I was like, hey this router should be able to handle a fall. Then I found out it fell many times, and she only told me about it when it broke. So, I say it's her fault. haha
Synopsis of this blog:
School update - it's busy but still going well. Christmas time comes with lots of interruptions.
Housing update - we still live in an elders complex. Not sure when we'll move.
Weather update - it's pretty well 24hr darkness. Parka is a daily attire. We had a blizzard. We're good.
Home update - we fly out on the 17th and are home for two weeks. We're pretty really excited.
Various Funness - we played in a mini concert that was unreal, I am back from Iqaluit trip, Shawna wants a dog ... still
School update:
So what's been up at school. We both feel like we're getting into a pretty solid groove planning and teaching wise. We no longer spend outlandish amounts of time at the school, though we both spend the most time of all the teachers here we think. It might have something to do with the fact that there's not a heck of a lot to do during the day, so it gets us out. While we're here we can give each other company so that works well.
It takes us probably an hour or so to hash out the coming week. And then a few hour chunks to get the lesson part done. We can usually get it done in one go if we're feeling really keen, or just space it out though the week and our preps. So we're getting the hang of things and actually feel like we're making some progress with teaching. GOLDEN TEACHING BREAKTHROUGH: chunking. Have 5 questions? Insteaaaaaad of giving a page of 5 questions, we give a small piece of paper with 1 question, and then when they're done that they get question 2 on a new paper. It works wonders and we are pumping that into many of our lessons. So that's awesome.
okay - well apparently I have to leave now because Shawna needs to put some potatoes in the oven. I will complete the blog tomorrow.
Shawna is trying to claim I'm chunking the blog - but I think to all who read this you will see who is causing the blogs neglect.
Synopsis of this blog:
School update - it's busy but still going well. Christmas time comes with lots of interruptions.
Housing update - we still live in an elders complex. Not sure when we'll move.
Weather update - it's pretty well 24hr darkness. Parka is a daily attire. We had a blizzard. We're good.
Home update - we fly out on the 17th and are home for two weeks. We're pretty really excited.
Various Funness - we played in a mini concert that was unreal, I am back from Iqaluit trip, Shawna wants a dog ... still
School update:
So what's been up at school. We both feel like we're getting into a pretty solid groove planning and teaching wise. We no longer spend outlandish amounts of time at the school, though we both spend the most time of all the teachers here we think. It might have something to do with the fact that there's not a heck of a lot to do during the day, so it gets us out. While we're here we can give each other company so that works well.
It takes us probably an hour or so to hash out the coming week. And then a few hour chunks to get the lesson part done. We can usually get it done in one go if we're feeling really keen, or just space it out though the week and our preps. So we're getting the hang of things and actually feel like we're making some progress with teaching. GOLDEN TEACHING BREAKTHROUGH: chunking. Have 5 questions? Insteaaaaaad of giving a page of 5 questions, we give a small piece of paper with 1 question, and then when they're done that they get question 2 on a new paper. It works wonders and we are pumping that into many of our lessons. So that's awesome.
okay - well apparently I have to leave now because Shawna needs to put some potatoes in the oven. I will complete the blog tomorrow.
Shawna is trying to claim I'm chunking the blog - but I think to all who read this you will see who is causing the blogs neglect.
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