Iqaluit

So I started my first week here completely in love with Iqaluit. We touched down on Friday afternoon and Rick, our community contact from the Nunavut Research Institute picked us up from the airport and took us over to his beautiful home, just up from the beach, for dinner and good conversation. We hung out checking out the tour de france for a while and then I headed out with Rick to help feed his team of sled dogs, who are beautiful friendly dogs, although they were currently being besieged by mosquitoes. From there we headed up to his son's boat which had just returned after spending the day out at sea with a small beluga. We grabbed a slab of muktuk (the outer layer of the skin and blubber) and brought it home for post dinner munchies, it was very chewy, but with some soy sauce it was a lot tastier than I had thought it would be.

The next morning we woke up to a gloriously sunny day and woke up while sitting on Rick's deck overlooking the Arctic Ocean in a t shirt. After breakfast we headed up to Park's Day in Sylvia Grinnell park for Parks Day. We stayed just long enough to decide that it warranted more than the hour or so we had, so we heading onto our new home for the next three weeks. 322 White Row (it's not white any more, it was just painted so has been somewhat renamed Rainbow Row) is in the ghetto of Iqaluit, literally. Our place isn't bad at all, the view is stunning, looking out over the harbour, I can see the ocean from my bed!!! There's a nice big kitchen and a living room so I can't complain about that. More on the neighbourhood later.

So after unpacking we headed back up to the park and wandered into a naturalist walk on the flora of the tundra- there are trees here! They look like small plants, they are woody therefore are technically willow's. We wandered down along the Sylvia Grinnell River and noticed what we thought were crazy people swimming, but we waded in and it was lovely. Onwards up to the falls and rock hunting, there were some lovely copper samples and other rocks that as all of you who know me, I ended up with in my pockets. We checked out the falls which must have been a good fishing spot because there were about six tents set up above them. On the way back we hiked up to the second highest peak in the park, which had a panorama view of all the surrounding mountains, the ocean and all of Iqaluit- we also found owl pellets for a owl pellet dissection activity!

On Sunday we got a lot of set up done, and then Kris and I decided to head up to the Climate Change and Planning Conference that was going on at the Frobisher Inn (a hub in Iqaluit, complete with restaurant, bar and the town's movie theater). We got to see a presentation by Shelia Watts -Cloutier on the impact of climate change on the North and the struggle for labeling GHG emissions a human rights violation. After that there was an Arctic Fashion show, starting with amouti's (the jackets women everywhere here wear with their children tucked into a pouch behind them and a hood that can go over their head and the baby, they make so much sense) and boots made of ringed seal and caribou skin, and men's parka's and hip wader type pants all made from furs. They were so beautiful. Then came a contemporary fashion show mostly with seal fur. I am in full support of seal fur for fashion. People here eat the animal, make all kinds of things with the fur for survival, and if the seals are hunted for food, why not use the skins for commerce? Just my view, I don't support furs from factory fur farms in China, but seal skin from Nunavut definetely gets my vote beyond just the ethical issues, it is beautiful too. During the fashion show there was a high kick demonstration which was unbelievable, these young guys, perhaps around 18 had a stick with a small bundle of seal fur off a string at the end of it. They held it up to the ceiling and with both feet jumped up and kicked it about 7 meters off the ground. For the one kick the one guy hit the ceiling and couldn't go any higher. I would fall flat on my back!

After the fashion show and high kick we got to see throat singers. They were clearly more polished and skilled than the girls in my tent in Rankin Inlet, but despite their talent, which was awe inspiring and haunting, I still was more touched by my throat singing experience in Rankin. Following the throat singing (I know, I know, what an amazing night, we kind of snuck in too, as we weren't part of the conference...) we got to see two elders perform a number of drum dances which were as chilling and eerie as they were beautiful, the drum and the song transformed me somewhere not of this world while I was listening to it and it wasn't a bad place, but it was certainly powerful and different than any other music I had heard before. The night was not over, Tyler me and Kris headed back up to the park for a sunset walk (at 10:30 or so) and wandered up the river bed watching the sun sink below the hills and everything turn bright pink and orange.

Camp started the next day. This was the most challenging camp I have had so far, which is strange, as lots went amiss in Rankin and Igloolik was just huge, but despite having all the registration forms in, a college with all the resources we could want and four instructors, it was still difficult. I think a lot of this has to do with the fact that the kids in Iqaluit have access to a lot more summer camp type options and many parents decided to sign their kids up for science camp instead of the kids wandering into the camp of their own free will and getting their parents to sign them up after. Needless to say, it was a hard week with many different "personalities" but it was still ultimately very rewarding, as some of the kids REALLY wanted to be there and learn. I think we also manged to get some of the less enthusiastic kids into bits and pieces of science, which is at least a start, if nothing else the blubber mitt activity where kids put their hands into a ziplock bag filled with lard and then put that into a bucket of ice cubes to learn about arctic animal adaptations is always a huge hit!

On Monday night we rushed home from camp and took off again in big yellow school buses with no shocks back up to the park taking all the folks from the conference up to the park for a night of fun. It was 26 degrees that day, there was a huge heat wave in Iqaluit which I am now understanding is not the norm. Once we got dropped off, we headed straight up for a little lake that we had come across on our hike on the weekend, this time armed with bathing suits. It was a little intimidating at first, swimming in the arctic is not something that comes intuitively, but the water was wonderful, there was a bit of a breeze, so not too many bugs and it was one of the most refreshing and satisfying swims ever. From there we wandered back to the pavilion and had a night of really tasty bannock and tea with storytelling about the seasons and living on the land as well as more haunting drum dancing with a backdrop of a setting sun going down behind the mountains. Then the mosquitoes came out and we went home full of both new ideas and thoughts and damn good bannock.

The rest of the week wasn't as exciting we spent most nights preparing for the days ahead of us, they were intense. I am cooking a lot which is lovely, as I don't usually make time for a lot of cooking at home, and there is a surprising good selection of healthy and fresh foods up at the NorthMarts (owned by the North West Company who bought out the Hudson's Bay Company, which certainly left their marks on the North). We did get out one night to check out the huge full moon rising up over the ocean, it was stunning! Back to White Row. I sleep with ear plugs, one most nights there is a point at which a steady stream of profanities floats into my window around 2 am with someone storming away from a fight. On Wednesday night our neighbours were extremely drunk and locked out of their house by someone inside which caused about 2 hours of yelling and random unhappy banter. On Saturday night we called the police when a women punched a young teenage girl and two other women were fighting outside. This is a side of Iqaluit that makes me deeply sad. There is beauty in the landscape and culture, but there is still an ugliness here that I feel deeply, there have been so many scars inflicted on people here and it is clearly taking generations of time to heal. Working with kids gives me so much hope, they are smart, eager and full of joie de vive, so despite the pain and ugliness I've seen next door in Iqaluit, the beauty of the kids in the camps balances it out somehow.

Rankin Inlet

So I am in Iqaluit now, but I'll save those stories for another day, I want to let you all know a little more about the last community I was in, which was Rankin Inlet. There are about 3000 people there making it the second largest community in Nunavut, and it's right on Hudson's Bay, making it the southern most community I will have travelled to this summer. It is apparently known throughout the Arctic for it's mosquito's, I too now know it for it's mosquito's.

Marc, Lori and I were only there for five days, because the flights only go there on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, but so far this community has had my highest high and my lowest low. The plan was to do science camp in the community hall on Tuesday and head out on the land to Diane River with an older group of kids (10-15 yrs) Wednesday until Friday when we flew out. These plans got changed due to some community issues, ask me about it when I get home... Tuesday was great, we didn't really get to see much of Rankin, we had a great dinner at a little spot called the Wild Wolf Cafe, which overlooked the ocean. That night we ended up changing our plans for camp from Diane River to Iqalugaarjuup Nunanga, which is in the Nunavut Park about 15 minutes away from Rankin. The next morning we met our very sleepy campers (kids here don't usually get up until about noon, there is no set sleeping schedule, although there was a lot more dusky "darkness" in Rankin than Igloolik, the sun set for about two hours at night, which was great) at 9 am and sent them home again until noon. I ended up getting onto the back of an ATV, with a group of four strange Inuit men and heading an hour out of town on dirt roads/ no roads to Diane River to pick up our supplies, possibly not a great judgement call on my part, but it was worth it.

The land here was quite different than Igloolik, it had a lot more lakes and the wildflowers are in full bloom right now, which makes for slopes covered in bright purple and splotches of yellow. Rankin is also much hillier, which proved to be quite the adventure on the back of a four wheeler. We stopped a few times to make sure that all the guys were following the non exist ant path (as far as I could tell there was no path, the driver Pierre knew exactly where he was going, and was an excellent driver) on these stops, I learned what true mosquito's were. I had seen mosquito's in Tweedsmuir Park in Northern BC, but not like this, OMG!!!! We stopped in the cabins we were suppose to be staying in, picked up the food (unrefrigerated ground beef, which had been there for a few days, yecky). By the way, did I mention that there was a sighting of a polar bear and her two yearling cubs in the area the day before.... I was hoping to see her, but no luck, or good luck depending on your view. On the way back into Rankin we stopped for a breather (although it was hard to breathe with the bugs) and I got to see a wonderful view of the Diane River emptying into Hudson's Bay, just stunning!

Once back in town, we picked up our 14 campers, all their gear and some other random stuff and headed off in a yellow school bus sans shocks on a very rough gravel road, with boxes bouncing onto kids and struggles to open and shut the windows, it was a great start to the trip. We got to the park site and it was lovely, despite the low hanging clouds that were threatening to rain on us again (it had rained in the morning). This site has an old sod house, it's a great archeology site (although all the interesting parts other than the sod house were covered by ice, which is very strange for this time of year apparently) and it's right next to a river. We spent the next few hours doing a GPS activity with the kids, which digressed, or progressed depending on your view, to a nature walk complete with a loon's nest with eggs, lots of caterpillars and moss for the fire later. Once we got back to camp, a tent had been set up, the sun and wind came out (no bugs!!!) and we had two cooks and an elder to help us out, along with three bear watchers and our community contact Pierre. After lunch the kids spent some quality time with a 2 foot wide circle of land creating their own planets out in their imagination out of what they found in the little area of earth, the results were inspiring and fabulous, I need to exercise my imagination much more!

We did some more wandering and had dinner. After dinner the magic began. The kids started out with an Inukshuk building competition, with the goal of creating something in the park that visitors could appreciate and they would be able to come back and visit as they grew up. Both Marc and I got paired with a kid, so I learned how to build a proper Inukshuk, complete with legs, a body, arms and a head. It was great, and the kids totally got into it, Pierre also pointed out that they make great GPS's and they don't run out of batteries like ours did! After the building competition, we headed out on a garbage pick up session and found all range of things from couch pillows to lots of rusty nails. On the way, the kids came back across the loon's nest and tested the eggs to take home and eat, they were all edible. I had to deal with some inner conflict on this activity. I have been raised with the camping ethic of take only pictures and leave only footprints and am a conservationist at heart, so taking all the eggs out of a birds nest is wrong to me. That being said, eggs are a traditional food for the Inuit and they have been eating them since time immemorial, so who was I to say anything. I decided that holding my tongue was the best call here.

After trashed had been picked up we set off on another fun task, collecting moss. When I was in the Queen Charlotte Islands, in Windy Bay there was a most memorable patch of moss that I sunk into for quite some time just enjoying the feeling of laying in a natural bed, the tundra moss had the same magically floating feeling for me. The kids were all hard at work tearing up the moss to burn for a fire (clearly there is no wood because there are no large trees, although there are woody plants which are technically trees...). This was great fun and it ended in a campfire smelly enough to drive away the bugs and just the right temperature for roasting marshmellows and hot dogs. After the campfire, everyone piled into the girls tent (there were about twice as many girls as boys) and Pierre shared a very moving story about loosing his 14 year old son to suicide, during which all the kids were rapt with attention, and clearly got the message about the impact that drugs and alcohol can have, as well as some coping mechanism for dealing with pain in their lives, with a strong focus on getting onto the land like there were at the moment. After the talk, the best part of the trip so far happened for me. Pierre put a strong emphasis on embracing being Inuit, so once the boys left the tent the girls started throat singing. To be on the land listening to a tent full of girls throat singing was unbelievable, they all took turns doing different songs and they even tried to teach me, but I had some trouble and they all ended up laughing hysterically at me. We wandered out for a bathroom break and saw a HUGE harvest moon rising up over the horizon, it couldn't have been more perfect for the chilling ghost stories that ensued.

Throughout the night it rained, but the tent was set up very well so we stayed cozy and dry. We woke up to a breakfast of hot oatmeal with condensed milk (if you've never tried this, go for it, it's super tasty...). After breakfast the low of the trip happened. Pierre called everyone outside the tent and asked our elder to say a prayer, as a fourteen year old girl in town had just killed herself. In the mist of the morning coming off the river and light rain, I felt such a pain, I can't describe it, I looked at the young girls who I just had bonded with and couldn't imagine any of them taking their own lives, but it is such a big problem here in Nunavut. A few minutes later, two of the older girls just started howling when they found out who had died, and they were both taken back into town. A group of elders was suppose to come out and spend the day with us doing story telling and drum dancing, but that was cancelled and the feeling at camp was gloomy. This wasn't helped by the rain or the infestation of bugs that follows a rainstorm, so after some rock hunting and games, the kids voted to pack up and head back into town for the night. Before we headed back though we got to eat some freshly hunted caribou complete with the best bannock I've tasted, country food here is better than any four star restaurant!

We had camp the next morning, with some of the coolest ocean platform engineering I've seen, and then we were off to Iqaluit for three weeks. The land around Rankin is beautiful, very rolling and becoming, with lots of little lakes, filled with char, and apparently we were about a week or two too early for the caribou migration, which was too bad. I'll write more about Iqaluit later, but my love affair with the Arctic is definitely continuing! I'll try and load up some pictures this weekend, if I get a chance between kayaking, hiking and swimming....

Igloolik

This last week has been one of the most interesting, draining and educational weeks I have ever had. I was in Igloolik for the whole week teaching science workshops to kids. We had over 100 kids rotate through the camps, some of them regulars, some came only once. They ranged in age from 4 to 14 and I think that if nothing else they all had fun. The science curriculum that was so carefully planned had to be deviated from because of the numbers, but activities like blubber mitts where kids put their hands into bags of lard in freezing cold water went over well, as did the lesson on arctic animal adaptions where they learned about how creatures in the arctic adapt to the harsh conditions and then the kids had to create their own imaginary animal which culminated in a fashion show. I haven't had that much fun myself in ages. There was also the impromptu nature walk that Marc and I accidentally hosted on Sunday night went we went off in search of the bow head whale skeleton in a bay somewhere in the North of the island and ended up with 10 kids following us and we learned all about edible arctic plants from the kids instead of hunting down the whale skeleton.

Beyond the camp, Igloolik is a wonderful community with extremely welcoming people. We were lucky enough to be there for Nunavut Day, and ended up judging an Innushuk competition (BTW, the innushuk that is used for the 2010 symbol means nothing, it is nicknamed the white man's innukshuk, as all the other ones have meanings such as where to go for caribou, how far out to go to get fish, which direction to travel in, what areas camps should be built in, but the one with two legs, the large arm and the small block on top doesn't seem to hold much credence with the folks in Igloolik). There were festivities all day long, with a pancake breakfast, a BBQ, a 10 km run around town (I was amazed at how many teenage boys attempted and completed this run in giant jeans and sneakers that were way to big and not tied up!!!), a bannock making contest by the women elders- which was so very tasty, and finally a rock band that played everything from Led Zeppelin covers to Inutituk country songs based strongly in a Johnny Cash tradition. There was a square dance later in the night, but it didn't get started until about midnight and we were all beat. Oh yeah, the sun doesn't set here and hence there is no sleeping pattern. Kids will come to camp after not having slept all night, they just play when they feel like it and sleep where they feel like it, it seems true of adults too, and my sleep pattern is really off!

Let me introduce you to the folks I am up here teaching with- Marc Higgins is from Fredericton NB, and is a science, math and french teacher, also a good friend from back in the day in Ottawa. Kristeen is from Ottawa, and she's working on a health science degree and kids adore here. Tyler is living in Ottawa and just finished up his teaching degree and is a fabulous photographer, I am very excited about swapping pics with him later in the trip and posting them here once there is better internet. Lori is from Rankin Inlet and is a sweetheart, she's in the Nunavut Sivinuksavut (NS) program. Suzie is from Gjo Haven and is an NS student as well, which was great this past week because the language in Igloolik is so strong that many of the younger kids don't speak any English, and Inutituk is the predominant language around town.

Alright this is getting really long, but just two more highlights from last week. The first one was my adventure with Marc on the Sunday. We decided to walk across the island to Sax Harbour. On our way across the first part of the adventure was coming across the really old Innushuks, ones that were used before there was such a strong settlement in the harbour (which was established in 1939). Then Marc discovered that there is quick sand on the island and nearly lost his shoe. Onto the attack of the killer arctic terns, who will swoop towards you, fly upwards and then sharply dive at your head if you are anywhere near their nests. We were clearly very near their nests, and judging from the stories when we got back to town, we were lucky to get away without claw and beak marks in our sculls. Finally onto the real fun, the sea ice. It's all breaking up into little floe pieces right now, which you can jump from piece to piece on. Marc and I got at least 1 or 2 km out jumping between floating pieces of ice, which made for such a spectacular landscape (especially with all the kelp and algae that is growing under the ice that you can see in little pockets). The fun began when we tried to get back in, there was only one route to shore on the ice, and we took about 100 wrong turns and were stuck out there for about an extra half hour trying to puzzle our way back onto land, and at one point ended up on some sketchy sinking ice, but all was well, as I am writing this post now. We went back out with the others a few days later in the back by our house too, ice jumping is a great sport!

Now onto the last story of this post, which in my mind was the most exciting, so those of you who have made it this far you will be rewarded. We met Steven at the hall where the camps were being held, and he's great. He grew up on the land in Igloolik and has travelled all around Canada as a tradesman. He offered to take us out to the point, which is where all the summer hunting and fishing camps are set up, so after camp on Thursday he picked us up. He also was in Atanarjuak as the exiled brother at the beginning, so we started off on one of the filming locations where they set up the sod house modeled after the ones that Inuit used to live in in the summer, with a stone foundation and sod laid over top. It was in the same area on the island as the old Thule tent rings, which was amazing. The site they filmed on had an old house on it too, they just rebuilt it for the movie. From there we went onto the edge of the sea ice break up, where a wall (literally) of ice had sprung up, Steven said he hadn't see the ice like that before, that there are usually icebergs, but not ice walls. We walked around on the beach for about an hour looking for tern eggs (if you drop them in water and they sink, they are good to eat, if they float, you put them back because there is a hatchling in them). There were walrus bones everywhere as this was an old camping and hunting spot, we found a giant walrus skull! From there we continued onto his family's tent and camping spot, where Steven was born. It's right out at the very tip of the island, there is an old Catholic Church out there, and old sod houses as well. We pulled up and there were husky puppies galore, it is taking so much self control not to grab one and put it in my bag! We were invited into his mother, Katherine's, tent and had tea and frozen Arctic Char (the best sushi EVER!) and talked through Steven with his mother about how she used to live, her current project of beautiful seal mitts with fish scales to protect the hands and ate fantastic bannock. Around 1:30 am, while it was still as bright as noon, we figured we'd head back home as we had our big open house for camp the next day, so said goodbye reluctantly. In the truck on the way home Steven had CBC on and there was an interview with Leonard Cohen, and at that very minute, I felt more Canadian than I ever have before in my life. The open house the next day was a great success, the kids all showed their families how exciting science can be (I openly embrace my dorkiness and love of science) and we went home and crashed.

I am in Rankin Inlet now, so let's see what the next set of adventures brings as I am off to live in some cabins 2 hours out of town with 12-16 year olds for the rest of the week, I'm sure I'll have lots to report. I already miss the kids from Igloolik though! I hope to get some pics posted soon, as I'll be in Iqaluit next weekend and am there for three week. Until then!

Touch down in Iglulik

So after all the frantic packing, the apple dehydration and curriculum reading, I'm here. We flew from Ottawa to Iqulait (where it was rainy and COLD) and then right on up to Igloolik, where it was sunny and chilly yesterday. The first part of the plane ride was spent catching up on sleep due to the frantic packing the night before, but the second half from Iqulait to Igloolik was amazing. The sea ice is all breaking up now so it looks like piece of confetii strewn across the ocean. The beaches in the bays we flew over looked like tropical paradises. Anyone who likes long walks on the beach should wander up here, there was azure blue water with stretches of sand as far as I could see.

Igloolik is an island in the Foxe Basin which is above Hudson's Bay, to the West of Baffin Island. There are about 1600 people here, and it takes about 20 minutes to walk through town. Bobby, our community contact picked us up at the air port, with our mountain of luggage- 3 bins made it, one didn't so it'll be fun trying to figure out what we can and can't do on Monday! All the movie making equipment made it up which is great, I'll be helping with both camps this week as we're still missing three instructors and they don't get in until Tuesday.

The hamlet is quite pretty, right on the ocean, at the bottom of a hill. We spent a bit of time yesterday wandering around, we're staying at a teacher's house here, it's absolutely beautiful! especially with the black out blinds, I got up to go to the bathroom at 4 am and it was like noon with all the sun, it's a little confusing.

Not sure what the plan is for today, but probably more wandering and perhaps a hike.