Sprouts

So my last week in Iqaluit was spent with my favourite group of kids thus far. Sprouts camp is for kids who are hand picked from low income families, many are from the women's shelter, their parents may be in prison, they are in foster families. The first day of camp I wanted to leave and never come back. Over the course of this trip I have learnt a lot about myself and I have come to realize that I like controlled environments- things don't need to go as planned, but I like a semblance of order. This group of kids did not have that. That being said, I have never gotten so many hugs, seen such huge smiles and excitement for learning anywhere else.

By the end of the week, after I came up with some personal coping techniques, informed by the ever patient, talented and wonderful Becky, who leads the Sprout camp and was the same woman I heard doing throat singing my first week here, all the kids in the camp were so very near and dear to my heart. Splitting the kids into groups, and trying to make the learning process more about exploring than about coming away with a specific learning outcome worked really well with these kids. Also acknowledging that I don't need everyone's attention to go ahead with activities was something else I personally had to work on. These kids have been through way more horrible stuff in their lives at the ages of 5 and 6 than I could imagine, yet they still show up in the morning with smiles and laughter, which speaks to the resilience of children and humanity in general.

On Friday morning, I traded Marc for his rec camp so he could have some time with the amazing awe inspiring Sprouts and I got to go on a hike up the famous Road to Nowhere in Iqaluit, it was a sunny warm day and it couldn't have been more perfect for a group of about 60 kids to meander over hills next to a river and just have fun outside. I was a lovely morning, but the kids were so well behaved and listened so well, it felt a little surreal and too polished for me, so I was excited to get back to my Sprouts in the afternoon.

After a very intense and tiring week of camp, Marc and I wandered up to the peaks of Sylvia Grinnell park with some left overs and had a splendid picnic at the top of the mountain. I spent some solo time hiking around Iqaluit on Sat, following the grave yard trail out to the small neighbouring community of Apex and checked out the old Hudson's Bay Company beach, which is a beautiful sandy beach that happened to have chunks of ice on it, which were rapidly melting in the hot summer sun, so I sat there for a good piece of my Sat just enjoying the view, the fact I had the whole long beach to myself and contemplating the history and impact of the HBC in this region.

Sat night we were contemplating heading out on the town, but decided to go for a sunset kayak instead, which almost turned into a bit of a disaster when the Nunavut Research Institute truck which we were borrowing got stuck, very stuck, in the loose large rocky boat launch at the far end of town. After many tries, lots of burnt rubber and a few stalls we manged to get it back up the boat launch and headed off on a beautiful paddle along the west coast of the bay up towards the river and park. The start of the paddle was on extremely smooth water, not a ripple to be seen, but just before we got back (sunset ends around 11 pm ish) a wind picked up and thank god we got off the water because it whipped up to 30 kms/hr pretty quick. We carried the kayaks (actually we only carried one, some guys helping take out another boat walked up with our other one unbeknownst to us until we got to the top of the launch and noticed them behind us, quietly carrying our kayak, I love people here!!!) back up the long boat launch instead of chancing another sticky situation at the bottom.

There was lots of packing and organizing for Kimmirut, which I will write about in a bit . For now I am sad to have left Iqaluit, despite all it's quirky flaws, I have really come to love it here, it's felt like a second home, with people like Rick and Janet making us feel welcome, walking down the street and having kids I've been working with run up and give me a hug, and recently having little ones show up at our door on white row and ask to hang out and play. The land and landscapes here are breathtaking too, to have such beautiful spots all around the capital city of Nunavut is fabulous. I am sure I will be back!