No Planes To-day

I thinkI can write , with all my northeren experience, that there will be no planes today. It is "interesting" weather out there. Lots of snow the past few days. Right now the air is so full of snow that it is hazy.. like fog. Earlier this morning there was freezing ice pellets. The wind is rising.. something in my bones tells me we are in for a few days of weather. The weather site that readers can access from this blog is not always accurate. Salluit was enveloped in a blizzard all of Sat and Sun. last week but the weather bureau said all was calm here. Not calm at all!

Salluit gets alot of wind. Our weather is supposed to be the most challenging for pilots for this part of the north. The First Air flights leave Montreal at 7 am and 10:30 each day. If you are flying into the hub of Nunivik, Kujjuaq, then you may go by jet. Lovely trip.. great breakfast. (The meals are so good on both Air Inuit and First Air.) One plane a day does that route, the other route is to fly up the Hudson coast in one day, stopping in Salluit for the night. The next day that plane flies down Ungava. The Kujjuaq plane arrives in Salluit at 5:30 and the Hudson plane at 2:30. All planes fly right over my house. All this flying depends on the weather and that there are no medical emergencies. Two airports have to be open as well as the destination.

The village is so quiet that I hear the planes as they fly over my house because they are in the last 2 or 3 minutes of their approach. I can tell the weather by the sound of the engines. If they are fighting wind the engines are really stressed. Usually the planes fly over the airport to look things over , circle the bay and then fly back over my house to the airport. I always look at my watch to see if they are any where near on time. If we have bad weather for a few days the freight gets backed up and several planes will arrive in one day.

We use two planes in the far north.The small plane is the Twin Otter. It is made for the north. The seats fold up and it is so tiny... I think 12 passengers. The other plane is the Dash 8. It is bigger and more comfortable but not as safe a plane. The twin flies itself. The Dash comes all the way from Montreal doing the coastal route and that is a long flight. We land in 7 or 8 villages, weather permitting. For Christmas we will go out on a chartered Dash. We leave at 4pm and arrive in Montreal approx 10:00 pm. We have to land at La Grande to do a security check because we will soon enter Montreal air space. You could get on with a live caribou in Salluit but that is frowned upon once you are out of the north. On our charter going out last June one of the teachers had a large laundry basket with 9 new born pups on her lap. She had trouble with her connecting flight out of Montreal. I would think so.

The villages in the north are very dependent on these daily flights to bring in fresh food. Dry foods and cans come up on sea lift but fresh fruit , veggies, milk, eggs, cheese,bread come up by plane. I use the UHT milk now. I can ship it up and it sits on the shelf all winter. The teachers each have a store room and huge freezer for storing food. The Inuit used to make bannock but now so many people buy their bread and it is not good bread.. but that terrible white wonder bread. Some people in Salluit have started making bread and selling it out of their homes. No.. not me. I just give mine away.

I make a fantastic mulitgrain bread. It is full of seeds and grains. It is easy to do each week-end. I used to use a bread machine but now do it the "old fashioned" way. I usually make each week , giving two-thirds of it away. I try to repay the many kindnesses that come my way with a loaf of bread.

Yesterday I was in the Co-Op. There was precious little in the fresh food section. I really don't know how families can afford the groceries that their children need. When I think of all the milk Aran and Sara drank when they were younger, that seemed expensive at the time but nothing like what it must cost families here. . We finally can get zero fat yougurt, cheese ect here. My parents ship 2 or 3 boxes to me each week of dry foods. Turnips are over $4.00 here but my parents ship them all the time. One time I opened a box to see several perfect Yukon gold potatoes. What a treat. When I fly up each time I bring a cooler as hand luggage with frozen meat. What a chore to carry it thru Montreal airport but it is worth it. I should get one of those little carry ons with wheels.

There is no fresh meat in the village, except for caribou. During the mild weather scallops are available. I don't like the frozen pork or ground beef in the stores here. I just don't trust it. I can make a container of stew meat go a long way. So many people say they just love the veggies in a stew but give them a stew with just veggies and you hear all sorts of complaints. I save the stew juice for a meatless but yet full flavoured supper. With a couple of slices of my multigrain bread and a slice of pie no one is hard done by.

There are several suppliers out of Montreal that we can order fresh food from. Our freight is subsidized. I used to do it but the prices are expensive and there is little choice. The quality is not what I like either. For several years we had Northern Store managers who would bring in special items for the teachers. This new guy is not so helpful. In fact most of us shop at the Co-op now.

What is your weather like today? Take a minute to check it out.

Have a good day regardless of the weather.
Pearl

No fool like an ole fool

Major blizzard here today. Although it is a Sat. the teachers are working . Normally on a stormy day like this I would be curled up on the sofa having the best nap of the week. We teachers have decided to work two Saturdays( without students) and lose a day's pay to get home before the 24th. Since report cards are due next week we all need the time at school. On a ped day we only work 10 to 3 so it is not a long day. I brought lots of music with me that helps keep the energy up.

Some of the teachers had called the restaurant and settled on a special for lunch. I wasn't going to go but peer group pressure had me changing my mind. I'm just like the students I preach at. Marc and Gladys have a small truck. I did not think I could climb in the back with all my heavy gear on. Actually I am very proud of myself.. I managed to get up on the trailer hitch and swing myself over. Not an easy task when dressed like a snowman. I hunkered down out of the wind and prayed that Marc would not hit anything.. or that someone would not hit us. The visibility was down to zero.

It was exciting in a way. He missed the street, went sailing thru a stop sign and then did a 360 when he applied the brakes. I felt like a teenager again. How silly but lots of fun. When we finally arrived at the restaurant Mark stopped, so I stood up to make my way to the back of the truck. But he decided to go forward to the steps so I could step out level with the back of the truck. Of course I was not expecting the vechile to move so I did a header out of the truck. I did the same thing out of the back of Art Robinson's truck in Grade 6. I don't know how I managed it but I tucked my head down, and fell on my back.. kind of like a back flip when diving. Who knew I was so agile. All the clothing layers kept me from getting hurt. It was funny...laying there in the road... once I realized no bones were broken. Needless to say I made the story sound much worse in the telling to all the teachers gathered for lunch.

We all had a great lunch, the special was lasagna, with wonderful pea soup, homemade bread and salad. This is the 2nd time since Sept that the restaurant has re-opened under new management. Last year they forgot to order the propane on sea lift. The ordered 6 months worth of food but no propane to cook with. The food was donated to the breakfast programme at school.

This blizzard is supposed to last all week-end and into Monday. It is not really cold out ( for the north) but the wind is so strong. My walk home should be interesting... walking right into the face of it.

That's it for another day north of 60.
Pearl

Beautiful, beautiful Salluit

Today it is so beautiful here. The air is full of little tiny snowflakes. The light is fading fast. The world here turns a wonderful white as the light fades. Then the colour brightens to a pale white blue... then as time goes on the blue deepens. I never knew there were so many shades of blue. I often sit in my dining room, looking out my windows watching the light. It is rather like looking at an aquarium... very soothing. But also it so pretty. That view is one reason why I still live here.

Painters talk about the light in Tuscany and how wonderful to paint but they have never see the light of Salluit. I have walked to th e tops of these hills to take a photo of the same scene over and over. Once a crazy bunch of us went up in the early morning so we could see the sunrise. Aran has a great story of me thinking I could use the flash on my camera, in the dark, from the top of one of these high hills, and still have the photo of the village down below turn out. There are some concepts I just don't get.

It is so different not to see a tree in this scene. I had heard of the tree line but it was only when I flew up north that I realized it appears to be a line. There are pockets of trees for 30 minutes or so once you cross the tree line..little warm eco systems. Over Christmas I am going to have one of my children teach me how to transfer my photos to this site.

I have the last house in the village. My views are all of incredible scenery. I don't over look any houses... it is all earth and sky. From the upstairs I have a great view of the bay. It is so like Digby Basin... but no trees.

On the telly this morning they showed views of the Parliament Buildings in Ottawa. A bit of snow there. Now we don't feel so alone in Salluit with all our snow

We are busy practising for the Christmas concert. We are doing Away In A Manger. Because I have a student who cannot speak we are also doing it in American sign. I don't have the best voice in the world but after singing that tune 20 times a day, I am getting better. Tomorrow one of the teachers is going to video our rehearsal. That gave me a prefect opportunity to suggest a bath to some of the boys. I sent them all home with motel soap that I have collected over the past few years. Some even got shampoo. It is a delciate subject to suggest that they bathe but with the entire class doing it , no one should feel singled out. My ususal course is to ask the gym teacher to make the suggestion to the boys.

The gym teacher is not a fan of my class. Yesterday he told me I had the worst class in the two schools. A far cry from the report last week from a supervisor that they were the best class in Nunivik. Once I received that report my class was sooooooo quiet. Miss P wrote in her journal that they were all afraid of me. It is amazing what a dirty look will do. I read the riot act and sent home lines to be done and signed by parents. No one was allowed a drink today but by mid afternoon I started to warm up. They are kids and if you don't soften up with them then they will just give up ever getting back on my good side.

The Centre-Director and I entertained the staff room today with some wild dancing. The FM was playing ole 60's tunes. What a fun recess we had. That put a spring in my step.

That's it for today.. spend some time looking out your windows... what do you see?

Comments from strangers

I love interesting happenings... I love to think about why people say and do the things they do... I ponder what they know, versus what I know, that leads to certain things happening. So let me know what you think of this. It has had me laughing for two days.

Once the flights for Christmas travel were announced I have tried to organize my time. I have to see the doctor, dentist, hair dresser and banker. So I started making appointments as early in my time home as possible...espically the hair dresser. When I called the bank ,the receptionist said my invesment person was in a meeting but she could make the appointment. I then repeated my name, spelling" Woo L aVer "out so she would know to whom she was speaking . I also mentioned that I am the teacher up north and needed to do my RRSP's at Christmas. I know I met her last summer but I was surprised that she remembered me. She made the appointment to my schedule... and then she said:"Pearl, you know The Thirsty Duck is closed."

How did she know that was important to me? Did I dare ask?.. no I did not. "The Duck" has long been a favouite spot on a Saturday afternoon. A Clancey's and a BIG plate of Nachoes was one of my favourite things to do. I have a gang that does "The Duck". When my kids came of age they knew where to find Mother from 2 to 5. When my cousin Bruce's boat sailed into Hfx harbour he knew where to find his fav cousin on Sat. My kids often joined us. Aran's boss, who was a Cabinet member, oftened joined us. I never thought that we created a fuss even tho we were a funny group. I do remember buying my favouite red cowgirl boots after a session at The Duck... well I don't remember buying them but they were on my feet when I arrived home. I don't think I stole them. I am sure if I had been arrested I would remember that.

I wonder if my move to the North has caused an economic disaster for The Duck? I wonder now that my pals and I are gathering at Tim Horton's has caused all those poor people to be unemployed? I am feeling just a bit guilty. The big question for me is where am I going to go once I have shoppped Spring Garden Road? Where will my friends and family know where to see me? I guess I will have to stand outside the former entrance from 2 to 5 and see who comes looking for me. I will probably get arrested this time and I will be perfectly sobber.

Yesterday's walk home was the coldest yet this year. My knees were stinging from the cold by the time I reached my door. It is only 300 steps from the school to the house but it is a long 300 steps when the wind is that cold and strong.

There were very strong winds over night. I had the heat on high but it was not the least bit warm. I was in my pj's (no one is surprised about that), heavy fleece robe and s till needed a blanket while I was watching TV. The wind blows right in my front door and thru to the kitchen. That floor is bloody cold on a windy day so I did not cook.

The CGIT girls are busy planning another sale at school. They want to buy uniforms so they are earning the money by making and selling popscicles( even in these temps they sell like hot cakes) and rice krispie squares. Their leader has come up with what she thinks is a great idea.. I teach the girls to roll out pie crust and they make pies to sell. Teaching someone to roll out pie crust is not easy... it is impossible. This ought to be fun. The favourite pie up here is lemon.. .they go for $12 to $15.00. Pecan is up to 18.00 this year. My parents send up the pie crust mix, pecans and cherry pie filling so there is alot of profit in these pies for the girls.

I teach some of these CGIT girls. They are keen to learn and to work. They are after me to start the sewing club again. It was a huge success last year. I met a woman in Tim Horton's and we got talking... big surprise there. When she heard I was going up north she kindly donated boxes and boxes of sewing material and tools to work with. The girls loved it. I was able to get rid of some of my stash of material too. Now to do it again. I could be at school 24/7 with some of the students. They are so keen. Although there is women's hockey team here there is not a team for the teenagers. Lots for the boys to do but not as much for the girls. So it looks like I will be starting up the s ewing club again.

Hope this finds you all well.
pearl

A casual lifestyle

It is reported that I have adjusted to the north a bit more. I seem to have adopted the casual mode of dress here. Fashion is not important ... keeping warm dominates what to wear. My phone rang at 7:30 on Saturday morning. I was not impressed until I heard it was my neighbour Marc ( of Gladys and Marc) saying the quiche would be coming out of the oven in 20 minutes. Just enough time to wash my face, tie back my hair, find my boots and run next door. I did not dress for breakfast. I wear my pajamas out and about more than Huge Heffner. They are not the silky Victoria's secret type but good ole Nova Scotia flanelette. It spoils the fun of a lovely lazy breakfast if I have to get dressed. Besides when I come home I have housework etc to do , then I bathe and get ready for the downtown shopping in our two little stores.

My class and I were praised last week by an official up from head office in Montreal. I do dislike sudden inspections. The kids were little angels while we were getting the once over. Things were going so goooooooood that I asked if anyone would recite " In Flanders Fields" . Luccassie volunteered and did a good job. My buttons were bursting with pride. I have to say that when it is important the kids really knuckle down and produce. I was very generous with the chocolate once we were on our own. It is good for them to hear praise from someone other than me.

Winter has settled in here in Salluit. For the second Saturday in a row it was too stormy to go out to the shoppes. I have outside duty today.. not a treat at all. The sidebar of the blog gives the daily weather for Sallulit. When it is not windy it does not seem cold. The planes are not flying to schedule .. if there are not two open airports nearby they don't fly in. Of course that makes all the teachers nervous for our Christmas flight out.. but then we were storm stayed one June.
We are busy in the school preparing for the Christmas concert. It is a real trial for any teacher. We are going to do the hymn Away in a Manger, singing as well as doing in American sign language as I have one student who cannot speak. My classroom assistant is wonderful and helps a great deal with such projects. My Dad has thought up a great idea for a play that I would love to do with the kids later in the year. Like all his ideas they are full of magic and great difficulties for a producer.
My phone rang off its ringer this past week-end. Great conversations with cousin Cheryl in Calgary and her crazy husband. I also heard from a couple who I met in Lake Louise in 1969. I was their waitress. God.. I love to talk, then as now. How many of you still keep in touch with a waitress you once met? We have been able to get together every few years.

Leslie's youngest child, Jacques, was baptized on Sunday. One of the problems of being up here is missing the big family events. When Elias was all dressed up he thought he looked like a piraate in a jacket with brass buttons. I guess he has some of the imagination of his great-grandfather.

Later.........the afternoon duty was not so bad since the wind had died down. Recess is still the same... the girls like to skip, the boys like to disrupt the girls' fun. The students do race around and I do too.. a good way of staying warm. Not easy to run in my big northern boots.

It seems like Canada is in for federal election in the winter. I will have to vote up here. The Inuit have traditionally voted for Liberal candidates.. perhaps I should run for the NDP up here. That would liven up things.
Have a good day.
P

Nov. 16th, 2005

A cold dark day in Salluit. Parts of Ontario and the West are getting weather that we experience almost daily from Oct to April ( one June we were delayed going home due to a snow storm), except for the freezing rain. Coleen Jones was stressing that the winds out West might go to 100km per hour. Well baby, that is the norm in windy ole Salluit. Often when I sit on the sofa, which is against an outside wall, the tea rocks in the cup. The definition of a strong wind depends on what you are used to. I thought I knew wind after Digby and Halifax, or even my winter in St. John's, but life in Salluit has given a whole new meaning to wind.

And if any of you know what a seal farts smell like.. that gives a whole new meaning to wind as well. The Inuit do not tolerate milk products very well. Not part of their traditional diet. Then well meaning, but uninformed people started giving them milk and cereal each morning. Now that was plesant in the classroom. It had to be someone who hated teachers.

Often the wind is at my back when I go to school..pushing me along. I am not the smallest person in the village but often the wind picks me up like a leaf. If I plant my feet firmly it is like skiing. Going home is a different story. I have to have at least one more scarf and my hood pulled tightly over my face. My students still laugh at the day that was so stormy they had to help me walk.. guide me along. I was heading for the back of my home, not the front door where they were all gathered. The Inuit say all the bad weather comes from the south. If a storm is coming from the north they don't even worry.

I just had a fun teaching time with the kids. Each day we go over a new sound.... today was nk. We go over different words that have that sound. It is good for vocabulary development as well as speaking english. I don't realize how little English they know until I see the entire class stumble over a word like sink. They use a sink regularly but have no idea of the English word. The word prank brought up lots of memories for them and for me. We shared our stories. A really good time.

But the best was when we did the word wink... and MissP started recite the Night Before Christmas. She was one of my Gr 5's from last year that took part in the Christmas concert. She remembered a goodly part of it. I was so pleased and proud. I don't know what we are goin gto do this year. I have 17 .. alot of kids to get on and off a stage.
I must run. Hope this finds everyone well.
Pearl

Nov. 14th, 2005

The past two weeks we have had many interruptions to the school week, so we have not had full weeks. My Dad told me that if I ever worked two days in a row I should demand a second cheque from Kativik School board. It has not been quite that bad.. but it has been bad. We lost an afternoon to furnace problems, a morning to no power in the village and then Friday was Nov. 11th. The week before was the death and burial of an elder.

Up here the 11th of Nov is remembered as the day the James Bay Agreement was signed. That was the beginnings of modern life and the start to some self-gov't for this part of the north, Nunivik. For the teachers it was a day to go to nursing for our flu shots. I spent most of Fri and Sat on the sofa with all the symptoms of the flu. I was just a tad nervous that I would be sick again after my long bout of illness last month.

But like when I was teenager, as the sun went down I felt my strenght returned and I was able to enjoy a wee bit of partying. That was so successful that we partied again on Sunday. We are all good cooks up here so when we get a bit of a holiday we out do ourselves. And the holidays allow our friends from different communities to hitch a ride to Salluit.

We had a major blizzard on Saturday. No run to the shops or post office . No one went out until evening. The teachers houses are all very close together... a good thing most of the time but a bad thing if you want privacy. Some of my students wrote in their journals this morning that it was fun to go out to play in the wild weather. Any storm is a potential problem as our power cuts in and out but the kids love it when it is stormy.

These days the sun hardly gets over the horizon..partly because the mountains are so high here. There is good strong light from 9 am to 3pm. With the full moon people are going to the mussel hole to gather them in. The tides are high like in Nova Scotia. The mussels can be picked right off the sea floor. Later in the winter, when the ice forms, people will crawl down thru the hole in the ice, pick the mussels and scamper back up. I will not be amongst them... but I will be home with the boiling water ready to cook . everybody has a job... but one of mine is not crawling under the sea ice.

I have been lucky enought to receives some newspapers from Toronto and Montreal. No matter how out of date they are, they are most welcome. There seems to be a great many people who live south of 60 who think they know the answers to the varied problems in the north. The answers are not as simple as they write. Life is changing rapidly here. There are diamond mines and nickel mines near Salluit. The north is opening up. Now to bring our people along with this development. The Inuit workers at this mines are very successful. Now to educate more and more people so they can work in these mines. The wealth from the mines is being distributed thru out the north. But like Premier Loughead in Alberta in the 70's the people of the north want the bulk of the processing done in the north as that is where the real wealth is. There are not enough people, at this time, who can successfully wrestle with big business for the fair deal. Their numbers are small but they are doing a good job. .. and things will get better.

Our Mayor here in Salluit is a good man, honest, well intentioned but he reads neither English, nor French. The educational system here has not been as successful as it could have been.. but we are getting better. More students attend regularly. More teachers dive into the community working hard to gain the respect of the elders. We are working together better these days. When time is devoted to Culture that means less English, French, Math or Science. Just like down south we have to figure out what is really inportant to be learned in school and what can be best learned from the elders outside of school hours.


The Inuit child is brought up differently than a child down south. The Inuit value a child that is quiet. Southern parents are always encouraging their child to be curious, to be verbal, to ask questions, to be on the go. The Inuit parents want their child to observe, not to ask personal questions, to think, to reflect. In my family Sara would be the typical Inuit child, and Aran the typical southern child. Even the first years of the Inuit child's education is in an Inuit classroom with Inuit teachers who are trying hard to break out of that traditional ways. Rome was not built in a day. Then the child comes to me who wants them to be so verbal... I am always asking what is seen as personal questions. Of course I bribe mine with chocolate to get them to talk. That gets them going every time.

Right now we are having a great deal of fun memorizing poetry. "In Flanders Fields" was abit of a h ard go but most of them did a fair job. Now we are on to some fun stuff.


Enough for today.
pearl

Nov 10th, 2005

Another day of no school. This time the power was off most of the morning. It is now back on but may go off again as they are upgrading the lines. Marie Andree is happy as she has rented out her truck to the power company. But I don't think I will try to cook cakes or fancy things this weekend.

We have lots of snow down now. Once it started it did not stop. The skidoos are out. Now that the roads are paved in Salluit I am surprised they have not built snow bridges acrss the roads for the skidoos. It can't be good for them to drive on pavement. And it would slow people down as they come roaring down the hill.

It is pretty in Salluit now. The rocks still jut out of the snow but soon everything will look like a naked Dairy Queen treat. The river has started to freeze but the tide washes out the thin ice each day. But it won't be long until the river and then the bay is frozen over. The bay ice freezes to over 12 feet thick. Each year I say I am going to walk across the bay to the other side, climb that hill and see what is over there... but each time I get a quarter of a mile out, I chicken out, and crawl back to land. A girl from Digby just does not walk on ice, no matter how thick. Being a bit of a scamp, I do enjoy the skidoo rides to the ice edge. I reassure myself by saying the machine would out run the cracks in the ice. Pretty dumb.

Tomorrow Nunivik... not Nunavut... will celebrate James Bay Day. That was the day that the courts recognized the right of the Cree and Inuit to decide what would happen to their land. It was a massive treaty. The provinice of Quebec wanted to develop the power in and around the James Bay. They brought in heavy machinery to start digging up Cree and Inuit land without even informing them, let alone thinking about compensation. I taught this when I was in the high school so I will dig out my notes and give you all a short lesson on the aggreement.

Salluit was one of three desenting villages. These villages voted not to accept the agreement, and to never allow the development of their land. The other 11Inuit villages signed. So did all the Cree. Rather strong minded people. Some elders still feel that way. The development and changes have been so rapid, and at times positive , other times negative. I see it as a work in progress... many problems yet to be solved.

One of the highlights of the c elebrations tomorrow is a community feast. Food will be cooked in the tradional ways, brought to the Community centre and the entire village will sit on the floor and eat. Pearl will be the one not eating walrus. The more I chew it the bigger it gets. I end up with a huge glob of walrus that I can never chew, nor swallow.

There will be games as well... Inuit games and Bingo. Also the Mayor will climb on the highest house and throw clothing to people gathered below. Also candies. The clothing will have the village name on it, or Air Inuit clothing, or other winter gear with Nunavik printed on it.There is a real battle for the goodies. Several large cartons of clothing will the distributed that way... oh what fun.

I must run. Hope everyone is having a great day.
pearl

Nov 7th.2005

Back in the classroom... today is Day 5 with in the school. My students have Culture and Gym today. We all like Day 5. I have not mentioned my students. I have 17 with one having special needs. That is far to many for ESL. I teach both Gr 5&6. I have some very good students, some that could do better and some real challenges.. like any other classroom in North America. I have no discipline problems, nor violence issues. I am lucky. Some of you will remember that a teacher was shot in Salluit last year. The student then killed himself in the classroom. The high school continues to be a challenge for the teachers there. But here in elementary, espically in the English sector we have very little that we cannot handle.

In Gr 5 I have Jajie Aluku.. at 10 he goes out hunting for geese alone. Martha Ashevak does not attend very often. Her grandmother died last week.. a great educator in the village. Victor Bruce looks like young photos of my Dad. He is a real cutie, gentle. Abigail Cameron is a fantastic student. She was just born when Aran visited here 10 years ago. I have great photos of Aran wearing the inuit coat with Abby peeking out to look at the world from such a great height. Trudy Ikey is my girlie girl. She knows everything about the teen idols. Charlie Kadjulik is a very bright boy but he also does not come often. I will see him this afternoon as he will want to go to gym class. Lissie Kakayuk looks just like her Mum. She has the softest voice ever. Irsutuk Kanaujuak is a little sweetie too. He tries so hard to please. Luccassie Kumakuluk gives Abby a run for her money. He is a great student... broke his leg early in the term. And my Aloupa... he is a real great kid. He always has a smile. If I catch him at mischief he is always cheerful about it. His Mum Susie is a great friend of mine. Charlie Tarkirk is all boy.. he hunts with Jajie in the fall.

My Gr 6;s were my Gr 5's last year. I still have Tunu... he tries to be a real man but he too is so gentle and sweet. he is so much fun to tease. Eliyah Ilisutuk is from the good carving family. Her Dad and Grandfather are great carvers. I have taught every child in eliasapie Padlayat's family except for the baby brother. Eliasapie is a good student and a chatty one. But the real talker is Lissie Trakirk. No matter what I say she has a comment to make. She writes lots of lines rather cheerfully... she is used to that punishment.

That is just a sketch ... I will write more when they do something of note. Last Friday I gave the students a photo of a smal l bear and a woman. I asked them to give each a name and write what each was thinking. Charlie O wrote that the bear wished the woman was a fish so he could eat her. I thought that funny.

On Saturday I started my Christmas sewing. My Aunt Marg gave me her Singer Featherweight sewing machine and I brought it up here. It is the best little machine in the world to sew with. I treasure the machine as it was her sister Marion's, then Aunt Marg's ,now mine. I have lots of ideas so let's see how much I get done. The long Arctic nights are here so there will be few excuses.

Have a good day.

Friday, Nov 4th,2005

School is over for another week. Friday can be a long hard day. So often the students are too tired to work. Yesterday was a pay day so many in the village were up late. The sun has dipped behind the mountain, it is snowing again and I need my cup of tea.

This morning I watched two young children run down the hill for Marc's breakfast programme. Marc, a teacher, has set up a breakfast and lunch for the kids in the village that have little or no food at home. He does it all on his own time...he begs, borrows and steals( well not really) the food. He averages 55 for both meals. He has been given a budget from the village but it does not cover their needs. Marc goes to the different construction companies in late Oct "asking' for a donation of their left over food when they break camp for the winter.

I go to help serve at lunch time. It is a good time to mix with the kids that I don't teach. Hot dog day is popular with us all. Marc makes great soups... it is a real fishes and loaves story.... and when you see the little ones running down the hill at 7;33 in the morning in -30degree weather, windy, snowy you know they need the food. marc is a saint.

Last night I made a patch of salt cod fish cakes. My Dad suggested I try making them with instant potatoes. Potatoes are heavy, expensive to buy here and they always look like a boxer had used them for a punching bag. They turned out pretty good. Not as good as Mum's but they were alot better than no fish cakes at all. I put the summer savoury in the milk. I also used Pam instead of oil to fry them... I have my 40th high school reunion coming up so I am trying to get slim...slimmer.

I do miss the tastes and smells of home. The fall harvest is one thing I miss. I saw Howard Dill on CBC Hallowe'en day . Oh to see a field of pumpkins...to go apple picking .. to stop at the farm markets. I miss it all.

My parents sent up a box of dried flowers, cedar and pine for wreath making with Christmas coming up. Also 4 lovely potatoes, an onion and a turnip. The stores do have veggies and fruit but they are often in bad shape and very expensive. The last turnip I bought was $4.76. Once I went in the store and they were priced under a dollar so I bought them all. Then I gave them to Marc and Gladys and other teachers. That also happened with frozen turkeys. They were so inexpensive I bought several and then had to carry them home.. a 15 minute walk. A labour of love. One lady came out of her home and told me since I was an older teacher, I was eligible to use the Inuit Elders vechile. I did not know whether to be pleased that she thought of me as part of the village or to be insulted that she thought me that old. Since I have white hair they are convinced I am very very old, not just old.

I must go home for my tea. We had an easy week but yet I am tired.
I hope this finds you all well.
Pearl

A snowy day

It has been snowing in Salluit for 2 days now. This is our wet season. We don't get that much snow, it is just the same snowflake blowing around Salluit from Nov to March. Nothing like the amount of snow I had to shovel at 2806. Who would think a bonus living here was no shovelling of snow. It is very dry here... I have two humidifiers going all the time in my house. Crackers can be left out for days and they never get soggy. It takes a girl from Nova Scotia a long time to get used to that.

I saw Colleen Jones on the telly this am. What beautiful weather in Nova Scotia. Couldn't some of you go to Horseshoe Park and be part of the background?

The hills here are almost covered with snow. A few more days of this and we can start to go out with cardboard to slide. This morning I put my medium weight snow pants on as I have two outside duties on day 3. I was pleasantly surprised to have them rather loose at the waist This is not from exercising , or even watching what I eat but from that terrible cold I had. I am trying to be careful but I am not always successful.. and when I am successful , I then celebrate with food. Let's face it I was not meant to be thin.

It is not fun to do these outside duties in colder weather. It is the longest 30 minutes of the day. So many teachers forgot their duties that administration decided to put all our duties on one day. So on Day 3 I have to get in and out of my gear 5 times : before school, at noon, after school as well as the two recess duties. That should cause me to loose weight. Actually I end up loosing mittens or my second scarf ... yes I wear two... one inside my coat and one outside to cover my face. I have the ugliest coat in the world. It is the warmest garment that Mountain Co-Op E makes but it is lime green. God what a colour. I bought it on sale... no one wanted it. It is good in that one can see me in the dense snow falls... it sure is ugly.

Yesterday there were Municipal elections thru out Nunivik. In Salluit the mayor, Michael Cameron ,was defeated by the former mayor. Michael is very young, early 30's, and he may have tried to do too many things in the first two years. It must be sad for Michael but that means he will come back to school as our Centre Director. I was able to vote which made me feel part of the community here.

The snow is swirling around outside. At times it is difficult to see other buildings. I think since LLBean has free shipping this month it is time to treat myself to new boots.

Have a great day.

Pearl

Nov 2nd., 2005

No school in Salluit to-day. A village elder has died. This is a small community and most Inuit will be saddened. Some of the old traditions are still observed here. It is difficult to plan for schooling here as so many things can shut down the system.

And what does that mean for water delivery and sewage pickup? Are the trucks running? If my sewage tank is not emptied, I have to be careful about the amount of water I use. If no water is delivered, I have to make the daily delivery last perhaps two or three days. Not knowing there was going to be a disruption in services, I had a long shower last night and did a load of laundry. I am beginning to regret that decison.

On week-ends, I throw my grey water out the front door so I will have more room in my tank for showers and toilet flushing. On a long weekend, I stock up on water a few days ahead and then pray that we'll get regular service on the Tuesday. There have been times when I have taken my washcloth and toothbrush to school to do the basics before the day starts.

I boil all the water I drink. Like so many people I have been watching the events on the Ontario side of the southern James Bay. I don't think Andy Scott has a grasp of the problems that isolated communities face. These communities have a tendency to grow very quickly. Orginal systems are quickly obsolete. The school I teach in was built 5 years ago. Already, we do not have enough classrooms. The school was built for 2 kindergarten classes... this year we have three.. so this building was already too small while it was being built.

For Andy Scott to visit the community involved last Aug, and then announce in Oct that there had been ongoing problems for 10 years, and it was now time for a study to find a solution - it's an insult to the people who have suffered for so long. He is not doing his job. If being stupid was a criminal offense he'd be in jail, without passing GO and without collecting his $200.00.

Not that the answers are easy, but the lack of such facilities is a problem that could and should be solved over 10 years... It seems to me that often problems in isolated communities are invisible. I remember once listening to a CBC radio story about the problems in the city of Regina resulting from a power failure that lasted 3 hours. We had just had our power restored after 11 days! We have no fireplaces... we have no extra sources of heat or ability to cook. Planes could not land to fix our power plant, nor to bring us food and we had seriously ill people waiting to be med-evac'd out of Salluit. I doubt very much that it was mentioned on any media source...other than my letters home.

It is just 6 weeks till the teachers fly out for Christmas! You can't imagine what is like to hit Mic Mac Mall after shopping in the tiny Co-op and Northern stores here in Salluit. I hit the mall at the peak shopping event of the year. The noise, the glitter, the people... it takes me hours to get out of the food court! Driving in Hfx is a bit of a roller coaster for me. Sara does get tired of me telling her to slow down, or me looking terrified. But Hfx is nothing compared to Aran picking me up in Toronto, and me having to deal with his driving and the confusion of Toronto. When I come out of Salluit, I am about ready for the speed of Digby... not Hfx or Toronto.

Today is municipal election day. It is time for me to go off to vote and then cuddle down on the sofa. I feel another cold coming on so I had better rest up.

Have a good day.
Pearl