The unluckiest man in the world

Having spent a fair amount of time of late bemoaning my lack of sewage collection, I recently read a story about a man whose level of misfortune far outstrips anything that lady luck has ever thrown at me (or anyone else, for that matter).

Tsutomu Yamaguchi is a 93 year old Japanese citizen. On August 6th 1945, he was on a business trip to Hiroshima when the United States dropped the first atomic bomb. Despite suffering from horrific burns to the top half of his body, he braved the devastation looking for a way out of the city, and the next day he managed to get on a train that took him back to his home...

...in Nagasaki.

Read Mr Yamaguchi's full story here.

Sunday service

Finally, after three days, my sewage tank has been emptied. Saturday morning was a harrowing time as I watched the yellow 'poop trucks' circle around outside, and they seemingly visited every other house until one eventually broke ranks and delivered me from my sewage-induced nightmare. The house opposite actually received two visits in the space of half an hour before my tank was emptied, leaving me thinking that either this was now all getting somewhat vindictive or that poor family had a serious case of the runs. Either way, I don't really think I want to know the answer.

The Ivakkak is on a rest day today, and there was sad news yesterday as one of the competitors, Harry Okpik (remember him, the man with one leg?), awoke to find two of his dogs dead; apparently, many of the male dogs have been fighting over the few females in heat that are taking part in the race. On a more positive note my pre-race pick, Willie Cain Jr, currently leads the field, but with the race not quite at the halfway stage yet it's a bit early to be heading down to Ladbrokes to collect my winnings.

Only one full week until the Easter break now, and with our school year ending in May, the tunnel where there is apparently light to be found should you travel to its end, is almost in sight!

Live free or bliz-zard

Yet another blizzard swept its way through town today, shutting down the school in the afternoon and forcing the competitors in the Ivakkak to remain camped out some 65km into their 500km journey. Now, a blizzard day (or half-day) normally gives one the chance to kick back and relax at home without the need to go into work. However, one's ability to relax in said manner is severely compromised when the sewage tank is full.

Let me explain.

All the dwellings here have their water delivered by truck, and conversely the sewage tank is emptied and its contents taken away by another truck. Service is normally daily, but when the weather is bad such services either slow down or grind to a halt, and it can take days for everything to get back into sync again. In every house there is a panel of lights that indicates whether your tanks are full or empty, and my 'sewage full' light has now been on for the last two days. Now, this light acts a little like the fuel light on the dashboard of your car in that it serves as a warning, but it's warning me that my tank is almost full as opposed to the tank in my car being almost empty.

Once the sewage tank is actually full the water supply cuts of automatically, and then you are in real trouble. Until then you are playing a game of Russian roulette with your water, and each decision becomes critical. Dare I flush the toilet? Can I wash up the plates? Could I sneak a shower? Any one of these actions could tip the balance and cost you your water supply, and with the wind still blowing hard outside, what are normally everyday tasks become matters of great internal debate. Add into the mix that I share my water and sewage tanks with the apartment downstairs, where Pierre will probably be going through the same decision making processes, and life becomes very interesting.

So at the moment I sit with a toilet unflushed, a sink full of plates that remain unwashed and if I take a shower the water will have to remain in the tub until the light goes out.

It's times like these I'm glad I don't have a sense of smell.

Mush!

The Ivakkak finally got going today, and many of us spent an enjoyable, if cold, couple of hours soaking up the atmosphere before we finally got to see the teams leave on their journey north. The Ivakkak has only been through Inukjuak once before, so to have the race actually start in the town was a prestigious honour, and there must have been a good couple of hundred people (a sizeable crowd in these parts) on site to see the teams off.

The build-up to the start of the race included a number of speeches which were then followed by one of the more joyful traditions at these type of events, whereby stacks of goodies are literally hurled into the waiting crowd who then battle to catch said goodies in the manner of fans at a baseball game trying to get their hands on a foul ball or home run. Much to my delight and surprise, I managed to pluck an Ivakkak toque (that's a woolly hat to our British readers) out of the air, and it was then off to the start line to see the teams finally begin their journey.

The Ivakkak very much combines the old with the new - each wooden sled is equipped with a GPS tracker and the whole race is shadowed by a helicopter - but it is the dog teams that remain at the heart of the event, and there were certainly some fine animals on display this morning. It surprised me that the number of dogs on each team was not even - most teams had ten, but the numbers ranged from eight up to twelve - and it is for this reason that I am going to install team #9 (Willie Cain Jr. & Joseph Cain) as my early favourites, simply because they had the most dogs. Team #12 (Johnny Aakutaaq Angnatuk & his son, Sammy) also had a dozen huskies to pull the sled, but two of them looked somewhat reticent to run and were virtually being dragged along by the others, a bit like the kids in your class at school who never wanted to take part in the P.E. lessons and consequently took forever to get changed into their kit before finally being ushered out onto the muddy field by an increasingly frustrated games teacher before he locked the changing room door.

And it wasn't just the number of dogs on each team that was uneven either, as head musher of team #1, Harry Okpik, is - to quote Peter Cook and Dudley Moore - deficient in the leg division, to the tune of one. Nonetheless, Harry has served as an inspiration for many years now, and you can read a nice little article about him from 2003 here. Harry's team was the first to leave, and one by one the other teams followed, accompanied by the cheers of the crowd as they rode away into the distance, becoming mere dots on the horizon before they finally disappeared out of sight. The helicopter that I mentioned earlier made a brief flight to check on the competitors' progress, but it then came back to town and for the rest of the afternoon a huge queue was formed as the villagers were given free sight-seeing flights over Inukjuak, a really nice touch. Whilst they were in the air, they may have been able to see the polar bear that was rumoured to have wandered into town, but much like sightings of Elvis the presence of said bear has yet to be confirmed; I shall keep you posted!

Don't forget to follow the progress of the race on the Ivakkak website, and along with news of polar bears I shall also try to keep you up to date with the race on the blog.

Bliz-zard with a vengeance

As I write, Inukjuak is in semi-lockdown as a blizzard sweeps through town. The start of the Ivakkak was postponed and school was closed this afternoon, giving us the other half of the blizzard day that I mentioned in the last post. My house guest, Gail, managed to get her flight out of town, but I think she must have only just made it as I doubt there is anything able to fly now, other than the odd plastic bag, candy wrapper or old lady that I can see swirling past my window. Things are meant to subside during the night so we might be back to normal tomorrow, but there is always the chance that school might be closed in in the morning, so we can but pray.

Pray for school to be open of course; I'm nothing if not professional!

It's all happening!

Sorry for the lack of updates over the last week - pure laziness on my behalf, I'm afraid. Just as in Dog River, there's not been a lot going on of late, although that is all about to change, as I will explain shortly. Just to fill you in though, we sort of got the blizzard that I was writing about in the last post - we had the morning off, so I guess it was a 'half blizzard day' (or a 'bliz day', or a 'zard day', depending on your preference) - and, much to my surprise, my keys were found! The locks on my apartment building have now all been changed (they were going to be changed anyway - it's not my fault, officer!) so it's a bit of a moot point, but it's nice to have them back.

Now, as I was saying before I rudely interrupted myself, it's going to be a busy week in town. Firstly, my students sat their TOEFL exam today, which was a surprise to both them and myself as Gail, who comes up from Montreal to administer the test, wasn't meant to be coming until next week, or so we thought. Anyway, at least the exam is over and done with now, and the fact that Gail is staying with me tonight has made me do all the cleaning that I've been putting off for weeks. Oh, and whilst I was cleaning, I discovered that my apartment is so small that I can vacuum the entire place without having to unplug the vacuum cleaner (or hoover, to you Brits) even once. Remarkable.

Gail is having to stay with me tonight as the hotel in town is full (yes, we have a hotel here, and it'll only cost you $250 a night to stay there if you come and visit), and this fact brings me on to the second and third things that are happening in town this week. Firstly - or should that really be 'secondly' as we already had a 'firstly' in the previous paragraph - the Makivik Corporation has its annual general meeting in town this week, so there are many dignitaries and other persons of import in town at the moment. Makivik basically runs everything in the North, so to have its AGM here is quite prestigious for the town.

Finally, and probably most interestingly (is that a word?), tomorrow marks the start of the Ivakkak dog sled race, which this year leaves from Inukjuak. The Ivakkak is an annual (although there wasn't one in 2008) race for Inuit dogsledders, which follows a varying but always challenging route across Nunavik. There are thirteen teams entered this year, including two from Inukjuak, and the race can take anything from two to three weeks to complete, depending on the weather; you will be able to follow their progress on the Ivakkak website. We shall be going to see the teams off tomorrow morning, and I'll try to post some photos in the next day or two.

OK, that's all from me for today; I need to finish my house cleaning!

It's all about perspective

We had a first aid course at school today, and as a result I am now 100% confident in my ability to perform CPR on any limbless dummies that might be involved in accidents over the coming months. In all seriousness though, it was a very good course and a cruel irony that it was delivered on the day that Natasha Richardson died after a seemingly innocuous fall on a Canadian ski slope.

Her tragic demise is just the kind of episode that ought to put all of one's own troubles into some sort of perspective, but what actually happens is that deep down you end up thinking 'thank God that wasn't me' and then feel dreadfully guilty about having such thoughts, thus adding to those problems that should now be in that perspective we were just talking about.

Or is that just me?

On a lighter note, it looks like we might get another blizzard tomorrow, and I've spent much of the evening performing a ritual that will be very familiar to all those that work in the North. It's the one where you are constantly at the window checking on the elements, praying for snow to accompany the wind and hoping that the storm doesn't blow itself out before morning. The next few hours will be critical, but if the blizzard doesn't come then I suppose I shouldn't be complaining too much, especially after last week's five day weekend.

It's all about perspective.

Trivial Pursuits

The blizzards have now subsided, and I am currently enjoying the last day of my five day weekend. As with most Sundays, I've spent a very hedonistic day in front of both the television and the computer - often at the same time - and what an educational experience it's been. I've watched documentaries on spontaneous human combustion, the building of Heathrow's Terminal Five and the Tunguska blast of 1908, learned how compact discs, snowboards and contact lenses are manufactured in a programme called How It's Made - which, highly ironically, was followed by a show entitled Destroyed In Seconds - and I've also found out that chewing gum was the first product to be stamped with a barcode.

Who said that television rots your brain?

Five day weekend

Towards the end of February I lamented about the unchanging weather and hoped that March would bring us our first blizzards of the year...

...they're here!

We've had worse in the past, but as I write I can just about make out the house across the street (and it's not a very wide street), whilst the (fool)hardy souls that are actually outside very soon fade from sight, as if devoured by some all-powerful white mist; imagine Field Of Dreams, but substitute snow for corn and you'll get the picture. I've still not located my keys, but I've had some spares made up, and if I lost the originals outside, well.....there's no hope of finding them now!

We also have a ped day tomorrow, and when you couple this with the fact that I was off sick yesterday, it's like having a snow and spew induced March break (OK, I didn't actually spew yesterday, but I like the alliteration back there so indulge me).

So how does one use such unexpected time off? Enroll in that online Masters course, possibly? Finish reading that book on the Zen of seal hunting perhaps? Finally get round to sorting out that mountain of unpaid bills? Maybe I could give the apartment a good clean? Or how about putting in some microwave popcorn and catching up with all those episodes of CSI New York, NCIS and Bones that I've recorded and haven't watched yet?

I'll let you decide...

Locked out

I lost my keys yesterday.

Not a good idea at the best of times, but definitely not a smart move when it's -20° outside and the last of the evening light is fading rapidly. I'd been to the store to pick up my mail and buy a few essentials (bread, eggs and ramen noodles), only to find that when I got home...no keys. The fact that the clocks went forward at the weekend at least gave me an extra hour of daylight to search for them, but to no avail. The maintenance department were eventually able to let me in, and I was told that I'd get a new set today, but as I write (it's 3.30 pm), they haven't yet materialised.

The loss of said keys has made me feel somewhat emasculated; I had to ask someone in the office to let me into my classroom this morning, and as it stands I will be relying on the kindness of others to let me into my apartment again this evening. The decision to simply go home at the end of the day has been temporarily taken out of my hands, and I have to say it's a strange feeling. Still, at least I have a home to go to, which is not a luxury afforded to everybody, and when I finally get there, I have food I can put on the table.

I'm looking forward to my ramen noodle and egg sandwich.

I thought this was a family show?

The hardest working man in show business™, Ryan Seacrest, seems to be making a bid to become 'the most un-PC man in show business' as well. A little while ago I wrote about Ryan's attempt to high five a blind contestant on American Idol - incidentally that contestant, Scott MacIntyre, has since made it through to the final stages of the show - and on tonight's live programme, Ryan took things to the next level.

Tatiana, who has been particularly emotional and theatrical throughout her time on the show, had just sung for the last time and had sunk to her knees in order to implore the judges to put her through to the next round. With judgement summarily passed and Tatiana still on her knees, Ryan takes the stage to interview the contestant and cue the commercials. He approaches Tatiania, and as she starts to rise from her genuflected pose, he pronounces:

'You don't have to get up.'

Unfortunately for Ryan, Tatiana didn't make it through. Probably for the best, you know.

It's not cricket

For a moment this morning, I was very excited. When I looked out of the window, visibility was poor and it appeared we may have the blizzard I've been praying for. However, once the old eyes started to focus properly, it became clear that what we had was just fog, and the work day would have to happen as normal. I felt robbed, but once I continued my morning routine by checking the news headlines online, my weather-orientated displeasure was quickly put into perspective.

The headline 'Gunmen shoot Sri Lankan cricketers' seemed so surreal as to be untrue, but when one read on, the reality of the situation became all too apparent; click here to read a particularly graphic account of events from one of the Sri Lankan players, Kumar Sangakkara. Those that continually argue that politics and sport shouldn't mix have always been wasting their time, but when sportsmen are caught up in the type of atrocities that were inflicted today, we are suddenly on a whole new level. Sport hasn't been affected in such a manner since Munich in 1972, and whilst terrorism seems to tighten its unforgiving grip on the world almost daily, it has always seemed that sport was untouchable in this respect.

Sadly, I doubt this is the case any more. As most of you who are reading this will know, cricket has always been a huge part of my life, so these events resonate all the more with me. It deeply saddens me that my sport has been sullied in such a way, and whilst every sympathy is obviously with the families of those involved, I only hope that the game itself has not been mortally wounded as well.