Life In A Northern Town

So long, and thanks for all the fish

2010-05-05T08:09:00.000-04:00

And so it ends.

It was 1294 days ago that I first set foot in Nunavik and now it's the last day. As I leave, there are no awards, no fanfares, no hour long special featuring your favourite moments from all the previous seasons, as well as some never-before-seen outtakes and behind the scenes footage. Instead, I'm now just the man in the suitcase, sitting eating a last bowl of cheerios whilst surrounded by all my boxes (20 of them), waiting for the van to come to take me to the airport.

It's an ordinary end to what's been an extraordinary journey.

If you'd told me five years ago, when we were still back in the UK, that I would spend four years - three of them on my own - in an isolated Inuit community teaching English to college hopefuls, I'd have taken you about as seriously as a very unserious thing that had just won the world unseriousness championships. However, life never pans out quite how you'd expect, and here I am and there I was.

To paraphrase Celine Dion the blog will go on - I think - so keep looking in, but this particular chapter has now reached its end. Thanks for sharing the journey with me; you've been great company.

Taima!

Inuit Idol

2010-05-03T22:13:00.002-04:00

Two days to go.

Despite the prolonged build up to my departure, and the fact that I'm writing this surrounded by boxes in various states of 'packed-ness', I still don't think it's really sunk in that in two days I'll be on a plane out of here for the very last time. At this stage of proceedings there are so many loose ends to tie up and last minute jobs to be done that there isn't really any time to think much further ahead than today.

James' party on Saturday was fun, and I've been invited next door for supper on Tuesday, so my adventure in Kangiqsujuaq will be ending just as it began. James and Sophie fed me on my very first day here back in August, and I shall miss their kindness and friendship when I leave. I'm also eating out tonight, as Roland is putting on a supper at the residence for the departing students, and it was earlier today that I gave my students their TOEFL results, the results that dictate whether or not they get to go to college.

I always feel like Simon Cowell at this stage of the year, the whole process reminding me of the conclusion to Hollywood Week on American Idol when the contestants are told whether they've made it onto the show or not. The students sit in our classroom and then, one by one, I call them into the room next door (which is fortunately vacant a lot of the time and was again today) to give them their results. Like Simon, I'm not one to sugar coat the truth if it's bad, and whilst I don't gain any personal pleasure out of doing it this way I don't think I'd being doing the students any favours if I did it any differently. If they get praise from Simon then they deserve it, and it's the same in my class.

As it was, my students did pretty well this year so there wasn't much disappointment floating around, but it's only now that their journey really begins. When they head south to college they'll no longer be the big fishes in a small pool, and like the contestants on Idol they're going to have to work hard to stay the course. Whether they manage to stick it out remains to be seen, but at least their fate is in their own hands, with no phone votes and no Ryan Seacrest to deal with.

Dim the lights...

Packing up

2010-05-01T16:34:00.000-04:00

It's now my last weekend in the North, and the end really is in sight. Packing has begun, and even though I have relatively few possessions here, I still have a whole bunch of stuff that I've hardly ever or in some cases, never, used. I came here with 18 boxes, and if I were to do it all again I could probably halve that number and still live relatively comfortably. When I get home next week I'm going to be going through the whole process again as we prepare for our major southern move - more on that in the days and weeks to come - and it's for that reason that I'm not quite as hyped about leaving as I might be otherwise.

I hate moving, or at least the packing side of things, and the fact that we've done it so often over the course of the past decade hasn't made me alter my opinion in any way. I make it that I've been involved in eleven moves over the course of the last ten years, including one inter-continental move and several excursions to, from and around Nunavik, but hopefully this will be it for the foreseeable future. Frank Sinatra used to sing that it was nice to go travelling but so much nicer to come home and I tend to agree, but I bet he never had to pack. Mafia connections most certainly have their perks; two men, a van and a horse's head...

In other news, it's James' birthday tomorrow, and as Sundays aren't the best days for parties he and Sophie are hosting a potluck tonight. I'm making spaghetti and sauce (how original), and in true Keith Floyd style there will be plenty of liquid stimulation on hand during the process as, in the initial stages of packing, I found a bottle and a half of rum plus some pina colada mixer that I forgot I had. My spaghetti's going to be awesome...

Drains and radiators

2010-04-29T23:15:00.000-04:00

We all do it. You've probably done it at least once today already; much to my shame, I know I have. Gordon Brown (texture like sun) did it earlier this week and it might end up costing him the UK election. No, I'm not referring to talking in a Scottish accent. I am instead talking about the noble art of back-biting, gossip or just plain old bitching. Talking about other people behind their backs, the kind of talk that usually takes the form of derogatory slander, must be one of the most universally popular pastimes known to man.

I read an article today on just this topic, an article inspired by Gordon Brown's pre-election gaffe of calling a Labour Party supporter a bigot once he thought he was out of range of the microphone. In it, the writer espoused a number of theories as to why we indulge in such behaviour, my favourite being the one in which our lives are viewed as dramatic productions. We play out the roles given to us and we have a centre stage where we assume that we are being observed and a backstage area which we think is hidden from public view. When engaged in formal social interaction we have to remain 'in character' for the benefit of the audience (everybody else), but Mr Brown's 'bigot' remark or your slagging off of your boss to your colleague at the water cooler are examples of backstage personas.

Every workplace is, to a greater or lesser extent, afflicted with this type of behaviour, and in a small school like the one here in Kangiqsujuaq it's hard to avoid it and even harder to avoid being sucked in by it. Jacob and I were discussing this issue along with the article I read, and we came up with the idea that perhaps schools should have two staffrooms: a bitching staffroom and a non-bitching staffroom. This idea also has an added benefit, in that staff might be so self-conscious about entering the room with the sign above the door marked 'bitching' that they would have to enter the non-bitching one instead, thus diminishing the problem with the minimum of effort.

Even in such a multi-staffroomed school though, back-biting would not disappear; human nature dictates otherwise. I remember a prize-giving speech at my old school in the UK in which the guest speaker declared that most people in life fit into one of two categories: they are either drains or radiators. Radiators bring light and joy into a room whilst drains suck the life out of everybody in it. That speech has stuck with me over the years and I think the speaker was spot on; think of everyone you work with, and I bet you could draw up a list of drains and radiators pretty quickly.

The speaker concluded his speech by urging all present to go forth and be life's radiators rather than life's drains, and it's advice I've always tried to follow. As I alluded to earlier though, sometimes it's hard to stay on such a righteous path, and I'm very aware that I've been all too easily led astray of late, so much so that I now avoid our staffroom unless I really have to go there. We only have one, you see...

But there I go, straying off that road again. I told you the path of righteousness was a difficult route to follow.

Sound judgment

2010-04-28T00:52:00.000-04:00

We are most definitely into the realm of 'lasts' now. Today was my last ever Wednesday in Kangiqsujuaq, and this time next week I shall be, weather permitting, well and truly back in the south. Just how much of me will remain in the North? Only time will tell on that one; as I've said before, the North has very much become 'my Canada' over the past four years, and I guess we will have to wait until we get to the end of August and I haven't crammed myself into a Dash-8 or a Twin Otter before we can start to make a judgment.

For the moment I'm still here though, and today we marked International Noise Awareness Day with a number of highly interesting (honestly) in-class activities. Hearing loss is a big issue in these parts, with iPod-induced deafness exacerbated by the roar of skidoos and ATVs (or Hondas, as they're universally referred to here), and I suppose the occasional use of hunting rifles and carving tools doesn't help either.

I was somewhat shocked to witness my students' genuine amazement when they learned that listening to music through headphones at full volume will undoubtedly damage your hearing, but at least their eyes (and ears) have now been opened, and maybe they will now take steps to rectify the situation. Or maybe they'll pay no heed whatsoever; you can take a horse to water...

On a semi-related note, my research for Noise Awareness Day led me to the discovery of a rather fascinating series of recordings. They were made by a man named Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville around 150 years ago, and are now regarded as the earliest known recordings of the human voice. Now, it would seem that Scott was only interested in studying the visual properties of sound waves and never intended for these recordings to be played back, which is a bit like studying ice cream by looking at it rather than eating it, but thanks to modern scientific advances we can now finally hear the results of Scott's experiments whilst at the same time enjoying over a thousand flavours of ice cream. You can hear the recordings here.

Oh, and lest I forget, I must report that my students unanimously rejected the lone gunman theory after their investigation into the assassination of JFK. Instead, they believe that there was a conspiracy involving the FBI and Secret Service that possibly went up as high as Vice-President Lyndon Johnson; Oliver Stone and Kevin Costner would be proud. Maybe we'll discuss the Moon landings tomorrow...

The Persistence of Memory

2010-04-26T23:51:00.001-04:00

It's now the time of year when everything is starting to melt. The landscape is still covered with a snowy white shroud, but rocks, roads and patches of soil are now starting to poke through, much like the way in which the hairs on the legs of an East German women's shot-putter from the 1980s would have poked through her stockings should (s)he have tried to wear any.

Time is also melting away, like the clocks in Dali's famous painting, and it's melting just as slowly, if not slower, than the snow and ice. For both myself and my students we are now at the stage where nobody wants to be here any more and, if truth be told, nobody really needs to be either. For the students, their exams are now long over, and consequently their academic fate is effectively already sealed. Quite why they have to sit their exam a full two months before the end of the course I never managed to fathom out but, just like the Light Brigade, mine is not to reason why.

From my point of view it's just a matter of keeping my class occupied for one more week and trying to maintain the mutual motivation of both students and teacher. To that end I always fill this time of year with projects which at the very least interest me and hopefully manage to pique the interest of my students as well. Last week I taught my class some German - they can now count to ten, ask for directions to the railway station and order two large beers, please - and tomorrow we're going to examine the conspiracy theories surrounding the assassination of President Kennedy. I'll let you know whether my students subscribe to the theory of the lone gunman in the next post.

In the meantime I shall continue to stare out of the window, wishing myself away as I watch the snow melt, and as I do it's rather opportune that the Dave Matthews Band's Dive In should come up on my iPod:

Wake up sleepy head,

I think the sun's a little brighter today.

Smile and watch the icicles melt away and see the water rising.

Summer's here to stay and all those summer games will last forever.

Go down to the shore, kick off your shoes, dive in the empty ocean.

Nine more days...

Eleven days

2010-04-24T17:29:00.001-04:00

Eleven days to go now, and my thoughts are most certainly starting to turn to the summer and all the changes that are on what is an ever-nearing horizon. Now that my imminent departure is official I've been able to talk more openly about my plans with friends and colleagues here, and the more I talk the more excited I'm actually becoming about the future.

Those of you that know me well will know that I'm normally a very phlegmatic person, perhaps too phlegmatic, but for once I really am feeling genuinely excited and I don't think that the next eleven days are going to pass anywhere near quickly enough. My students are on a trip to the Pingualuit Crater this weekend and don't return until Monday afternoon, so consequently I will be starting my week with a personal ped day, which means that just six of those eleven days will be spent teaching before my flight on Wednesday week. Whether this will make the time pass more quickly or not remains to be seen.

The only blot on the landscape is the need to pack which, thankfully, is not too pressing at the moment. However, by this time next week I think I will be in full-on packing mode, and whilst this shouldn't prove to be an overly arduous task it's never one that I look forward to. I arrived in Kangiqsujuaq with only 18 boxes, and as I haven't really accumulated any extra possessions in my time here there shouldn't be any more than 18 boxes coming back down with me. Quite when they'll make it back is anyone's guess - as I've said before, things tend to happen very slowly in the North - but as long as they actually do, that's all that matters.

Eleven days...

Nothing to crow about

2010-04-22T23:17:00.000-04:00

I read a news report today headlined 'Clever New Caledonian crows can use three tools.' It was all about the way in which crows have been studied for their apparent intelligence and how scientists in New Zealand have observed crows using three tools in succession to reach some food.

Well, I don't find that especially clever at all. I can use four, sometimes five tools in succession to reach food, and on occasions I can actually use two tools - namely a knife and fork - simultaneously. Beat that, Mr Crow.

The article then goes on to describe how one of the birds, named Casper - quite how the scientists knew his name was not explained - completed a task involving food on a string on his first try, although he was 'initially puzzled by the string.' Well excuse me scientists, but I've seen a lot of string in my time and not once have I ever been puzzled or even remotely perplexed. And do you hear me bragging about it? No you do not.

In all honesty, I don't think these crows sound particularly clever at all.

Simpleton birds.

Two weeks notice

2010-04-21T23:56:00.001-04:00

It's official; I'm leaving the North.

I have my ticket, and in two weeks' time I will be back home in the south.

Permanently.

As I mentioned a few posts ago, this moment has been coming for a while now, but yesterday I finally confirmed my intentions with the powers that be and today I received my travel itinerary. Most things happen very slowly in the North, but in my life events are now moving on apace. The number of teaching days that remain are in single digits - so even I can count them on my fingers - and just two weekends sit between me and my final flight.

I know I'm going to be feeling some mixed emotions over the coming days - in fact I'm already feeling them - but I'm glad to have finally made an irrevocable decision and I know in my heart that it's the right one. I've said before in these pages that my time in the North has changed my outlook on life, and whilst I really do believe that my experience has been largely positive, I also feel that the misanthrope inside me is edging ever nearer the surface, especially this year, and that can't be a good thing.

Consequently, my repatriation to the south, and to Melanie in particular, is coming just at the right time I think, and as much as I'm going to be looking back over the next few weeks, now is really a time to be looking forward. There will be many changes ahead and all the routines I've established will need to be broken, but it's all for the greater good.

The countdown has begun...

Don't try this at home

2010-04-19T22:46:00.000-04:00

Ben, who teaches math and science to my class, took his lesson outdoors today - it was a balmy -1 degrees outside - and aside from the temperature I was impressed by two things in particular. Firstly, his audience swelled dramatically as a result, which says something about the ratio of students who are actually in the school building when they are meant to be compared with those whose aren't, and secondly...well, there can't be many science lessons that take place with a backdrop like this one!

Oh, and in case you were wondering, in light of the fact that we don't have a cloud of volcanic ash lingering over our part of the world at the moment, Ben was trying to create our own alternative version by dropping increasingly large chunks of sodium into a bowl of water. The end result was pretty impressive and one was left with the thought: just how many outdoor science lessons take place in Iceland?

Juno who that is?

2010-04-18T23:44:00.000-04:00

As I write I've just finished watching the Juno Awards - for those of you outside Canada, the Junos are the Canadian equivalent of the Grammies or the Brit Awards - and I've come to a conclusion. Either: a) I'm getting old, b) my finger is not on the pulse of Canadian music culture or c) Canadian music culture has no pulse. I say this because I've spent most of the last couple of hours repeating the same word: who?

In reality the situation is most probably a combination of (a) and (b), and this is most certainly the case if anyone from Immigration Canada is reading. I guess gradually losing touch with youth culture is all a natural part of the ageing process and is consequently nothing to really worry about, and to be honest I'm more than happy with my generational orientation in terms of music, given what I saw and heard on stage tonight.

I think that the process of being out of touch works in both directions though. Young whippersnapper Alexandre Bilodeau, who won Canada's first gold medal at the recent Winter Olympics, presented the final award of the evening, and whilst the eventual winner was not that old, the generation gap was evident when Bilodeau opened the envelope and proclaimed, "and the winner is...Michael Bubble."

To his credit, Michael Bublé graciously collected his award without so much as a flicker of indignation although maybe, given his role in the closing ceremony of Bilodeau's Olympics, that was only right and proper...

A clash of cultures?

2010-04-16T23:08:00.121-04:00

Warning: this post may contain images that might cause distress amongst animal lovers and devotees of Fox's Glacier Mints

It is not without a sense of irony that as I write a post about the school's culture day, Jacob and I are currently watching 'Family Jewels with Gene Simmons' on TV, having earlier sat through 'Sober House with Dr Drew.' There's more culture on the mouldy piece of cheese in my fridge than in either of those programmes. They're not shows that either of us would normally watch, but neither of us could be bothered to reach for the remote so, consequently, we were sucked into the sad , lonely and sometimes grotesque lives of others for the best part of two hours. Come to think of it, that pretty much sums up your experience when reading this blog...

But I digest.

As I was saying before I interrupted myself, it was culture day at the school today, the one day in the year that's set aside to celebrate the traditional ways of life in a Northern town. I always enjoy days like this, but I'm not sure how I view the fact that just one day is devoted to celebrating and promoting a culture that is being swamped and overrun by southern mores...I'll leave you to decide your own opinion on that one. I think that's a debate for another time.

Culture day here was very different to the one I experienced in Inukjuak. Here, all the action took place outside, and after two or three hours of milling around everyone had gone their separate ways. In that time though we were able to examine an igloo that had been built by Mark Tertiluk, the centre director at the school, and a second igloo was constructed during the course of the morning. Many of the children - and some of the staff - went sliding, either on plastic sleds, their bottoms or even on sealskins (or any combination of the three), there was some impromptu throat singing and, of course, there was the requisite smörgåsbord of country food, Arctic Char and walrus on this occasion.

If indeed these are to be my final couple of weeks in the North then I guess this will be the last time I get to experience Inuit culture in such a way, and I feel privileged to have the chance to be involved in such an intimate way. I only hope that the incessant march of western 'culture', Gene Simmons, Dr Drew and all, doesn't mean that future generations, both Inuit and quallunaat alike, are denied that chance.

Taking the plunge

2010-04-15T17:49:00.001-04:00

Compared to some, I've not fared too badly in the water stakes during my time in the North. Yes, there were my recent water truck woes, and back in Inukjuak I suffered at the hands of some vindictive sewage trucks, but by and large I haven't done too badly; remind me one day to tell you about my brown water shower though...

In the house where I am now the bathroom sink never has drained too quickly, but until last night at least it has always drained eventually; however, maybe through the strain of accommodating both Jacob and I, it finally stopped trying last night. Jacob managed to procure a plunger at school today, and this evening the Super Mario Brothers tried to unblock the blockage.

A good amount of tag team plunging ensued, and although we didn't totally cure the problem, we certainly revealed the cause; our sink was blocked by copious amounts of sand. No, we had no idea why either - maybe it was some of the ash from the volcano in Iceland. Whatever the reason though, our puny plunger wasn't up to the task, so we had to call in the professionals. Papigatuk, the school's maintenance man, came round with a dalek-worthy, industrial strength plunger, and in a short while our sink was draining merrily once again.

What a fascinating life I lead.

A close call

2010-04-13T23:16:00.001-04:00

My students were back in class today, and this morning I asked if they had been up to anything exciting or had had any interesting experiences during their break. There was the usual collective shrugging of shoulders and shaking of heads so we moved on, but at break time I found out, from a student in another class, that one of my students had been involved in a car accident yesterday evening; in my book that's interesting!

The road from the airport here is long and winding, but unlike Lennon and McCartney's it's also very narrow. When you add into that mix the icy conditions and the fact that the snowbanks piled up on each side make seeing round corners almost impossible, negotiating it successfully is a tricky business. Annie-Claude, who runs the residence with Roland, picked up some of the returning students from the airport yesterday, and on the way back there was a slight altercation with a van coming in the opposite direction.

Air bags deployed, crumple zones crumpled and everyone was OK in the end, but it was a bit of a shocking return for both the students and Annie-Claude, who had only just returned from holiday herself. Never had this kind of trouble when it was all dog teams up here you know.

The odd couple

2010-04-12T18:12:00.000-04:00

Most of the teachers who went south for Easter returned yesterday - I say most, because there are still one or two who, for various reasons, are not back yet - and with James and Sophie already having returned my house sharing adventure with Jacob has now begun.

As I have said before I am ostensibly a private person, preferring my socializing to be done on my own terms, but when one considers that my reintegration into society is now less than a month away, a little company is probably not such a bad thing. I used to love watching The Odd Couple when I was growing up, and over the course of the next few weeks we'll be finding out which one of us is Felix and which one of us is Oscar.

On the work front, most of my students don't return until tomorrow so I had myself a personal ped day today, and with this Friday being Culture Day I only have a three day teaching week this week. Nice. So, bearing in mind the possibility that I might actually be leaving a few days earlier than planned - more on that later in the week (maybe) - I make it that I have just thirteen, perhaps fourteen, teaching days left in the North. It's the beginning of the end...

The final furlong

2010-04-11T16:54:00.002-04:00

Horse racing has little or no profile in Canada, but back in the UK it was Grand National day yesterday, and whilst I have never been the greatest of gamblers I always enjoyed a bet on the National. Some years I would study the form and make the whole thing a very scientific process, some years I would just go by the horses' names; I even dreamt the winner one year and yes, it won! As you may have guessed though, I didn't put much money on that year - I always went by the adage of 'never gamble more than you can afford to lose', which kind of defeats the whole purpose of gambling really, but there you go - and consequently here I am, still eking out an honest living.

The way I make that living, and where I make it, is all about to change though. Although nothing is signed, sealed and delivered just yet, it would seem that a new career at King's Town School beckons, and consequently, after four years in the North, I've now entered what looks like being my final four weeks here. There are going to be many instances of 'doing something for the last time syndrome' over the coming month and, who knows, I may well have done some things for the last time already.

Whilst working in the North has brought with it many frustrations, I have by and large enjoyed my experience. I have seen and done things that I would not have seen and done otherwise, and I have met people the like of who I would never have had the chance to meet in my normal walk of life. Since leaving the UK some five years ago the North has very much become 'my Canada', and I know that my outlook on many things in this life of ours has been changed as a result. Without wishing to sound pretentious I think I am a better person for it all or, at the very least, a different person; perhaps it's best left up to others to decide on whether different is actually better.

For everything there is a season though - it's normally winter up here - and, for a number of reasons, I think the time is now right for change. A full five years after moving to Canada it would seem that enough dues have now been paid to have earned Melanie and I the opportunity to be living and, hopefully, working together again, and whilst I have always been very much aware of my 'geographical impotence' up here, a series of recent, unfortunate events in the lives of my friends and family has done much to bring that awareness into even sharper focus. As I said at the start of this post, I have never been much of a gambler. Any move, be it career or physical, is always going to be something of a gamble, and I am about to do both. On this occasion I'm happy to roll the dice though, and I'm prepared to deal with the outcome, whatever it may be.

It ain't half hot mum

2010-04-10T01:15:00.000-04:00

It's been uncommonly warm here this week - I'm not sure exactly, but I think it must have only been something like -4 or -5 today - and whilst that may sound cold, in relative terms it feels decidedly tropical. Today was truly gorgeous, and even though I've been here for some eight months now I'm still struck by the town's beauty, especially on days like today.

However, such mild weather does have a downside. During the winter months there are few, if any, problems with insects and bugs - Little Miss Muffet could have eaten her curds and whey without fear of interruption had she come to work in the North - but when winter starts to give way to spring the flies return with a vengeance, and it's then that you wish that there actually were a few spiders in town.

When I left to go on my walk today I was confronted by a business of flies - did you know that 'business' is the accepted collective noun for flies? - on the inside of my outside door (if that makes sense), and when I returned later in the afternoon I had to swat two intruders that had had the temerity to take up residence in my kitchen. Not as bad as my experience of a couple of years ago though; when I came back North after the summer holidays I entered my house and found the blinds on the dining room window literally covered with flies. We're talking dozens and dozens and dozens. Traditional swatting was never going to work, so I plugged in the vacuum cleaner and simply sucked away the problem. Genius!

Emptying the bag was interesting though.

Weekend at Curt's

2010-04-07T23:12:00.001-04:00

You just couldn't write this (although, in actual fact, someone already did, sort of). Do you remember the film Weekend At Bernie's? If not, it was about two young guys who, for reasons I won't go into now, carry their dead boss around with them for the weekend in an effort to convince everyone else that he's still alive.

Well, it would seem that two women in Liverpool have tried to recreate said movie with the deceased husband of one of them as the reluctant star. The widow and step-daughter of 91-year-old Curt Jarant tried to take poor Curt onto a flight to Berlin with them last weekend, and when they were questioned about his somewhat limp demeanour they claimed that Curt, who was wearing sunglasses and was in a wheelchair, was merely 'asleep.'

"A dead person you cannot carry to Germany, there are too many people checking and security. How can you bring a dead person to Germany?" claimed Ms Anke Anusic, Curt's step-daughter. She then went on to add: "They would think that for 24 hours we would carry a dead person? This is ridiculous. He was moving, he was breathing. Eight people saw him."

Eight people. Not seven, or nine, but eight. And, as Ms Anusic quite rightly points out, the absurdity of taking a dead person to Germany; unbelievable! Austria maybe, perhaps the Republic of Macedonia or maybe even France on a Friday afternoon but Germany? Who would try such a thing?

The case continues, and in the meantime Curt remains unclaimed on the baggage carousel along with a Gola sports bag and a purple suitcase with a yellow ribbon attached to the handle.

Kitchen nightmares

2010-04-06T20:37:00.008-04:00

As I mentioned yesterday, I celebrated my houses's rehydration with a bout of baking, and I think it's fair to say that I did a half good job. Without it being an exaggeration, I've done more baking over the course of the last year or so than in the rest of my life put together, and whilst my historical lack of culinary prowess doesn't exactly make that a difficult feat, it's still been something of a personal revelation.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not putting myself in the Gordon Ramsay league as packets and instructions still largely dictate my cooking technique, but I've been branching out and yesterday I made my first ever quiche which, even if I say so myself, came out rather well. It was a bacon and broccoli affair, and whilst Chef Ramsay would most likely have taken a forkful and declared it to be bland, I was very pleased.

I said at the beginning of this post that I did a half good job though, and there was indeed a downside to my relative success with the quiche. I also made a couple of apple pies, which should have been in the oven for around an hour, but they ended up baking for considerably longer. When I spoke to Melanie on the phone in the evening I proudly told her all about my adventures in baking, but as I was doing so I remembered the apple pies, and the fact that they were still in the oven.

It wasn't as bad as my spoon-based misadventures from earlier in the year, but after three and a half hours I don't think the pies were as moist as they could have been; apple crisp is a popular dish in these parts, but these were more like apple burnt-to-a-crisp. I probably do myself an injustice there as I think what emerged is still going to be edible, but a large amount of apple filling remained in the oven having burst through the pie crusts, and is now charcoaled in lumps at the bottom in a small-scale recreation of the last day of Pompeii.

I'm currently debating as to whether I should clean up the mess since it could eventually be of archaeological interest to future generations, but as I'm still going to be here for the next month I think history is going to have to lose out on this occasion. I'm going to make a cake at the weekend though...

Deliverance

2010-04-05T19:26:00.004-04:00

After another round of fruitless phone calls to the Water Plant this morning, I packed up all my dirty washing (as opposed to my clean washing) and my shower kit and headed off once again to the residence. The weather was very clear today so at least there was no blizzard to struggle through, and after a couple of hours of washing both myself and my clothes I made my way back home, ever in hope that one of the water trucks might have brought deliverance whilst I was out.

And, lo and behold, as I rounded the corner towards my house, what did I see coming up the road towards me? The truck hadn't got as far as my house yet, so I took it upon myself to make a final stand. I determined in my mind that I would stand in the road, much like a cross between Gandalf and the Chinese student who stood in front of the tank in Tiananmen Square, and I would not let the truck go by without it first stopping to fill up my water tank.

YOU...SHALL...NOT...PASS!

Whether as a result of my bravery or just because it was going to do so anyway, the truck dutifully stopped outside my house just as I made it down the slope that leads to my front door, and in a mixture of elation and trepidation - they had quite literally made a dry run yesterday, remember - I watched as the hose was attached to my water outlet. The water began pumping, and I dashed inside to check the supply before they left.

After an initial brown surge the water began flowing clearly once again, and my three day drought was finally over. It was all in the nick of time too, because James and Sophie, along with Noah and Evie (and Igakk the dog) arrived a couple of hours later, and as my house and theirs share a common water tank, it was not a moment too soon. All is now back to normal, and I have celebrated by baking up a storm in the kitchen (results tomorrow), and washing up without having to leave the house. Oh happy day.

Water torture

2010-04-04T21:42:00.005-04:00

The water and sewage trucks were impressively still in service today despite the fact that it was Easter, and one of the water trucks duly paid a visit to my house. However, it didn't stop for long, which either means that my tank was already full and that consequently there must be a problem with the plumbing, or that it had no water on board and merely stopped to mock me. Either way I still had no running water, and I had to make another trip to the residence as a result. My sink was now full of washing up, so I transferred it all into a couple of bags and made my way into the frozen yonder.

There was a blizzard outside (best place for it if you ask me) but I had to go, and I must have cut a very absurd figure as I struggled through the snow and wind with my bags of dirty cups, plates and cutlery. Had I succumbed to the elements en route, goodness knows what people would have thought when they eventually discovered my body, but fortunately I made it there and back. Hopefully things will change tomorrow, but if not I might consider moving into the residence on a semi-permanent basis until my water supply is restored. I know that there are many worse problems in the world, but this is one aspect of life in a Northern town that I won't miss once I've left.

Oh, happy Easter by the way.

Water, water, every where...

2010-04-03T18:27:00.008-04:00

My holiday has not got off to the best of starts.

I woke up this morning to find that I don't have any water. As I have mentioned before, trucks deliver all the water to the houses here and then take away all the sewage - in a different truck, thankfully - so if the trucks don't run or for some reason miss you out then you have a problem. The service in Kangiqsujuaq is actually pretty good - my warning lights have only come on twice in the whole year, whereas in Inukjuak it was a far more regular occurrence - but I'm now in a totally dry house.

It's at times like these that you fully appreciate just how much water you use in a day and what you use it for, and whilst I'm in no way likening my plight to that of the Ethiopians, the whole situation is most inconvenient. I fully appreciate the irony of being surrounded by snow and ice but not having a drop of potable water in the house, and I know I most certainly would not have made a good Inuk in the times when they still lived off the land.

I have been playing phone tag for most of the day trying to get a water delivery, but so far my efforts have been in vain. I walked up to the residence and filled up a couple of water jugs there so at least I have some modest rations to see me by in the short term, but with this being the Easter long weekend I'm not entirely sure when I'm next going to see the 'truck of life.' So be thinking of me as you unwrap your Easter eggs, and raise a glass to me at your dinner table; if it's full of water though, would you mind just keeping it to one side...

The Long Good Friday

2010-04-02T22:37:00.007-04:00

The Ivakkak crossed the finish line yesterday, and it would seem that I spoke too soon about Noah Annahatak's chances of victory. As I was writing Wednesday's post poor Noah and his team tumbled down a hill and off the trail in whiteout conditions; everyone was okay, but the time lost as a result put Noah behind Willie Cain from Tasiujaq, and he was unable to bridge the gap before the race finished in Kuujjuaq. You can see the final results here.

On the home front I'm now officially on holiday, and I'm looking forward to a week of doing absolutely nothing. Some of the teachers are staying in town but most have left for the week, and I now have ten days to relax before what is likely to be my final four weeks in the North. James and Sophie, my erstwhile neighbours, will be returning after the Easter break as they have now finished their paternity/maternity leaves, and as a result Jacob, my current neighbour (who has been working as a replacement teacher but is now staying on until the end of the year), will be moving in with me when he gets back from holiday next weekend.

I enjoy my own space and I'm basically a private person at heart, so I'm not sure how I feel about house sharing, but Jacob is a good guy - I have to say that in case he's reading - and it's only for four weeks so I'm sure we'll both cope. Good job that whole thing with the igloos isn't going to happen after all; something about the date, apparently.

A moving story

2010-04-01T11:07:00.004-04:00

Climate change has long been affecting the way of life in the North, and this was further evidenced by the news that we all received this morning. It would seem that the permafrost has now melted to such an extent that most of the housing here will have to be condemned as the foundations are now too unstable, and as a result we are going to have to be housed in igloos until the problem can be resolved.

This is obviously a most inconvenient situation and could well affect my ability to update the blog as getting a reliable electricity supply in an igloo is not always possible, but I will do my best to keep you all informed of any developments. For now though I will just have to start packing and hope that I am given an igloo big enough for all my things.

Not the best start to the month, eh?

This sporting life

2010-03-31T18:25:00.006-04:00

Regular readers may well remember that the Ivakkak sled race started in Inukjuak this time last year, and at the time it was announced that the race would now be a biennial event, with the next running in 2011. Well, in what may be an attempt to get in as many races before the world expires in 2012, the Ivakkak is actually up and running again this year, and there is good local representation in the race with four of the sixteen teams hailing from Kangiqsujuaq.

The race actually started last week in Quaqtaq, the community south east of us, and heading into what should be the last couple of days the team of Noah Annahatak and his son, Sandy, from Kangiqsujuaq holds the lead. Noah is actually the father of one of my students so there will be plenty of cause for celebration if he can hold onto his lead, especially as no-one from Kangiqsujuaq has won the event before, and with a 26 minute advantage at the time of writing he must be in with a great chance. You can keep up to date with the Ivakkak here.

And whilst we are on a sporting theme, one of my students, Joe, introduced me to the Inuit game of finger pull today. There are a whole range of traditional Inuit games, most of which are tests of strength, agility and endurance with their cultural roots in the hunting practices of the past. Basically, finger pull consists of the two combatants sitting opposite each other and interlocking middle fingers. One pulls whilst the other tries to resist, and then the roles are reversed, first with one hand and then the other. There is a little more to the correct posture than merely 'sitting', and once Joe manipulated me into the correct position he proceeded to prove that his finger pulling power was far superior to mine (insert joke of your choice about him giving me the middle finger).

Good job we didn't have to use our pinkies.

Against the clock

2010-03-29T18:06:00.004-04:00

I've just been through a most harrowing experience.

Earlier this evening I tried to buy some Dave Matthews tickets online, and to begin with everything went smoothly. The band are playing in Saratoga Springs on Melanie's birthday this summer, and happily there were some tickets left so I went ahead with the booking process and eventually reached the 'sign in' page.

At this stage I had to enter my email address and create a new password or, if I had an existing Ticketmaster account, I should enter my previous password. Oh, and I had two minutes to complete this page or else the tickets would be gone! A large red countdown clock appeared in the bottom right hand corner of the screen and suddenly I was Jack Bauer in an episode of 24.

OK. Don't panic.

Enter name....check.
Enter email address....check.
Confirm email address...check.

Thirty seconds gone.

Enter password....quick, think of something....check.
Confirm password...check.
Do I want to receive details of other upcoming events in Saratoga....hell no.

One minute gone.

Click on 'confirm'....an account already exists in this name; please re-enter correct password or create a new account.

Nooooooooooo!

Forty five seconds left.

When did I buy tickets on this site before? What could my password have been? No time to look it up. Sweat starting to drip onto the keyboard. Just keep calm, you can do it.

First attempt...no good. Second attempt...no good. Fifteen seconds to go. Time for one more try...

Five seconds, four seconds, three seconds, two...

SUCCESS!!!!!

Jack Bauer saves the world again! Just let the next page load now and I can complete the deal and get out of here. But what's this? Your session has expired; please click on the 'back' button to restart the booking process. Northern internet delay had cost me the tickets - it's a good job Jack doesn't have to rely on Tamaani.

We now have seats in row 318.

Busy doing nothing

2010-03-27T23:22:00.010-04:00

We've been in the throes of a full-on blizzard today, with winds reaching the 100km/h mark at times, and as a result the students' trip to the crater has been postponed until some time after the Easter break. Consequently I didn't need to residence-sit after all, and I've been able to busy myself doing nothing, which to be honest is my favourite way to spend a weekend. I shall be endeavouring to stay up for the Australian Grand Prix later tonight (technically early tomorrow), and the caffeine drip will be hooked up nearer the time in an effort to avoid last night's fiasco when my attempt to watch the qualifying session ended up in an unplanned night's sleep on the sofa.

In the meantime I have the women's world curling championships to keep me occupied, and as I write Canada and Scotland are fighting for a place in tomorrow's final, which means that respective skips Jennifer Jones and Eve Muirhead will be onscreen for the next three hours or so. Not sure who's winning at the moment, but it's immaterial; whoever emerges victorious, all is suddenly right with the world.

Hurry hard!

They think it's all over...

2010-03-25T22:44:00.005-04:00

My students sat their TOEFL yesterday, which ostensibly means that my work with them is now done. In reality though the course runs until May 7th, so the period between now and then becomes an exercise in creative thinking in order to keep them in school. This is not too difficult a task though; Roland is organising a trip to the Pingualit Crater at the weekend, and the end of next week marks the start of the Easter break, so in effect I only really have three weeks of class to organise.

I would love to be going on the excursion to the crater but, unfortunately, duty requires me to stay behind. A few of the students aren't going on the trip and will remain at the residence as they are flying home this weekend as opposed to next, and with Roland gone the building would otherwise be unstaffed (is that a word?), so yours truly will be holding the fort much like the character in a disaster movie who sacrifices himself in some heroic manner so that the main cast can escape to safety.

Speaking of disaster movies, we watched 2012 in class today as a post-TOEFL treat and, in the words of Ron Livingston in Office Space, it was everything that I thought it could be. Those of you reading this who know me well will understand that director Roland Emmerich made this film specifically for me, and he certainly didn't disappoint. I was already exhausted after the first hour, and as the film reached its climax I actually felt relieved that I didn't see it at the cinema as I honestly don't think my body would have stood up to the audio-visual pummelling afforded by a big screen, and would have simply liquified before the end credits began to roll.

As it was I came out alive (unlike most of the cast), and I was able to console those students who fear they may not have passed the TOEFL with the fact that it doesn't really matter as we only have a couple of years to live anyway, unless of course we manage to befriend John Cusack in that time.

Aren't I an inspiration?

Never meet your idols

2010-03-23T21:42:00.005-04:00

Very cold today, but the town looked so beautiful under clear blue skies, and the way the sun met the mountain tops in the late afternoon ma....

Apologies. The pretentiousness police just pulled me over and let me off with a warning, on the condition that I step away from the cod poetry and talk about something else. How about American Idol? Is that OK, officer? It is? Good.

Idol is now down to the last 11, and this week's celebrity mentor was none other than...Miley Cyrus. A couple of the younger contestants seemed to show genuine admiration and clearly respected the advice that she gave, but it was clear that most of the group were merely tolerating her presence and were smiling and nodding politely as Hannah Montana tried to mould their fledgling careers. Crystal Showersocks has got to be the winner this season, but following his meeting with Miss Cyrus, Casey James might now be my second favourite.

As he walked on to meet her, Casey reached out, shook hands and declared, "Pleased to meet you. I'm a big fan...of your dad."

You should have seen her face.

The deafening silence

2010-03-21T19:14:00.005-04:00

Roland was kind enough to take Melanie out for a skidoo ride last week, and today I was treated to the same trip. Having spent the majority of my Saturday vegging on the sofa this was probably a very good thing, and after a couple of hours out on the land I did indeed feel invigorated and refreshed. Whilst it wasn't an exceptionally cold day by northern standards (a mere -20° or so) one still needed to wrap up like the Michelin Man - I know that the Michelin Man never wrapped up in anything other than tyres, but you get the idea - and suitably attired I thoroughly enjoyed our little jaunt.

The one thing that you notice on excursions like these, other than the scenery, is the silence. Once you stop and the skidoo engine is switched off, there is simply no sound at all; as Roland put it, it's so quiet you can hear the silence. Without wishing to come over all existential, you really do feel at one with nature in those brief moments, and all the trivialities of everyday life seem like they belong in another realm...but then the engine roars back into life, and the real world snaps back into focus once again.

Those brief moments are well worth the trip though.

Parting is such sweet sorrow

2010-03-19T16:29:00.008-04:00

No sooner had she arrived than she was gone.

I saw Melanie off at the airport this morning, and although it's only seven weeks until I'll see her again it feels like an eternity at the moment. We had a wonderful ten days together but it all went by so quickly; it only seems like yesterday that we were (contemplating) eating archaeologically significant bars of chocolate and antique almond cookies.

The fare was far more palatable on Wednesday night, when we attended the official opening of the new student residence - the Nasivvik. Many of the Kativik School Board's great and good were in town for the event, and after the seal skin ribbon was cut we were all invited inside for some (mercifully short) speeches and some (mercifully abundant) food. Roland, Annie-Claude and all the students did a wonderful job in preparing the building to receive such a large number of guests, and I was surprised by just how many of the dignitaries I knew or, failing that, knew me.

I suppose I've been in the North long enough now to establish a reputation of sorts, and whilst reputations are not always justly earned or bestowed, it was certainly heartening to learn from various sources that my work of the past four years has been viewed in a positive light. My probable (permanent) departure in May was common knowledge - word travels fast in these parts - and I guess I should take it as a complement that no-one I spoke to wanted me to leave, but despite the fact that you should never say never, all things being equal my life in a northern town has just seven weeks left to run...

They don't make 'em like they used to

2010-03-15T21:34:00.004-04:00

I wish all Mondays could be like this.

We had just the second snow day of the school year today, and although we did have to be in school this morning, it's rather nice to start the week without having to teach. I say 'snow day' but it was more accurately a 'wind day' because there was no new snow but very high winds; gusts reached 120 km/h and I saw at least three witches blow past my classroom window before I came home at lunchtime. No cows though.

In other news, our food cargo finally arrived! We picked the boxes up from the airport on Saturday and to our great surprise all the contents remained intact. As a result I now have a wonderfully stocked fridge and larder, and the challenge ahead of me is to eat everything before I head back south in May. Melanie will be able to help me until she leaves on Friday, but then it's all down to me. It's a tough job, but somebody's got to do it.

We also enjoyed two rather nice breakfasts at the Residence, courtesy of Roland, over the weekend and after the first (on Saturday), we went for a walk around town, stopping at the Northern store en route to pick up some chocolate to fuel our perambulation. We chose a couple of After Eight bars, deeming them to be of a suitable post-breakfast nature, but we didn't check the date on the wrapper (you know what's coming next, don't you?).

The weather closed in during our walk and we didn't get round to eating them, but we decided instead that they would accompany our coffee upon our return home. Fortunately, we did remember to look at the wrappers before we opened them, and it was a good job too.

October 14 2006.

And they weren't even on sale. In fact, they've been in the North longer than I have, and one wonders just how long they would have remained on the shelf had we not picked them up. There's a bunch more in the store, and when the wind dies down I shall venture forth and exchange our antique chocolate for something manufactured in this decade. In the meantime, I guess I'll just have to start work on the fridge...

A false economy

2010-03-11T16:44:00.007-05:00

Well, we've now managed to track down our boxes. They are languishing in red tape purgatory in Kuujjuaq, with my school board claiming that they are 'personal effects' and consequently our responsibility in terms of cargo fees. My contract allows me a certain amount of food cargo in a year though - an allowance which I have not come close to using up - and Melanie and I have spent the afternoon continuing the game of phone tag that we began yesterday in an attempt to convince the Board the boxes did in fact contain food as opposed to some form of contraband personal items. I think everything has now been sorted out and we should be receiving our boxes tomorrow...we shall see.

In the meantime, we ventured down to the Co-op yesterday where there is currently a 'promotion week', meaning that many items have been discounted to prices comparable to or, in some cases even cheaper than, the south. We didn't go mad, but we were able to buy a few essentials, such as enough toilet roll to last me until I leave in May, as well as some nice cookies (which could probably be counted as essentials if I think about it) for a knockdown price, and when I got home from school today we opened one of the packets of cookies - Voortman's Almond Krunch.

Melanie took one bite and immediately spat it straight back out, but I carried on with mine, branding her a fussy eater and muttering something along the lines of 'at least they were cheap.' The more I ate the more I realised that they did in fact taste a bit funny though, and it was at this stage that Melanie checked the sell by date...

March 30 2007.

I'm glad we bought the toilet roll.

Four of our boxes are missing

2010-03-10T20:23:00.003-05:00

Melanie finally arrived safely last night, the only hitch in her journey being a two hour delay in Kuujjuaq due to a missing plane. Well, it wasn't really missing as such, more a question of being in the wrong place, but it was eventually located and Melanie was able to make the last leg of her journey without further hindrance.

The same can't be said of the boxes of food that should have been accompanying her though, which are now somewhere in transit between Montreal and Kangiqsujuaq. We have already started playing phone tag and who knows, the boxes might arrive before Melanie has to leave at the end of next week. That won't be a problem as far as the dried goods and cans are concerned, but I'm not sure how the milk is going to fare.

Good job we like yogurt.

Keeping a weather eye open

2010-03-09T07:36:00.003-05:00

As I have mentioned before in these pages, the morning routine in these parts usually involves looking out the window and thinking 'please let there be a blizzard', but not today. Melanie is on March break at the moment, and as I type at breakfast time she is quite literally on her way up to see me! We've only had two snow days since I've been in Kangiqsujuaq, one of which was when I attempted to fly home at Christmas, and I shall be keeping my fingers crossed that we don't get our third today.

Melanie's not been back to the North since she left Inukjuak in 2007, and it will be very interesting for her to be able to compare her experience there with life in this particular northern town, as both the geography and the inhabitants are quite different here. She's also bringing up a few boxes of food with her, which will hopefully be enough to see me through until the end of my time here in May. One downside of her visit is that I've had to clean the house, but I guess that's a small price to pay for Melanie and food!

At the moment it's a bit misty but generally calm outside, although I've just seen on the forecast that the wind is meant to pick up both here and in Kuujjuaq later today. It shouldn't be enough to stop the planes from flying but fingers will remain firmly crossed, and hopefully my next posting will contain news of Melanie's (and the food's) safe arrival.

And the Oscar goes to...

2010-03-08T23:06:00.006-05:00

Last night's Academy Awards show was an unusually subdued affair, with little in the way of surprises in either the ceremony itself or in the awards that were handed out. Nonetheless, the whole show still managed to last over three and a half hours, prompting co-host Steve Martin to comment that the evening had gone on so long that Avatar was now set in the past.

I liked that line, but the Academy didn't seem to like Avatar, choosing instead to honour the Iraq war-themed Hurt Locker with the bulk of the awards in a move that didn't really surprise me. The big-grossing, audience-friendly films rarely pick up the gongs, and any movie that shows US servicemen in a positive light is always going to find favour with the Academy. That said, I'm sure James Cameron is more than consoled by being able to sleep on his bed of money every night.

The highlight of the night for me came right at the start though, when the wonderful Christoph Waltz was handed the best supporting actor Oscar for his role in Inglourious Basterds, an award that was (sort of) predicted on these very pages back in January. Steve Martin commented that Waltz's character was a Nazi obsessed with finding Jews, and then with open arms gestured towards the audience, proclaiming 'the mother lode.' Cue uncomfortable laughter and much uneasy squirming in seats. Glorious.

Oh, before I go, an Oscar tip for next year; Tina Fey to host. You read it here first.

High, wide and anthem

2010-03-06T23:26:00.006-05:00

Parliament reopened this week - did anyone notice that it had been closed? - and one of Stephen Harper's first moves was to propose a change to the wording of the national anthem. For those of you not in the know, O Canada begins with the lines:

O Canada! Our home and native land!
True patriot love in all thy sons command

According to the government, the anthem should be gender neutral, so the proposition was to replace the second line with 'True patriot love in thou dost us command', a line which comes from the 1908 poem on which the anthem is based.

There has been a huge public outcry against such a change though, and the government has now admitted that its policy was wide of the mark and has backed down, which is a good job as it's taken me almost five years to learn the words as they currently stand; and besides, for an upwardly mobile and forward looking country such as Canada - we own our own podium now, you know - incorporating the words thou and dost into the anthem is so, well, last century.

Speaking of anthems, I've always thought that the UK should ditch God Save The Queen in favour of one that actually refers to the country rather than an individual person. Land Of Hope And Glory would seem to be the obvious choice, but it would have to be the version that gets played at the Last Night of the Proms, which incorporates the whole of Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance March No 1. Just imagine the scenes at the 2012 Olympics if this were to become reality; every time a Brit won a gold the medal ceremony would become a riotous celebration replete with streamers, party poppers, silly hats and a full choir. Unbeatable...

...unless, of course, Canada adopted I'm a Lumberjack and I'm OK as its anthem. Now, that would be a medal ceremony worth watching.

Olympic autopsy (part two)

2010-03-04T22:10:00.005-05:00

It's customary at the end of an Olympic Games for the IOC President, in his closing speech, to proclaim the Games 'the best ever', much in the way that the judges on American Idol always gush that 'this season is the best season ever,' no matter what the contestants do. Current IOC president Jacques Rogge was damning with faint praise though, commending Vancouver's Games as being 'excellent' and 'friendly' but stopping short of labelling them as the best Games ever.

I too was somewhat underwhelmed after the first week of competition but I was won over during week two, when each day seemed to provide incident, intrigue and interest in seemingly exponential measure, culminating in that closing ceremony. A flood of Canadian gold probably helped too, and it was the Canadian public's reaction to that success that was, for me, the most interesting aspect of the Games.

An increasingly common theme in the media here was Canada's 'rebirth' as a nation that was finally unafraid to wear its patriotism on its sleeve, Olympic success paving the way for a new brand of confident, unashamed tub thumping, the type in which Canadians had always been reticent to indulge. Many of the retrospective montages so beloved by television companies during or after any major sporting event have focused as much on the spectators as they have on the athletes, and one that I saw on CTV this week proclaimed that the greatest legacy of the Games may be that the cultural and political divides that have historically existed between the provinces may now become a thing of the past.

Now, whilst I would agree that the nation did indeed seem to come together during the Olympic period, I think it will take more than fourteen gold medals to wipe out 150 years of provincial differences. Time will tell on this issue, but even having said this, I have always found Canadians to have a great sense of national pride, and I hope that the effect of the Olympics has not been to create a new brand of American-style, in your face breast beating patriotism.

That would be a very high price to pay for ownership of the podium.

Olympic autopsy (part one)

2010-03-01T22:18:00.006-05:00

Well, it's only been over for 24 hours and I miss it already, and I don't mean my pancakes and syrup.

It's been strange switching on the TV and finding no Olympics, but a remarkable final day ensured that the Games went out with a bang. First of all there was Canada's nail-biting overtime win in the hockey - Sidney Crosby's winning goal will now surely enshrine him as Canada's Geoff Hurst - but the real highlight had to be what was undoubtedly the most surreal closing ceremony ever.

It began with the prerequisite formalities: the entrance of the athletes, the speeches, the anthems, the lowering of the flag and the extinguishing of the flame. However, from that point on reality seemed to melt away as we were plunged into a Pythonesque array of stereotypical Canadian iconography.

William Shatner - whose mere presence should have set the surreality alarms going - set the tone by proclaiming that Canadians were the only race who knew how to make love in canoe, a group of camp, dancing mounties (think of the dance troupe at the end of Blazing Saddles, only dressed as RCMPs) upped the ante still further, and then a series of giant, It's A Knockout-style mounties, lumberjacks, beavers, moose, maple leaves and table hockey players paraded around the arena in an ever-growing display of Canadiana that Terry Gilliam would have been hard pushed to better.

Finally, Michael Bublé was wheeled into the stadium atop a giant Mountie hat which then proceeded to rise majestically into the air as he sang the final few bars of The Maple Leaf Forever. Had he then burst into I'm a Lumberjack and I'm OK the evening would have been truly complete, but as it was it was still good enough. The whole event was completely tongue-in-cheek (I think!) and personally I loved it, but the reaction at work the next day was very mixed. Some were amused, some were perplexed, some were embarrassed; how the rest of the world viewed it all remains to be seen.

I can't imagine the Americans indulging in such self-mockery, but I guess that's one of the reasons that I'm glad I live here rather than south of the border. Canada's ability to laugh at itself is one of its most endearing characteristics and one that I hope it never loses - a theme we shall return to in the next post - and the closing ceremony was a fitting end to what turned out to be a pretty good Games.

To be continued...

Gold rush

2010-02-27T22:00:00.005-05:00

Wow!

Since my last post on Wednesday, Canada has gone into gold medal overdrive in Vancouver. The women duly beat the USA to claim the hockey gold, making it Canada's most golden Winter Olympics in history, and five further golds have been added in the last 48 hours in speed skating (thrice!), snowboarding and men's curling. The women's curlers missed out in their final against Sweden - whose team seemed to be comprised of the slightly overweight relations of Dr Cameron from House - but nonetheless this is now Canada's most successful Olympics ever, summer or winter.

In fact, if Canada can pick up one more gold, that will bring the total to fourteen, which would be the most golds won at any Winter Olympics by any nation, and there will be one last chance in the final event of the whole beanfeast as the men look to emulate their female counterparts by knocking over the Americans in the hockey final. A Hollywood scriptwriter could hardly have crafted a more fitting finale to the Games, and all that remains now is for the team to play their part and finish the deal.

As you are probably aware, I'm not the greatest hockey fan, but I shall be watching tomorrow regardless and I shall probably be on the edge of my seat from start to finish. There won't be any running into the street if Canada wins as it's -20 outside at the moment and forecast to be even colder tomorrow, but I might allow myself to crack open the maple syrup and cook up a celebratory pancake or two if all goes well.

Not that I need an excuse for pancakes and syrup...

Highs and lows

2010-02-24T23:51:00.005-05:00

We've been having some bizarre weather over the past 24 hours. Last night was a balmy -5°C, and earlier today the temperature had risen to -2°, which is ridiculously warm for this time of year, the seasonal norm being anywhere between -21° and -30°, according to Environment Canada. However, the wind picked up in the afternoon, and at the time of writing on Wednesday evening we now have a mini-blizzard outside and a temperature of -25°. It's hardly four seasons in one day I know, but at least it keeps things interesting.

Talking of interesting things, it just keeps on getting better for Canada at the Olympics. Today the men's hockey team pulled off a remarkable 7-3 thrashing of Russia to book a place in the semi-finals, there were silver and bronze medals in the speed skating, and then in the women's two man bobsleigh - if that's not a contradiction of terms - Canada came home first and second to take the country's gold medal tally to seven, which ties Germany and the USA at the top of the table in this Olympics and also matches Canada's all-time best at a single Winter Olympic Games.

If the women's team can overcome the USA in their hockey final tomorrow night then this will officially become Canada's best ever Games in terms of gold medals, not bad considering all the gloom and doom of earlier in the week; perhaps we could start thinking about owning the podium after all. Or maybe we should just lease one.

Patience is a virtue

2010-02-23T19:52:00.006-05:00

See...what did I tell you?

Canada has won two more golds since yesterday's post, and all of a sudden Canucks are indeed owning (rather than moaning) the podium, even if it is for just one day. Ashleigh McIvor won the women's ski cross today - no, I didn't know such an event existed either - and last night Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir took the ice dance gold with a performance reminiscent of Torvill and Dean all those years ago. Any Brit of a certain age still has the Bolero routine burned into their memory cells, and I'm sure Virtue and Moir's skate will become part of the Canadian collective memory over the course of time.

And as I write, the men's hockey team are cruising past Germany to set up a quarter final clash with Russia, the women are already in their final (against USA on Thursday), and both the men's and women's curlers sit atop the pile after a series of dominant displays in the round robin - where does that phrase come from? - stages of the competition.

So cheer up Brian, you know what they say...

Woe Canada..?

2010-02-22T22:45:00.006-05:00

Despite what I was saying about perspective yesterday, Canada's loss to the United States in the Olympic ice hockey was most certainly a devastating blow to the country. Team Canada can still make it to the last eight if they beat Germany on Tuesday - which they should - but the public's faith in their ability to bring home the gold has been severely shaken.

When results are compared to pre-Games predictions it's not been a good Olympics at all for Canada thus far - indeed, the Canadian Olympic Committee admitted this morning that the five year, $117 million 'Own The Podium' program had missed its mark - but Canada still has four golds, and with a realistic prospect of at least four more to come in ice dance, women's hockey and both men's and women's curling, there is every chance of overhauling the record of seven that was set in Salt Lake City in 2002 and then equalled four years ago in Turin.

Canada is not a large country in terms of population, and the despondency being shown in light of America's dominance of the medal table is totally unfounded. The home athletes at these Games have been put under immense pressure to perform by the media, the public and the aforementioned Own The Podium program, and as is so often the case back in Britain, as much attention is being given to failure as it is to success.

So, let's see where we are this time next week, and then let's judge how the Games have gone. After all, patience is a virtue...

Houses and history

2010-02-21T20:11:00.006-05:00

A diplomatic incident was avoided when the Canadian protests over Amy Williams' helmet thankfully came to naught, and this is all just as well as we may have bought a house yesterday! We've been thinking about a move for some time now, and Melanie has looked at umpteen properties over the last few months without finding anything that ticked enough boxes to proceed with any intent.

However, she found something last week and as of yesterday it looks as though our offer has been accepted. Much water has to pass under the bridge before everything is finalised, but it could be that we will be ready to move just a few days after I return home in May, which will also be the first time that I actually get to see the house in person! Melanie has sent me a whole bunch of photos and I trust her judgment implicitly though, which is a good job as it will be too late for a change of mind by then!

Should the move go through, we will be living in the same area just outside of Kingston where John Babcock was born over a century ago. You may not know the name John Babcock, but he was Canada's last surviving veteran of World War I and earlier this week he passed away at the age of 109. Babcock lied about his age in order to enlist in 1916, and whilst he never actually saw active service he was nonetheless prepared to give his all for his country, and his passing leaves Claude Choules and Frank Buckles as the last remaining survivors of those who fought in the Great War.

As I commented back in 2008, the First World War will very soon no longer be in 'living memory'; such thoughts put protests over helmets and hunting for houses into perspective, don't they?

A bone of contention

2010-02-19T23:54:00.006-05:00

It's been a veritable gold rush in the last 24 hours; Christine Nesbitt and Jon Montgomery picked up Canada's third and fourth gold medals in the women's 1000m speed skating and men's skeleton - the event where the competitors plunge headfirst down the bobsled run on what is basically a tea tray - respectively, whilst Britain reached the top of the podium for the first time through Amy Williams' wonderful run (or should that be slide?) in the women's skeleton....a random thought: do you think a forensic anthropologist could tell the gender of a dead competitor just by looking at the skeleton?

My loyalties face a stern test in the next couple of hours though as the Canadian skeleton team have lodged a protest over Williams' helmet, claiming that it is too aerodynamic and hence illegal. The protest is likely to be thrown out and no Canadians can actually benefit as a result - the best placed Canuck was only fifth - but were it to succeed I might have to question my citizenship application and perhaps my entire future in the country.

I'd miss my Tims though, so maybe I'll let this one slide.......did you see what I did there? Slide...skeleton racing...

Never mind.

Pancakes and podiums

2010-02-17T20:32:00.005-05:00

Canada secured its second gold of the Olympic Winter Games yesterday when Maelle Ricker came home first in the women's snowboard cross, and whilst events such as this and the moguls - which sounds more like an adversary in Star Trek: 'Captain, we are being hailed by the Mogul vessel' - might not be in the traditional Olympic mould, they are certainly highly entertaining to watch.

It was also Shrove Tuesday yesterday, and armed with Melanie's recipe I ventured into the kitchen and attempted to make - and toss - my own pancakes. They didn't turn out too badly, but I will be the first to admit that there would have been no awards for artistic impression:

The proof of the pudding is in the eating though, and they were quite palatable once laced with a bit of jam and a sprinkling of sugar. I did have some lemon juice in the fridge for a more authentic topping, but on closer inspection of the bottle I realised that the sell by date was back in September so I thought better of it. Maybe I can try to pick up a lemon from the store here and have another go at the weekend; let's see how brave I feel.

Going for gold

2010-02-16T12:29:00.004-05:00

So, the Olympic Winter Games are now well and truly under way, and Canada has its first gold in the shape of Alexandre Bilodeau in the moguls, the skiing event that requires compulsory knee replacement surgery every alternate year. Bilodeau is the first Canadian ever to win a gold medal on home soil (or snow, or ice for that matter), but for most Canucks the real action gets going tonight when the Canadian men's hockey team takes the ice for the first time. Canada's women have already got their hockey campaign off to a good start, but the men are the real focus of attention, and the public's obsession with, and expectations of, the team is every bit as intense as it gets in England when the soccer team are playing in the World Cup, with one major difference.

The Canadian hockey team actually have a chance of winning!

Standing on ceremony

2010-02-13T15:03:00.012-05:00

It can't have escaped your notice, especially if you live in this part of the world, that there's an Olympic Games on - the Olympic Winter Games, to be exact; it always used to be the plain old Winter Olympics when I was growing up, but there seems to have been a law passed without my knowledge that the word Olympic now has to come first.

The Winter Olympics - sorry, Olympic Winter Games - have never had that high a profile in the UK, save for Torvill and Dean and Eddie the Eagle (I've met him, by the way), but now I'm living in Canada I feel I ought to make the effort to get more involved, at least as a spectator. Yesterday's opening ceremony was overshadowed by the tragic death of Georgian Nodar Kumaritashvili - I was quite shocked that his horrific luge accident was shown ad nauseam on the news over here, initially without prior warning of the distressing nature of the footage - but the Games had to go on, and Vancouver would get its chance to showcase Canada before the rest of the world with a well organized, sleek and to-the-point opening ceremony.

Didn't quite work out like that though, did it?

The evening got off to a shambolic start when the late arrival of the four first nations chiefs left the half-empty VIP box in disarray - the chairs were still being rearranged as Michaelle Jean made her entrance - and Nikki Yanofsky then proceeded to assault the national anthem with a performance that was more a celebration of her and her record company than the country to whom the anthem belongs; had Simon Cowell been in attendance, I'm sure the word 'indulgent' would have been used at least once. Ms Yanofsky is undoubtedly a supremely talented young girl but I'm sorry, you don't mess with your country's national anthem on a stage like this.

The parade of athletes was as enjoyable as ever (it's always fun to rank the uniforms of the various nations; way to go Czech Republic, by the way!), but we were then treated to the 'cultural component' of the evening, which didn't half drag. There were some highlights, don't get me wrong - I liked the giant white bear, the big guy who read the poem, the spouting whales and KD Lang's rendition of Hallelujah - but the whole thing seemed unnecessarily long. I do hope London has the courage to deliver a streamlined ceremony in 2012: anthem, parade, quick song from Status Quo, oaths and Queenie cutting a red ribbon to let the Games begin.

Back to Vancouver though, for the best was yet to come. After the diva with the mad hair and the cat up her dress had finished breaking most of the glass in the stadium with her interpretation of the Olympic Hymn, we finally got to the lighting of the Olympic flame, the moment that should have been the crowning glory of the evening and Vancouver's chance to plant an indelible, iconic image into the collective mind of the watching world.

Umm, yeah...about that...

The hydraulic system that was meant to raise the the ceremonial cauldron failed, halting the ceremony and leaving one of the official torch bearers unable to carry out his duty as his part of the apparatus had failed to emerge from beneath the stadium floor, and then Wayne Gretzky had to leave the stadium and take a ten minute drive through town in the pouring rain so that he could light the 'official' flame down on Vancouver's waterfront. The temptation to stop for a Tims on the way must have been immense.

Three and a half hours after it had started the ceremony was finally over, and the Games could now begin, Vancouver weather permitting of course. Hopefully there will be plenty of golden moments for Canada over the next couple of weeks (and, who knows, maybe for Team GB too), but I think the first medals of the Games should go to all those who managed to sit through the opening ceremony without losing consciousness. Go on London, do the right thing...

Watch the skies

2010-02-11T22:03:00.006-05:00

The whole town was without internet access yesterday and half of today, but everything now seems to be back to normal, touch wood (not that there's much of that up here).

As a footnote to my previous post, Tuesday's power outage did have at least one positive result, in that we were all afforded an even more beautiful view of the night sky than normal. The night time vistas in these parts (or should that now be night time Windows 7s?) are pretty spectacular at the best of times due to the minimal street and house lighting here, but on Tuesday the view was even more crisp and the aurora was in full, stunning effect.

In fact, the view was so clear that at one stage you could quite clearly make out the distinct fiery trail of a Toyota as it streaked across the night sky, inexorably picking up speed as it accelerated its way toward escape velocity.

Damn clever, those Japanese.

Powering down

2010-02-09T21:53:00.005-05:00

We had a power cut yesterday - only the second since I've been in Kangiqsujuaq, which isn't bad going as we had them all the time in Inukjuak - but unlike the one we had back in October this one was at night and lasted a fair bit longer. The power went down right at the end of House and I also missed the whole of 24, which was most annoying. I've been recording 24 with the intention of viewing all the episodes en bloc at some future time, but I guess that plan's now scuppered.

It was during this period of total darkness that I realised I don't have a torch - I still find it hard to call torches 'flashlights' - or any candles up here, but thankfully I downloaded the flashlight app for my iPod a little while ago (hey, I said 'flashlight') so I was able to patrol the house whilst listening to music that was guaranteed to be correctly filed and sorted. About an hour later the power came back on, but within ten minutes it went off again, only to come back on after a couple of minutes, after which time it failed again....

After about an hour of this the power finally stopped coming back on, but by this time I had already got fed up and gone to bed. I found it hard to sleep though as I was very aware that my alarm clock probably wouldn't go off in the morning, and this was a situation that I found unduly stressful for some reason (oh for the days of huge wind-up alarm clocks, now only seen in old cartoons or dangling from Flavor Flav's neck). A few hours of spasmodic sleep followed, and it was 3am when I finally became aware that the power was back on; the clock was duly reset, and I am happy to report that I managed to make it to work on time this morning.

Considering the fact that I spent the previous post relaying my tales of boredom, I suppose one could say that at least this week has started with a bit of excitement, but when the only excitement here is an event that stops you watching TV and makes you go to bed early....

M'lud, I rest my case.

Bringing down the house

2010-02-07T14:38:00.005-05:00

Another boring weekend here. I remember that time seemed to freeze (along with everything else up here) last February, and the same thing is happening again. Maybe it's got something to do with Groundhog Day at the beginning of the month. I watched that film with my students this week, and I was tempted to show it again to them the next day, and the next, and the next. In the end I decided that, as much as I love the film, you can have too much of a good thing, although it would have made planning for the rest of the year a far easier affair.

In other news I see that David Kiely, the banker caught on camera looking at those naked images on his computer screen last week, will be keeping his job, but in future he has to keep his employers fully abreast of what he downloads at work (that joke copyright Dan Roberts). And I loved this story; Canada's finance minister, Jim Flaherty, partly destroyed an igloo at the G7 summit in Iqaluit when he made a mess of trying to exit through the narrow doorway. It takes hours to build an igloo but it took Flaherty seconds to wreck it; kind of a nice allegory for what's happened to the North over the last fifty years.

Bare faced cheek

2010-02-03T23:24:00.004-05:00

Continuing the bear/bare theme that has unwittingly bestowed itself on the blog this week, I just had to share this with you. It would seem that a banker in Australia was having a quiet day in the office earlier this week and decided to alleviate the boredom by perusing some, shall we say, alternative figures (try 34DD) on his computer screen. On a normal day he would have probably got away with it; trouble was, one of his colleagues was being interviewed at the time - on live TV.

Keep your eye on the guy behind the speaker's right shoulder...

That was one hell of a boob (or two)!

The bear facts

2010-02-02T22:48:00.003-05:00

Whither yesterday's polar bear?

Shot. Skinned. Eaten (and no, I didn't get any).

Such is life in a northern town.

Grin and bear it

2010-02-01T18:48:00.004-05:00

It's not every day that you get a phone call warning you not to leave the house because there's a polar bear outside, but earlier this evening that's exactly what happened. My first instinct was to get outside and go and look for the thing, but then I took time to consider the situation and decided against it because:

a) it's pitch black outside
b) it's about -30
c) all I'd have with which to defend myself should I actually encounter said bear would be the set of mini screwdrivers that I got in a cracker at Christmas

So consequently I remained indoors, and indoors I remain - obviously, as I wouldn't be typing this otherwise - awaiting news of the fate of the bear. Maybe it will remain on the run all night so that we won't be able to go into school tomorrow, but I wouldn't bet on it. A more likely scenario is that, in the next day or two, I might be able to add polar bear to the list of foods that I've tried since I've been in the North.

Maybe it'll go with Kraft Dinner...

Apple's padded sell

2010-01-29T18:43:00.004-05:00

Oscar Wilde once commented that life imitates art far more than art imitates life, and here's a wonderful example. This sketch from MADtv first aired in 2007:

Maybe Steve Jobs was watching and just decided to go with the flow.

The Bionic Residence

2010-01-28T22:50:00.005-05:00

Students from all over Nunavik come to Kangiqsujuaq to further their education, and we have about fifteen out of town students here at the moment. Most of them are taking either Secondary 6 (college preparation) English - the course I teach - or Secondary 6 French, but one or two come here to complete their high school studies. In the smaller communities in Nunavik the number of students who actually stay in school is often so small that it doesn't warrant running Secondary 4 or Secondary 5 classes, and in those cases if there are any students who want to finish their schooling and graduate they can do so either by enrolling in adult ed classes or by coming to Kangiqsujuaq.

Up until this week these students were accommodated in a residence next to the school, and whilst this building was adequate it was little more than a shack, and the living conditions were somewhat cramped, to say the least. A new residence building has been under construction for almost two years though, and yesterday was the day when the students finally got to move in. The new building is named Nasivvik, and whilst there isn't a direct translation this means something like 'the place where you can see far,' which is apt on two levels; the studying that takes place there will hopefully allow the students to increase their opportunities in life, expanding their view of the world in the process, but the building's relatively elevated position also gives its occupants a wonderful physical view of the town, the bay and its mountainous surroundings.

The new residence could not be more different from its predecessor; in fact, it's more like a hotel - those of you reading this post who have worked in the North will instantly recognize it's structure as being almost identical to the co-op hotels - and whilst I'm not at liberty to say how much it cost, let's just say that back in the 1970s you could have built a Bionic Man on the same budget.

I'll take some photos of the interior of the new residence next time I'm there, and I'll make sure to post a few of them right here; that way, our Canadian readership can see just where their tax dollars are going...

The incredible shrinking Jobs

2010-01-27T20:10:00.010-05:00

Apple unveiled their long-awaited new product today, and much to the surprise of everybody it wasn't a computer or mp3 player but a device that can actually shrink organic matter to as little as one tenth its original size. CEO Steve Jobs selflessly volunteered to demonstrate the awesome power of the new iShrink on himself and here he is, pictured on stage with his iPod just minutes after using it for the first time:

The iShrink does not ship with the capability to reverse the shrinking process, but apparently if you go to the iTunes store, there's an app for that.

Cutting the cheese

2010-01-26T22:34:00.009-05:00

I've received a great deal of culinary advice since I wrote about my dalliance with Kraft Dinners last week, and in the breaks between updating my iPod I've really been going to town in the kitchen. Last night I went as far as adding a tin of tuna and a tin of mixed vegetables to my pan of mac and cheese, and it must only be a matter of time before I receive an invitation to take part in the next season of Hell's Kitchen.

I also still have two chunks of mystery meat in my freezer - could be caribou, could be whale - but I've been a bit wary about tackling them as they're both as big as my head and I don't possess a suitable cleaver with which to carve them up. If I can get round to borrowing one then I can expand my repertoire still further, but until such time we'll stick with more traditional fare.

Oh and speaking of cheese, which we were earlier, I read today about an employee of McDonald's in the Netherlands who was fired because she gave a colleague a free slice of the stuff. It seems that she gave a co-worker on a break a more expensive cheeseburger instead of the hamburger that she'd paid for, and as this contravened the company's rules that prohibit staff from giving free gifts to friends, family or colleagues, she was given the sack. She's now won her court case for unfair dismissal, but I don't think the $6000 she was awarded in compensation will make too much of a dent in McDonald's 2009 fourth quarter profit of $1.2 billion, which they announced last week.

Makes you think: if someone is fired for stealing a piece of cheese, I wonder what would happen if they stole a whole burger? Might explain why we don't see Hamburglar any more...

iNeed help

2010-01-24T22:31:00.008-05:00

Another weekend has come and gone and, to paraphrase John Lennon, "So this is Sunday, and what have you done?" Well, not a lot, to tell you the truth. I did have a nice breakfast at the new student residence this morning, but I've spent most of my weekend organizing my iTunes folder and have come to the conclusion that I am developing some sort of OCD disorder.

Now, I know that the use of the word 'disorder' just then was redundant as the 'D' in OCD actually stands for 'disorder', but the sentence didn't sound right without it. And did you know that this is an example of RAS syndrome, that is the "redundant use of one or more of the words that make up an acronym in conjunction with the abbreviation itself," like PIN number or ATM machine or HIV virus? RAS stands for 'Redundant Acronym Syndrome', so note the self-referential irony in that the term 'RAS syndrome' is actually itself an example of RAS syndrome.

Oh my, now I've gone cross-eyed.

Where were we before we got lost in that linguistic hall of mirrors? Oh yes - iTunes. I got a new iPod Touch for Christmas, and whilst uploading all my music I made sure that every track had the correct album art, which I think is a reasonable endeavour. I've now gone too far though because I'm now checking the year and genre attached to each song, cross-referencing with Wikipedia as I go, as well as correcting any spelling errors and mis-capitalizations. I have over 7000 songs on my iPod and my plan was to go through one, maybe two letters of the alphabet each day so that I'd have the project finished in a fortnight, but over the last 48 hours I've not been able to stop. I started on Friday evening and I'm now up to the S's already.

Last night in bed I actually got round to listening to the damn thing and noticed that one of my Dave Matthews Band albums was incorrectly listed as a compilation. Did this affect the quality of the music coming through my headphones? No. Could I ignore the error? No again. I had to get up, come downstairs, switch on the laptop and sort it out there and then. At 2 in the morning. I really need help, don't I? There are no psychiatrists this far north though, so in the meantime back to work...The Best Of Sad Cafe - Rock? Don't think so - Soft Rock maybe - and no year; what does Wikipedia say...?

P.S.
Before anyone points it out, I'm fully aware that the fact that I have The Best of Sad Cafe on my iPod is probably more worrying than any form of OCD that I may be developing. I am truly a lost cause.

Get your skates on!

2010-01-23T17:24:00.005-05:00

Yesterday the whole school - the students and staff, as opposed the building itself - took a trip to the arena for an afternoon of ice skating. Most, if not all, of the communities in Nunavik have an arena, and the arena here is called the Nurraujaq Forum; nurraujaq is the Inuttitut word for goat and before you ask no, I don't understand either. Now, whilst the idea of building an ice rink in the North might at first seem akin to building a swimming pool in the middle of the Pacific, these arenas are well used and provide a focal point for the community in a land where skating in general and hockey in particular are part of the national psyche.

Hockey tournaments are held regularly in the North, and each community has its own teams, male and female, which are proudly supported whenever they play. I'm not quite sure who named the team here - maybe it was the same person that named the arena - but they either lacked a basic knowledge of geography or were simply highly sarcastic:

I'll leave you to ponder that for a moment...

I didn't skate yesterday - skating's just not my bag, baby - but I had plenty of vicarious fun watching everyone else glide, stutter and stumble around the rink, and although I've now lived in Canada for over four years I don't think it's ever going to be something that I take to. I have tried in the past, but I decided that the bruises weren't worth it so now I'm the one who looks after the shoes and coats.

Somebody's got to.

Charity begins at home

2010-01-21T19:05:00.005-05:00

Someone came to my door tonight requesting a donation for the Haiti earthquake fund. She asked very politely and explained that the Education Committee here had organized the collection, and the amount of cash in her bucket showed that people had already been giving very generously.

Equally politely, I explained that I would not be making a donation.

Now, don't get me wrong, I think that what has happened in Haiti is truly awful; I feel nothing but sorrow for all those affected, and as I have mentioned before, two of my colleagues here have friends and family there. No, the reason I didn't give is that, in my opinion, a charitable donation should be a personal choice made on one's own terms and should not be something that is solicited on a doorstep.

Does this make me a bad person? I don't think so. An old teacher of mine once put forward the argument that charitable giving could be seen as counter-productive as it took the burden of responsibility off the government's shoulders and put it on those of the public instead, and whilst I would not necessarily subscribe to this point of view, when I make a donation it will always be out of choice, not out of guilt. There are collection boxes in school and at both the stores here, so I know exactly where to go. Maybe I have been already.

I am not trying to demean anyone's efforts here or to criticise anyone who has already made a donation, solicited or otherwise, as the people of Haiti need all the help they can get. It's just something I feel strongly about. Please understand that.

A kraftsman at work

2010-01-19T23:09:00.006-05:00

Well, I haven't burned, melted or vaporised anything since the last post, and I have actually ventured beyond sandwiches since then too. Last night I sampled the delights of Kraft Dinner, which was brave considering the need to boil water, but on this occasion my trusty wooden spoon stood up to the challenge and I was able complete the dinner service without a hitch, although it could be argued that a few pieces of melted plastic may have gone some way to enhancing the flavour.

In fact, I have to say that Kraft Dinner has been one of the highlights of what has been a mundane old week thus far. There's not a lot going on here at the moment, and at times like these one has to resort to making one's own entertainment. I could try to eviscerate another kitchen utensil I suppose, but replacements are just so costly in these parts so that probably wouldn't be a good idea. Then again, it's still only Tuesday...

There is no spoon

2010-01-16T19:57:00.005-05:00

I melted a spoon today.

Now, that can't be a sentence that has been written too often before, if at all, so let me explain. I fancied some rice for lunch so I put on a pan of water to boil whilst I was watching the end of the soccer on TV, but so engrossed in the game did I become that I completely forgot about my boiling water until my eardrums were all but burst by the smoke alarm going off (at least I now know it works).

As I turned my head away from the screen I was suddenly aware that the house had filled with smoke over the course of the second half, and after frantically scrambling upstairs to shut off the alarm I set about trying to find the source of what I thought must be a fire because, after all, there's no smoke without one. It was only when I entered the kitchen that I remembered my pan, and upon closer inspection the mystery was solved.

There had been no fire - thus disproving the maxim I referred to earlier - but for some unknown reason I had left a plastic mixing spoon in the water as it boiled (a spoon with which I eventually intended to stir my rice), and now not only was there no water left but there was no spoon either. Only the part of the handle that must have been sticking out of the pan remained, and the scene was reminiscent of one of those photos of spontaneous human combustion where all that is left of the victim is a disembodied lower leg, complete with slipper.

The rest of the spoon had totally dissolved, and I now had to run around the house opening all the windows in order to let out the resulting smoke, which I guess wasn't too toxic as I'm still here some hours later relaying the story to you. I abandoned the whole rice idea until this evening - luckily I had a back-up p(l)an - and on this occasion I didn't leave the kitchen until the whole meal was cooked and on my plate.

I think I'll stick to sandwiches from now on.

The weekend looms

2010-01-14T23:48:00.006-05:00

My suitcase finally arrived today, and whilst it's pleasing to be repatriated with both the case and its contents, an event of the magnitude of the Haitian earthquake certainly puts the inconvenience of a piece of lost luggage firmly in perspective. We have two teachers at the school here with either friends or family in Haiti, and it has been heartening to witness the support they have been offered by the community over the past couple of days. The scenes of devastation that have been coming out of Haiti seem to have had a special resonance amongst the local population, and my students have certainly been very keen to learn about the whats, wheres, whys and hows associated with the whole disaster.

Moving back into the bubble that surrounds my own little piece of the world, I'm very much looking forward to the weekend, for although I will have only taught for three days this week come the end of Friday, it always takes some time to readjust to the rhythm of life here following an extended break in the south. We have a staff meal to look forward to tomorrow night which will mean I will get at least one decent meal this week, and I intend to spend the rest of the weekend hedonistically catching up with the backlog of episodes of House and CSI New York that I have been meaning to watch for ages, and possibly giving the house a bit of a clean for the first time since I've been back.

Or possibly not.

Back to work

2010-01-12T18:24:00.004-05:00

I'm now back in Kangiqsujuaq, where it's only marginally colder than in the UK (-26 at the time of writing) and although my journey was relatively uneventful, especially compared to the one I made before Christmas, First Air managed to leave my suitcase in Montreal, along with the baggage of many of the other passengers on my flight. It's often a case of cargo or passengers in the North, as opposed to cargo and, but at least I didn't have too many essentials in my case and I can get by until it arrives.

Seeing as half my students haven't yet returned I made today into an unofficial ped day for myself, but it should be back to business as usual tomorrow, or at least as usual as you can expect in these parts. It's always interesting to see just who does and who doesn't return after the Christmas break, both in terms of students and staff, and I know that the school is at least one teacher down due to the fact that the chap who was meant to be replacing my erstwhile neighbour James, who is now on paternity leave, has not shown up.

So, if anyone fancies coming up to teach some Social Studies and Math for the next two or three months, there's a classroom waiting for you...

The last farewell?

2010-01-08T23:44:00.006-05:00

Well, I endured my trip to the dentists with manful dignity, and compared to last year's marathon it was actually a breeze. I was only in the chair for ninety minutes this time round and, courtesy of the TV precariously bolted to the wall, I had the Weather Channel for company as the dentist and his assistant attacked my mouth with gay abandon. Many of the reports came from the UK, where temperatures have been rivalling ours of late, and whilst I have somewhat ridiculed the mother country's inability to deal with the cold in the past, I must admit that this year Britain's winter really has been one for the ages. This recent satellite picture looks like it could have been generated for a scene in The Day After Tomorrow, but I assure you it's for real:

On Monday I will be experiencing English-like temperatures as I head back North, but if Melanie can find me a job at King's Town School next year this could be the last time I make the trip. I enjoy what I do in Nunavik but it doesn't get any easier leaving Melanie behind each time I go back, and I really don't know if I could manage another year after this one. We don't own the future though, only the now, so for the time being I shall simply pack my bags and do what has to be done. Next stop: Kangiqsujuaq.

Working from home

2010-01-06T10:38:00.005-05:00

So, the first post of 2010 and the blog goes into its third calendar year of operation. Quite what the new year will bring is anyone's guess, but for the time being I'm enjoying an extra week at home. I have a further appointment with the dentist on Friday and I am not now due to fly back North until Monday, all of which is something akin to a late Christmas present (except the dentist part). I recently found out that my colleagues in Kangiqsujuaq got snowed/fogged in before Christmas, and some of them didn't get home until the 23rd; as a result the start of school has been put back a few days, so I won't be the only one returning to work a little later than planned.

Much of this week has seen me sorting out a variety of financial paperwork, the type of stuff that makes you wish you were an ostrich with a suitably deep bucket of sand nearby, but it has to be done and it's much easier for me to do it whilst I'm still in the south. Melanie went back to work on Monday so my house husbandry is also extending to washing, cleaning and cooking, the latter of which is currently inspired by Julie & Julia, a film which I was reticent to watch when Melanie rented it on Monday but that I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed. Speaking of movies, my other favourite of the holiday has been Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds, which must be as cinematically removed from Julie & Julia as Amy Winehouse is from sobriety; if Christoph Waltz doesn't get an Oscar nomination for his role as Colonel Hans Landa then there is simply no justice in this world.

For now though it's back to the finances, and an impending walk in the snow to the bank. Tim Hortons is inconveniently at the other end of town, but fortunately I feel in the mood for taking the scenic route today...

Extra time

2009-12-30T16:12:00.006-05:00

It's been more than 'a couple of days' since my last post I know, but as I've said before I tend to lose all track of chronological perspective at this time of year so you will have to excuse me. Christmas has now been and gone but we had a good one, and I've been able to catch up with most our friends in and around Kingston. I've also been catching up with eating too and have put on about eight pounds since I've been back, but when you consider the fact that I lost twenty pounds between August and December then it's probably not such a bad thing. I don't eat badly in the North, but there's less snacking - trips to Tim Hortons are not a particularly realistic proposition - and I guess the cold must effect my metabolism in a weight reducing manner.

It should be less than a week before my return to Kangiqsujuaq, but as is rapidly becoming a Christmas tradition (well, it happened last year as well) I need to visit the dentist, and with my appointment booked for Monday - the day I should have flown back - this will necessitate a few extra days in the South. Whilst the prospect of going under the knife (or whatever instruments dentists use) is not a pleasant one, a few extra days at home with Melanie is a good pay-off, so it might be a little while yet before the blog comes to you live from Nunavik once again.

Not sure what we're doing for New Year's yet, but I shall wish you a happy one for now as the next post probably won't be until 2010 (that's next year, not ten past eight). Happy New Year!

Christmas top 10 (part five)

2009-12-24T21:24:00.003-05:00

Well, we finally arrive at the top of our festive countdown. Many songs failed to make the cut that, on another day, could quite easily have been there, and if I were to repeat the exercise on another occasion then we would most probably not end up with the same ten tunes. However, my top two would most certainly still be in there somewhere, and without further ado, here they are:

2. Greg Lake - I Believe In Father Christmas (1975)
Grand. Play Loud. I'll say no more.

1. Bing Crosby & David Bowie - Peace On Earth/The Little Drummer Boy (1977)
The ultimate Christmas song? In my book, yes. Log fires, woolly jumpers, harmonies around the piano, snow falling outside...and Bing Crosby. It has to be the full version though, complete with the two minute introduction from the Bing Crosby's Merrie Olde Christmas show of which it was a part; did you know that the 'Peace On Earth' part that Bowie sings was written especially for the show as Bowie actually hated Little Drummer Boy and refused to sing it? Kind of glad he refused, because the end result was true Christmas magic.

Hope you enjoyed our Christmas top ten, and all that remains now is to wish you all, wherever you may be, a truly Merry Christmas; see you in a couple of days.

Christmas top 10 (part four)

2009-12-23T07:51:00.003-05:00

I'm back home now, and I really must be in holiday mode as I'm already losing track of what day of the week it is. Christmas shopping is almost done, and whilst in town yesterday (or was it the day before?) we said goodbye to Tarni and Dave, who are heading back to Australia; we shall certainly miss our friends, but at least we now have a holiday location sorted out for some time in the future. Haven't had the opportunity to catch up with any other friends yet - yes, we do have some and we pay them well - but there is all that to look forward to in the next week or so.

And speaking of things to look forward to, here's the penultimate part of our Christmas top 10, where we have reached the number 4 spot:

4. Jethro Tull - Ring Out Solstice Bells (1976)
One of my favourites for many years - wouldn't be in this list otherwise - and it brings some good old English eccentricity to our countdown. A song that always makes me go 'ahh..' when it comes on.

3. Band Aid - Do They Know It's Christmas? (1984)
The track that spawned a charitable phenomenon, and a classic the moment it was recorded. Impossible to hear it without replaying the video in your head, and a testament to the durability of the pop stars of yesteryear when compared to their modern counterparts (although quite how Marilyn got into the recording session was as much a mystery back then as it is now). Tonight thank God it's them instead of you...

Almost home

2009-12-19T18:04:00.004-05:00

I'm writing this courtesy of the wi-fi service at the Via Rail station in Montreal, which means that I'm almost, repeat almost, home. After a hugely frustrating 48 hours I'm not counting any chickens though.

I managed to get to Kuujjuaq yesterday where, as I mentioned before, I was on standby for Montreal. Happily First Air got me on board the Montreal flight, but after two hours waiting on the tarmac, those of us who had been on standby were asked to raise their hands. Oh dear...this didn't look good.

And indeed it wasn't. The flight was going to stop in Iqaluit first - check your atlas to see how little sense this route makes - where we would take on more passengers, and there was a chance that the 'standbyers' would be asked to leave the plane and be forced to remain in Iqaluit. When I asked what was meant by a 'chance' I couldn't be given a precise answer, which was a little worrying given that planes have a finite number of seats so, given that the next flight out of Iqaluit was not until Monday, I decided to get off.

After a night in the Co-op hotel in Kuujjuaq and a further six hours waiting at the airport I finally got my flight, and here I am, waiting for my train. I shall be so glad to get home and get clean - I've travelled light on this trip so no changes of clothes - but I shall also be sparing a thought for my teaching friends and colleagues back up in Kangiqsujuaq, who were unable to leave today because of the weather. I have every sympathy and I know how they feel, and I can only hope that they will make it back in time for Christmas.

As for me, the holiday now begins, and for once I think I've earned it. Tims here I come...

Grounded

2009-12-17T19:36:00.009-05:00

Big.

Huge.

Blizzard.

I'm still in Kangiqsujuaq. Full-on blizzard all day today so no flights anywhere. Had to go to the airport nonetheless as flights are rarely cancelled until the last minute up here, and the drive there was a very interesting experience. Roland was at the wheel and quite how he got us there I will never know; you literally could not see five feet in front of you for much of the journey.

I'm now booked on a flight for tomorrow which will get me to Kuujjuaq, but I'm then only on standby to Montreal and there are six people ahead of me on the waiting list, so I look like facing an overnight stop somewhere in Nunavik's capital-in-waiting. However, maybe the weather will mean that some other people won't make their connecting flights tomorrow, and this might sneak me on board; we shall have to wait and see.

Until then I remain hunkered down in Kangiqsujuaq, and with the wind still howling and my house still shaking I'm beginning to wonder if we'll actually fly tomorrow morning at all. But let's not go there, unless 'there' is actually home, in which case then we will go, thank you.

More news tomorrow (maybe)...

Taking flight

2009-12-16T20:13:00.003-05:00

Well, all things being equal I fly home tomorrow (the 17th), which is also the same date that the Wright Brothers made their first flight back in 1903. I just hope that my flight lasts a little bit longer than theirs.

As as I write the weather forecast for tomorrow is not encouraging though, and if we do fly it looks as though it will be a bumpy ride. This time last year we were grounded by mechanical failure rather than the weather and I don't want a repeat of those frustrations again, but there's no use in fretting over things that are out of my control. So I shall think positively, and hopefully my next posting will come from south of the tree line.

Christmas top 10 (part three)

2009-12-15T14:34:00.009-05:00

Well, I've just completed my last day of teaching before the holiday, and in 48 hours time I shall be in the middle of my flight back home (or at least to Montreal). I let my students watch a movie today, but in retrospect 'Alive' probably wasn't the best choice. At least we now all know what to do if the plane goes down en route on Thursday. We just need to find a Uruguayan rugby team to help us and all will be fine.

Now back to the serious matter of our Christmas top 10. When last we looked in the countdown had reached number 7, so today I present to you numbers 6 and 5:

6. Slade - Merry Xmas Everybody (1973)
The only time I will ever write 'Xmas' rather than 'Christmas' because that's how it's spelt in the title (although I realise that I've now written Xmas twice...damn - now it's three; this could go on for some time if we're not careful). I always think of my first Christmas teaching at MK Prep back in the UK when I hear this song. The music teacher (not you Barry, it was the one before you and Mr G!) got the choir to sing it at the big Christmas concert, and I have this abiding memory of a mass of angelic little faces singing the lines:

Does he ride a red nosed reindeer?
Does a ton-up on his sleigh
Do the fairies keep him sober for a day?

Everybody now: IT'S CHRIIIIIIIISTMAAAAAAAAAS!

5. Chris Rea - Driving Home For Christmas (1988)
A tune that always reminds me of the times when I actually did drive home for Christmas: Bedford to Corfe Mullen via Milton Keynes, Buckingham, Bicester, Oxford, Newbury, Winchester and Ringwood. Now I travel from Kangiqsujuaq to Gananoque with stops in Quaqtaq, Kangirsuk, Kuujjuaq, Montreal and Kingston. How times change. For the better? Probably, but at this time of year I wish I could be making the former journey rather than the latter. Maybe next year...

You've got to hand it to her...

2009-12-13T22:29:00.007-05:00

Just watching a program on TLC Channel called 'Born Without Arms' (kinda have to, don't you?). We've just seen Jessica, one of the women featured in the show, driving to work, which was incredible enough, but halfway through her journey she got out her mobile phone and started making a call. I'd like to see her explaining that one to the cop who pulls her over.

Oh, and the job she was driving to? She's a pilot!

I suddenly feel wholly inadequate.

P.S.
Still watching the show, and we've now found out that Jessica is a black belt in taekwondo.

I'll get my coat.

Christmas top 10 (part two)

2009-12-10T18:09:00.005-05:00

Still cold here, but not as bad as a couple of days ago and certainly not as bad as in the Prairies, where it's been as low as -25 in Winnipeg and -28 in Regina. I shall be flying home this time next week - well, the plane I'm in will actually be doing most of the hard work - so as long as the weather's fine then I really don't care what it's like now.

In the meantime, let's carry on with our festive top ten; today we reveal numbers 8 and 7:

8. Jona Lewie - Stop The Cavalry (1980)
Never intended to be a Christmas hit but it's got sleigh bells and a brass band and will always be indelibly linked with the festive season. Only kept off the number one spot by the posthumous back-catalogue of John Lennon.

7. Chris de Burgh - A Spaceman Came Travelling (1975)
"And it went laaa la la laaa la la laaa la la la..." A Christmas song that actually debunks the whole foundation of Christianity, and the only time that Chris de Burgh will ever appear in one of my top tens. Wonderful.

Christmas top 10 (part one)

2009-12-08T18:27:00.007-05:00

It's starting to get cold here now. I'm trying to keep the Canada Goose in mothballs for as long as possible, but it was -20 today, which felt distinctly chilly even given my short journey to school. Still, in little more than a week I shall be back in the relative warmth of of the south, although with impeccable timing Gananoque is in the midst of its first winter storm warning of the season. Better now than next week, I guess.

Now, a few posts ago I talked about my penchant for Christmas music and I threatened to give you a rundown of my top ten. Well, it may be somewhat self-ingratiating, but it is my blog after all, so we will start today with numbers ten and nine and hopefully work our way up to number one before Christmas day itself.

10. Stan Freberg - Green Christmas (1958)
Not really a song and will be completely unknown to virtually everyone except my family, but I've loved this track since I was very small. We had it on 7" vinyl and the record always got stuck when it got to the "All right, Abercrombie" part, and even though I now have it on mp3 and CD I'm still always surprised when we get past that bit without me having to shove the player or weigh down the needle with coins. Ah, memories...

9. Johnny Mathis - When A Child Is Born (1976)
Whenever I hear this song I must be the only person on Earth who thinks of Subbuteo; the table football set I got for Christmas that year was just about my best present ever, and the warbling voice of Johnny Mathis serenaded my plastic players as they took the field (well, green baize) for their first game.

Food, glorious food

2009-12-06T23:51:00.005-05:00

There hasn't been any more snow since my last post so we had to go back to school on Thursday and Friday, but a food-filled weekend more than made up for such a disappointment. On Saturday James and Sophie hosted a potluck and today (Sunday) was the day of the Christmas meal for the students at the residence. It's a bit early for Christmas meals I know, but some students and staff will be leaving in the next few days so this was the last weekend before the holidays when the whole group would be together.

It will probably be back to ramen noodles for lunch on Monday so I made the most of my two day smorgasbord, and I will now have to pacify myself with the knowledge that it's only nine days until I'm back home and able to access a full larder again (assuming Melanie's done the shopping). Until then I will be whittling down what I have left up here, which means there might be some interesting culinary combinations on the table over the coming week.

Pineapple chunks and water chestnuts on toast, anyone?

Snow day!

2009-12-02T20:33:00.006-05:00

The week just keeps getting better!

We were forecast to have a blizzard both yesterday and today, and although it never really materialized we still got today off; the wind may not have arrived but the snow most certainly did! Never in my entire time in the North - or, for that matter, in my entire life - have I ever seen so much snow fall in a 24 hour period.

There's meant to be a phone tree in place in case the school is ever closed, but it didn't work this morning, which is understandable as trees don't grow this far north. Consequently I tried to get into school, but the snow at the back of my house was literally up to my waist! Having extricated myself I then saw a colleague of mine who had just found out that there was no school, so it was back home for an unexpected day off, which of course I filled with important work of a school-related nature.

Not.

It's the most wonderful time of the year

2009-12-01T18:48:00.005-05:00

I like December 1st.

It's my mum's birthday - happy birthday mater! - and it's also the day when I allow myself to start playing Christmas music. Now, I know most Christmas hits are full of throwaway cheesiness, but I've loved them ever since I was small; when I was much younger I probably liked them simply because they were associated with holidays and presents, but nowadays I find they help evoke happy memories of the days of Christmas past.

It's around Christmas time that I most miss my family back in the UK, and I guess that wrapping myself in my festive music helps create a sort of mental pathway back to the Christmases we used to have together. It's also easier and more practical than wrapping myself in actual wrapping paper, which would be messy, difficult, wasteful and just plain bizarre.

If I get around to it I might give you a rundown of my 'Festive Top 10' or something like that over the next few posts, but in the meantime I shall bid you adieu and wish you, dear reader, an early and nostalgia-filled Happy Christmas.

But there's a flag on the play...

2009-11-30T21:16:00.005-05:00

The Grey Cup final yesterday was an exciting affair, and it was heartbreak for Saskatchewan when Montreal stole victory with literally the last kick of the game. The Roughriders had never been behind until that final, fateful play, and the Alouettes actually missed their first attempt at kicking what would have been the winning field goal, sparking off what turned out to be scenes of premature celebration within the Rider Nation.

There was a flag on the play though - red flags in the CFL, as opposed to the yellow dusters used in the States - and the Alouettes would be given a second chance at the kick, a second chance which we now know won them the cup. And just what was the Roughriders' indiscretion that cost them the championship? Having too many players on the field. Of all the things! You just know somebody's going to lose their job over this.

And speaking of flags on the play, I'm reminded of my one and only attempt at refereeing a game of American football. It was in my college days back in the late 80s, when 'gridiron' was all the rage in the UK thanks to Channel 4's coverage - these were the days before the Premier League and Sky Sports combined to make soccer the uberbeast that it is today. Some fellow students had organized a game for some charity or another and they asked me to referee as I, apparently, knew more about the rules than anyone else. Looking back this was probably just a polite way of telling me that I wasn't good enough to play, but suitably flattered I agreed to their request, and I even borrowed a Newcastle United shirt so that I looked the part.

Not long after my first whistle it was readily apparent that I was the only participant who was going to take the game anything like seriously, but I maintained my standards, and a few plays into the game I noticed a flag-worthy misdemeanor by one of the teams and diligently threw my yellow duster onto the field to mark the offence. The play continued, but instead of the teams then waiting to hear my verdict before restarting, one of the players came over to me in order to point that that I'd 'dropped my hankie' before getting on with the game.

Needless to say, I didn't bother picking it up.

Not such a grey day

2009-11-29T17:53:00.005-05:00

I am now in a much better mood.

Since my last post my flight home for Christmas has been moved forward two days, Monday has been made a ped day (just this particular Monday alas, not every Monday), and yesterday Queen's University won the Vanier Cup, the Canadian college equivalent of the Grey Cup which is, in turn, the Canadian Football equivalent of the Superbowl. For those of you not in the know, Queen's is based in my adopted home town of Kingston, and yesterday's 33-31 victory over the University of Calgary saw the Golden Gaels mount the biggest second half comeback in Vanier Cup history after trailing 27-7 at the break.

The Queen's football team is known as the 'Golden Gaels' because of their garish yellow - sorry, golden - jerseys and the fact that all the players speak fluent Gaelic. I actually made that last part up; the 'Gaels' part of the name is apparently in reference to the University's Scottish heritage, and although I was jesting earlier the team's fight song is partly sung in Gaelic. It is known as 'Oil Thigh' after a phrase that is sung repeatedly - to the tune of 'The Battle Hymn of the Republic,' or 'Glory, Glory Hallelujah' to common folk like us - in the chorus: Oil thigh na Banrighinn a'Banrighinn gu brath, or 'College of the Queen forever.'

Speaking of the Grey Cup, which we were earlier, it's the Grey Cup final tonight, with the Montreal Allouettes, last year's beaten finalists, taking on the Saskatchewan Roughriders. I have no real affiliation with either team, but as Corner Gas is set in Saskatchewan I guess I'll be cheering for the latter.

Go Riders!

Thanks for what?

2009-11-26T20:02:00.003-05:00

It's not without irony - proper irony too, none of your Morissettian misunderstanding here - that on Thanksgiving Day (for Americans, anyway) I'm feeling somewhat down and decidedly unthankful. I've been ill for the last couple of days which hasn't helped (although I've still managed to make it into school), and in that time a number of problems and challenges have presented themselves which have led me to question whether where I am at the moment is actually where I want to be.

I won't burden you with the details of my travails - after all, a problem shared is a problem doubled - save to say that none of them are life-threatening and, compared to all the troubles that exist in the rest of the world, none of them are probably worth fretting and fussing over at all. However, one doesn't live in 'the rest of the world,' and in the part of it that forms my own personal little bubble there are a great many frustrations to be dealt with at the moment. Any one in isolation could be manageable but problems, like buses, never seem to arrive on their own and their effect on each other tends to be exponential rather than summative.

The fact that I've started to use words like exponential and summative is probably a sign that I should sign off now. The working man's tonic, otherwise known as the weekend, is almost upon us, and a couple of day's R&R is probably just what I need right now. Thanks for reading, and I promise to make the next post a little more light-hearted!

What's mine is yours

2009-11-24T21:33:00.007-05:00

We had an unexpected visit from representatives of the Raglan Mine yesterday, which eased the boredom of what would otherwise have been a mundane, regulation (but far from manic) Monday. Raglan is a huge nickel mine northwest of here, and as one of the larger employers in Nunavik they regularly send teams around the schools to pass on information about the work opportunities there. At the moment only 17% of the workforce is Inuit, but the aim of the mine's owners is to increase this figure to 20% in the near future.

The mine operates a profit-sharing initiative with Nunavimmiut (people of Nunavik), and last year $6.8 million was distributed amongst the 14 communities here. This sounds like a lot of money - and it is - but it is only about a fifth of the $32.4 million that was handed out in 2007. It seems that the bottom has fallen out of the nickel market in the past twelve months, a state of affairs that wasn't mentioned in the presentation at school, but despite this drop in profitability there is still a great deal of money floating around, and each community has its own method of using their share of the pie.

Salluit and Kangiqsujuaq receive the lion's share, being the nearest communities to the mine geographically, and here in Kangiqsujuaq much of the money is pooled and we now have a beautiful new community gym (the building where the Bowhead Feast was held earlier in the year) as a result. Some communities simply distribute their entire share on a purely individual basis though, and as a result, in the words of one of my students, it is often drunk away in a very short period of time. Many Inuit travel to Montreal in order to spend their windfall, and they are increasingly being targeted by local thieves who know that they have money to spend; the results are sometimes tragic, and you can read more here.

Consequently, the role of Raglan is a matter for constant debate in these parts, centering mainly on the level of Inuit employment there and the use of its profits, and with the mine having around fifty further years of potential use left in it, the debate is unlikely to be concluded any time soon.

An evening with Father Dion

2009-11-21T22:10:00.005-05:00

One of the attractions of living and working in the North is the variety of people that you get to meet, and over the last couple of days I have been fortunate enough to spend some time with Father Jules Dion, Kangiqsujuaq's long-time resident priest and, as I was to find out later, champion Scrabble player.

Last night I was invited to have supper with Roland and his wife Hannah - Roland is in charge of the student residence here - and also joining us was Father Dion, who I had read a little bit about before I first came to Kangiqsujuaq back in August. Pere Dion, who is now around 80 years old, is originally from Belgium and first came to the North as a Catholic missionary in 1955. He worked in Quaqtaq then, and in 1964 the Bishop moved him to Kangiqsujuaq - "because a change is good for you" - where he has resided ever since. The Catholic mission where Father Dion lives and works is the oldest building still standing in the village, having been originally built by the army in 1927, and when he first arrived here it was just about the only building, with the locals still living in igloos.

Having enjoyed the wonderful hospitality of Roland and Hannah last night, I visited Father Dion at the mission tonight, where we exchanged stories for a couple of hours as he gently and graciously gave me a sound hiding at Scrabble, 351 points to 225. Whilst we were playing I commented that he must be getting help from above with his letters; he responded by quietly playing the word 'exile,' which scored 67 points and proved my theory in the process. I didn't care though, for it was a wonderful way to spend an evening, and a rematch is already on the cards.

You can read more about Father Dion here and here, and I urge you to take the time to do so as he is one of life's true pioneers and has an incredible story to tell. I look forward my next visit to the mission, and if I am ever to beat Father Dion at Scrabble I clearly need either to pray a lot or to commit my dictionary to memory, because otherwise I fear it will be a case of mission impossible.

Here in my car

2009-11-20T23:36:00.004-05:00

A recent edition of the excellent CBC news programme As It Happens included a report on the Russian car manufacturer Dartz and their proposed new luxury car. I say 'car' but, in the words of Chris Howden, the show's presenter, it's more of a "steroidal Humvee-slash-Transformer," and would come with diamond-encrusted white gold speed gauges, gold-plated windows, pure tungsten exhaust pipes and three gold flasks containing some unbelievably expensive vodka. Oh, and the seats would be made of whale penis leather.

The seats would be made of whale penis leather.

There has been an understandable backlash since Dartz's announcement in October - why would anyone want gold plated windows after all? - and consequently the company issued a press release from which I present an excerpt here:

One month ago DARTZ presented uberluxury armored car with whale penis interior. As the world's resonance was very huge and DARTZ got lot of angry e-mails from Greenpeace, WWF and also Pamela Anderson, DARTZ make strong decision to stop their plans regarding such interior.

We just looking for most expensive products for this car -- and that's why we choosed whale penis leathure when we checked it is most of most. After wave of protest we realised our mistake and make a decision not to use natural leathure at all. We will focus on world most advanced nanotechnologies to achieve interior highest quality using artificial materials which also was never used for cars. We want to tell our hello to all whales: 'Our Sea Brothers! We all know that earth are stand on three whales - we will keep You live! We don't Earth fall down to Ocean!

One of my students' current assignments is to correct the grammar and spelling of this press release, an exercise that should keep them busy for a while, and in the meantime I'm sure that our "Sea Brothers" will, to quote Chris Howden again, appreciate the company's circum...spection!

Czech mate

2009-11-17T22:24:00.011-05:00

I've just been watching Ghost Hunters, which I must admit is a show I frequently tune in to, not because I necessarily believe in ghosts and the paranormal but simply because it's often just good entertainment. The use of Electronic Voice Phenomena (EVP) on the show always makes me smile; they will make tape recordings in the buildings that they investigate, play them back later in the hope of finding disembodied voices or unexplained noises amongst the static, and then present their findings to the owner of the building in question.

On the show we see night vision footage of the team moving around the building and making their recordings - it's always at night, with all the lights switched off - and asking questions like "if you are here, make a sign," "are you trapped in this place?" or "do you resent these people living in your house?" Most editions of the show are set in the USA - once they visited Ireland but they found no ghosts, only spirits - but today the team was investigating an old castle in the Czech Republic. They wandered around the castle - at night, of course - shooting copious amounts of video footage and posing the usual questions to the ghosts for their EVP work, and then we were shown their analysis of the footage which, to their frustration and disappointment, revealed far fewer anomalies than normal.

A thought then struck me. They were in the Czech Republic, trying to converse with ghosts...in English.

Do you want me to tell them or will you?

Buffering...

2009-11-14T22:27:00.002-05:00

It's been a relatively relaxing last few days, and in exactly five weeks time I shall be back home for Christmas (weather and flights permitting, of course). Our holiday on Wednesday was followed up by two ped days, so I should feel refreshed when I return to school on Monday. Or at least that's the plan, as I've spent most of today being driven to despair by my internet connection.

I'm online and I can use Skype with no problems, but accessing any web pages is next to impossible. I think half the town's population must be downloading movies today, slowing everything to a crawl; it's as if the internet is being filtered through a giant piece of muslin. The visiting computer technician at school has informed me that Kangiqsujuaq has one of the quickest connections in the North though, so I guess I should be thankful for small mercies.

And for the chocolate cake I made earlier.

And then there was one...

2009-11-11T18:51:00.005-05:00

This time last year I noted that only four British veterans remained from World War I. Sadly, three of those grand old men, Henry Allingham, Harry Patch and Bill Stone, passed away during the last twelve months, and this year's remembrance service in London was the first to be observed without the presence of anyone who fought in the Great War. The fourth member of the group, Claude Choules, now resides in Australia, and at 108 he is one of only three surviving WWI veterans in the entire world; 109 year old Canadian John Babcock and 108 year old American Frank Buckles are the other two.

Remembrance Day is a holiday in Nunavik, primarily to mark the signing of the James Bay Agreement, and I think that the time is long overdue for November 11th to be observed as such on a national, if not global scale. Thanksgiving is already celebrated in both the United States and Canada, but I can think of little else for which more thanks should be given than the sacrifices made by all those who have fought for their countries over the course of history.

May we never forget.

Ice & fire

2009-11-09T22:44:00.004-05:00

We had a fire drill at school today, and as we were all milling around outside in temperatures that must have been approaching -10, the thought struck me that had this been a real fire, we might have had a better chance of survival in the warmth of the burning building rather than in the frigid wastes that double as a car park.

Just a thought.

Stop making sense

2009-11-07T21:54:00.006-05:00

In the past I've made my feelings quite clear regarding hockey and, more specifically, the fighting that is tolerated within the sport. Last January the blog brought you the story of Garrett Klotz, who thankfully recovered after ending up in hospital as a result of a fight, but Don Sanderson was not so fortunate. In December of last year Sanderson, a 21 year-old player in the Ontario Hockey Association, was involved in a fight on the ice. His helmet came loose and his unprotected head slammed into the rink as he was forced to the ground; he went into a coma and died three weeks later.

Whilst idling flicking between channels this evening I came across a discussion on Hockey Night In Canada that centred around a new helmet that had been manufactured to make fighting safer, and the studio 'expert' informed us that it had been Sanderson's death that had prompted the new design. We then learned that rules are either already in place or will be in place soon - I couldn't hear exactly as the sound of my jaw hitting the floor momentarily drowned out the television - that will penalise players if they remove their helmets before fighting. Not penalise them for actually fighting, but if they fight without helmets.

At this point another 'expert' erupted into life, and you could quite plainly see him struggling to hold back the expletives as he lambasted this rule, stating that prospective players shouldn't bother getting into hockey in the first place if they weren't prepared to risk the physical consequences of fighting.

I could not believe what I was hearing.

Back in January, I concluded my post concerning Garrett Klotz with the following observation:

"So, what will it take for sense to prevail? I fear that someone is going to have to be killed for action to be taken, and even then I am not so sure. I sincerely hope that this will not be the case, but until action is taken, I cannot embrace hockey."

It is my sad duty to report to you now that there appears to be no sense in hockey.

I (don't) come from a land down under

2009-11-05T22:58:00.005-05:00

I don't know why, but ever since our move to Canada I regularly get mistaken for an Australian.

It happened again twice today; well, it was once really, because on the second occasion I was asked if I was from New Zealand, which if I actually had been Australian is probably worse than an Englishman being asked if he's really from Australia or a Canadian being confused with an American.

Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but I really don't detect any similarity between my accent and those of our Antipodean cousins, and for a cricket-loving Englishman to be mistaken for an Australian is not exactly a complement (no offence Tarni and Dave, but who holds the Ashes at the moment?). Maybe the lack of exposure to shows like Neighbours and Home And Away means that your average Canadian can't quite distinguish the Australian the accent the way we Brits can, but one would have thought that the likes of Crocodiles Dundee and Hunter would have provided enough of a reference point.

If I ever end up moving to teach in a different Northern community I think I will put on my best Australian accent from the moment I get off the plane just to see what happens. Maybe then I'll be asked what part of England I'm from. Or not.

Pass the Vegemite.

Cloudbusting

2009-11-04T23:16:00.007-05:00

Here's an interesting story. To alleviate a drought that threatened to ruin this winter's wheat harvest, it would seem that the Chinese have been seeding the clouds with chemicals in order to make it rain, something that I thought was still in the realm of science fiction rather than science fact. However, an incoming cold front somewhat scuppered the experiment for instead of the hoped for rain, tons and tons of snow were dumped on Beijing as the city was blessed with its earliest snowfall for over a decade.

Now, if only it were possible to take this technology and use it in reverse. We could then 'de-seed' the clouds we get here and buy ourselves some respite from winter.

That would be the ultimate Chinese takeaway.

Game, set and thatch Agassi

2009-11-02T21:48:00.009-05:00

In his newly published autobiography, Andre Agassi makes the claim that he took crystal meth during his career and that he lied about it to the tennis authorities, who then proceeded to brush the whole affair under the carpet. Now that the story has become public, said authorities are receiving a lot of flak for their handling of the case and other cases like it, and the game's reputation threatens to go the way of baseball's as a result.

Now, whilst not wishing to condone drug taking at all, I'm not aware that crystal meth is in any way performance enhancing - in fact, I would think it's quite the opposite - and in my opinion the people who run tennis should be more embarrassed about another of Agassi's misdemeanors that has come to light in his book.

I'm talking about his wig!

It would appear that the ridiculous mane that Agassi sported in the early part of his career was in fact an even more ridiculous syrup that covered up his prematurely balding pate, and its disintegration the night before the 1990 French Open final was the reason behind Agassi's crushing loss on that day. His brother had to help him reattach the perished postiche with about twenty clips, and Agassi was consequently very wary of diving around the court lest his toupee tumble to the floor mid-rally. If Agassi is now going to receive retroactive punishment, it has surely got to be for his follicular crimes rather than his drug-related ones! Donning a wig is one thing, but to become Joe Dirt's role model out of one's own volition is as incomprehensible as it is inexcusable.

Finally, I must quote you this line from the book; Agassi is talking here about the letter he claims he wrote to the ATP in 1997 to explain his positive drug test, but in a grand case of Freudian slippage I think he's really making an admission about the state of his hair:

"It was full of lies, interwoven with the truth."

Priceless - you just can't write that stuff (unless you're Andre Agassi, of course).

Trick or treat?

2009-11-01T09:07:00.008-05:00

Huge blizzard here this weekend (why do they always happen at weekends?), and as a result Halloween was moved to Friday night instead of Saturday. The whole Halloween experience is very well organised here, with the town's municipality deciding precisely when trick or treating will take place; it was going to be between the hours of 6 and 8 pm on Saturday, but the blizzard forecast meant that proceedings were moved to Friday instead.

Halloween was never that big a deal when I was growing up - we had Guy Fawkes instead - and trick or treating was always regarded as an American thing that we only ever saw in reruns of It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. However, as with all things American it slowly pervaded British society, and I think it's safe to say that trick or treating has long since replaced 'penny for the Guy' as the preferred form of institutionalised begging back in the UK.

My supplies of candy did not last long on Friday night, and consequently an empty-handed latecomer played the trick of disconnecting my cable TV by uncoupling the connection that feeds my house. Needless to say I was not best pleased but the problem was soon resolved, and if I am still here next year I will make sure that I am more prepared, either by having more candy or by hiring somebody to stand guard over my cable box.

Enjoy your November!

One flu over the cuckoo's nest

2009-10-27T22:00:00.009-04:00

I know the blog's been a bit neglected recently, but not purposely so. As I've mentioned before, my internet connection has been decidedly unreliable of late, but at the moment it appears to be on a good footing so I'll take advantage whilst we're all still on the planet to read the damn thing.

I say that because there seems to be a real sense of end of days around at the moment. The economy has tanked, 2012 is looming large - can't wait to see the film by the way; not just one national monument destroyed, but ALL OF THEM! - Iran and North Korea are on the verge of going nuclear, there are earthquakes almost every day and H1N1 is going to kill us all before any of the other stuff matters anyway.

Vaccinations are now rolling out around Canada - we have ours slated for the beginning of next week - but at the moment, I don't think I'm going to get one. Regular readers will know all about my cynicism regarding the Swine Flu, and nothing I've seen or read has done anything to change my mind. Yes, there have been tragic fatalities but they have been exceptionally rare, and there are many more tragic fatalities as a result of other diseases, including the 'regular' flu, that simply go unreported. I still believe that the 24 hour news media has played a huge part in whipping up the current wave of hysteria regarding the virus, and that the true epidemic is in fact an epidemic of fear.

And to cap it all, that self-same media is now able to fill its airtime with reports on the ridiculously massive queues of people waiting to get their shots. In Kingston, a number of children were absent from Melanie's school today as their parents had taken them to get vaccinated, with one family joining the line at 7.30 in the morning and not getting to the front until 3.30 in the afternoon; maybe the health authority should have sold fast passes à la Disney, although I doubt you'd have got many punters going round again for a second ride. As for me, well I'm not even going round for a first ride. At this moment in time I'm not prepared to be injected with an under-tested, rush-released vaccine, and I shall take my chances with my own immune system, thank you very much. Granted, we should be concerned by the whole situation, but not afraid; after all, the only thing we really have to fear is fear itself.

And perhaps spiders.

Stan's the man

2009-10-22T23:24:00.006-04:00

It's been a busy week thus far. My internet connection continues to be consistent only in its inconsistency, so deprived of a regular web fix I've been catching up on work and on the myriad of TV shows that I've recorded but yet to watch. At least we've had no further power cuts.

It's also been a good week weather-wise, and today some of my students came out with me to take some photographs of a Flat Stanley we'd made for The Grade 1s and 2s at Melanie's school in Kingston. We decided that a more appropriate, Inuit style name for him would be Stanwillie, and it was interesting to learn from my students that there is no real word in Inuttitut for 'flat.'

Both the students and myself enjoyed taking Stanwillie around town and we took some good photos, but none as good as this one, which shows the one-dimensional, cardboard figure in Washington D.C.:

Not sure who the small guy with the green tie is, though.

Food for thought

2009-10-18T11:40:00.005-04:00

My internet connection has been more down than up over the last few days, and yesterday morning we had a power cut, not an uncommon feature in these parts. Normally the power comes back after a few minutes, but this time it was out for over an hour, which is really hardly any time at all, but it was enough time to make me frustrated.

There was no TV, no internet, no phone and no running water (everything is interdependent here).

I of course went outside to make sure that it was not just my house that was affected, and when I found out that it was indeed a village-wide blackout I was able to take some sort of sadistic pleasure in the fact that everyone was in the same boat. The power eventually came back, but I think the whole episode has made me realise that perhaps I have not become as detached from my material needs as I believed I had.

Food for thought indeed (but not the type of food that needs an oven to cook it in case the power goes down again).

Maybe a cheese sandwich for thought...

I don't like Mondays

2009-10-14T17:47:00.007-04:00

Not that anyone should ever simply wish their time away, but it's already Thursday tomorrow, which means that we're only a couple of days away from the weekend. I've felt very tired this week so I'm looking forward to Friday evening, and I'm grateful for the fact that the Thanksgiving holiday on Monday made this a shorter work week.

Many of the staff at school have commented on how having the Monday off is psychologically far better than having a Friday off instead - although it must be said that either is better than neither - and my response to such comments has normally involved quoting a line or two from I Don't Like Mondays, such as "yeah, I don't like Mondays; I just want to shoot the whole day down."

Now, maybe it's an age thing again, maybe it's cultural, or maybe it's both, but such asides have universally flown straight over everyone's heads, probably leaving the other person thinking how strange that English guy is. I suppose that song is 30 years old now though, which is scary in itself ,and even scarier is the fact that this makes it almost as old, if not older, than many of the staff with whom I teach. Add into the mix that it was recorded by an Irish band that probably had very little impact on this side of the Atlantic, then I guess I'm probably deluding myself in thinking that anyone here is going to get the reference. Never mind; it keeps me happy.

Oh, and speaking of music, my 'song lyrics as poetry' project has been continuing apace, with outings today for Peter Gabriel and the Dave Matthews Band. Gabriel's Here Comes The Flood, always one of my favourite recordings, went down pretty well - the students were interested in the lyrics but were not 100% sold on the music - whilst DMB received a round of applause for Funny The Way It Is, which seemed to strike a chord both lyrically and musically. However, after two relatively contemporary, conventional tracks, I feel the need for something a little more esoteric next lesson.

I don't think I have the courage to play Ernie, but how about some John Cage...?

Walk out to winter

2009-10-11T20:20:00.005-04:00

Well, I think it's safe to say that our winter is now well and truly here to stay. It snowed all day Friday, and we had a bit of a blizzard yesterday, making it virtually impossible to see the mountain/hill that I climbed only last weekend. To be honest, I don't really mind it once the snow is thick on the ground; what I don't like is the transition period when it snows one day and rains the next, turning the town into a slushy grey mess, but it looks like our transition period has been a short one this year.

I hosted a potluck evening at my house yesterday; despite the weather there was a good turnout, and thanks to everyone's efforts we had an obscene amount of wonderful food to enjoy. The only thing that didn't really get eaten was my Spaghetti Bolognese, but Tupperware and freezers are wonderful things and I now have plenty of leftovers to enjoy at my leisure. It's Thanksgiving Day tomorrow so I should be eating turkey, but I think that some of the Spag Bol could be getting an outing, unless I decide to defrost another slab of 'mystery meat' instead.

Choices, choices.