Eleven days

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...

They don't make 'em like they used to

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

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

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

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.

Back to work

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...

Christmas in September

It felt like Christmas today.

Firstly, the container ship that was carrying our cargo of school supplies finally arrived, and now we have paper and binders for our classes. Earlier today my students actually used up the last piece of writing paper that we had in the classroom, so the ship's appearance couldn't have come at a better time; quite what we would have used to write on next week I hadn't figured out yet.

Then, having returned home at the end of the school day, I received a knock on the door from our centre director, Mark Tertiluk, who was kindly delivering four boxes of food that had just arrived at the airport for me! Melanie flew back to the UK yesterday for a very brief visit - she flies back to Canada on Monday - and on her way to Montreal she dropped off said boxes at Air Inuit HQ. Apparently they were originally going to take a couple of weeks to come up, but Melanie smiled at the right people and, lo and behold, here they are. Talk about service!

I now have just about the fullest larder that I've ever had in my time in the North - Melanie had even managed to slip in a box of Timbits for me, a rare pleasure in these parts - and after a week of illness, I suddenly feel much better!

18 boxes

The annual ritual of waiting for my cargo has now been completed! Last year, my life was shipped to me in 24 boxes, whereas this time around I've managed to downsize to 18. What that says about my life I'm not sure; perhaps the amount of possessions I need is slowly decreasing in line with the number of hairs remaining on my head.

The remainder of the week will now consist of an ongoing cycle of unpacking, cleaning and washing, but at least I now have my TV and I will now feel a little more connected to the outside world once more. My phone is also connected now, but there is still no sight of the internet, so I am continuing to spend more time in school than is healthy in order to access the world wide web and to write these posts for you, dear reader. It's home time now though...

Meat market

WARNING - This is one of those posts that contain potentially disturbing images, both of myself and of dismembered wildlife; you have been warned!

After a beautiful first week weather-wise, the weekend was pretty grey, and as I write on Monday afternoon it's simply pouring down with rain. I spent most of the weekend at school going through the thirty boxes of classroom books and supplies that were flown up from Inukjuak for me, half of which were sent in error (unless I want to run a course in Business Accounting, in French). These boxes now have to be repackaged and sent back down, a laborious and costly task, but as with the Light Brigade, mine is not to reason why.

On a more interesting note, I was taken to the community freezer on Saturday (I guess this would replace 'community chest' on an Inuit Monopoly board), which is not something that the Quallunaat (white people) are normally allowed to do. When any hunters return to the village, their excess catch is placed in the freezer to be shared amongst the population at large, and at the moment there is an excess of caribou in storage, hence us being allowed some. As you can see though, the meat does not come neatly packaged in Styrofoam trays and plastic wrap:

It's very much a case of work out which piece of the animal you're looking at then take what you need, or vice-versa perhaps, depending on how fussy you are. I now have a couple of hefty slabs of caribou meat in my freezer at home, although quite what part of the animal they came from I'm not sure. They don't have any hooves or antlers attached though; I wouldn't have liked that.

I don't think the caribou would have cared too much though.

Here we go again...

Greetings!

It's been a while I know, but I'm now writing to you from Kangiqsujuaq. It only seems like yesterday that I arrived but I've actually been here a week now, and over the course of the coming days, weeks and months I'll keep you posted about life up here.

I've already chalked up a few 'firsts' in my life in the short time I've been here: this is the most northerly place I've ever visited and the first time I've been 'north of 60', it's the first time I've ever had to teach in August, and it's also the first time I've lived next to a golf course! Yes...there is actually a golf course here, but more of of that in the days to come!

(Click on photo to enlarge)

The village is very beautiful, and you are very aware that you are living in a natural amphitheatre, with imposing mountains surrounding you on three sides. As for the spelling, I'm none the wiser as I've seen at least three different variations since I've been here, but the most common seems to be Kangiqsujuaq (no 'r'), so we'll stick with that from now on.

Thanks to Melanie I've had some boxes of food arrive so I'm not starving, but my cargo from Inukjuak is yet to materialise, so just like last year I've been living out of my suitcase for the past week. I packed more pairs of underpants in my suitcase than I did last year, but I've just about run through the whole range of combinations afforded to you by a couple of pairs of jeans and two or three T-shirts. I've also no internet or phone at home yet, and with my TV stranded somewhere between here and Inukjuak, my evenings have not been all that exciting. I suppose I could devote myself to my work....

For the time being I'm using the internet at school, but when one considers that my house here is a mere stone's throw away from the school (it really is - I've tried!), I suppose there are far worse hardships in the world. Posts will become more regular once I'm hooked up at home, but keep looking in as I'll still try to update on a fairly regular basis. Until next time....

(Click on photo to enlarge)

The final countdown

This time next week I shall be firmly ensconced back in the North for a fourth year of fun and frolics above the treeline (I actually fly up this Saturday). I can't quite believe it's been that long but it has, so I guess that some part of me must enjoy the experience, and as regular readers will know I'm travelling even further north this year, to the community of Kangirsujuaq (or Kangiqsujuaq, depending on your source); I shall be able to confirm the spelling next week. The community is also known as Wakeham Bay, after Captain William Wakeham who, in 1897, led an expedition to determine whether the Hudson Strait was safe for navigation. Not sure of his findings; again, maybe I'll be able to tell you next week...

The population in Kangir(q)sujuaq/Wakeham Bay is just 591 by the last count (compare that to the relative metropolis of Inukjuak with its population of around 1500), which will make it the smallest place in which I've ever lived, but there are still a couple of stores there, and as long as the TV and internet work I'll be fine. Not sure when/if Melanie will be joining me; she returns to the UK for a month or so at the beginning of September, and she also has a few job possibilities around Kingston, although nothing's definite yet. If she does come up it'll probably be around late October, so at least that gives me a couple of months to get the new Northern apartment clean!

How I'll furnish said apartment is yet to be decided. I've no idea quite what type of accommodation I'll be getting, and at the time of writing all my 'Northern possessions' are still boxed up in Inukjuak. When they'll arrive in my new home is anyone's guess - remember the saga of the 24 boxes? - so I'll be sure to pack a good supply of underwear in my suitcase this year!

24 boxes

My cargo has arrived! The underwear crisis is now over and I have to say that I have never enjoyed cleaning and washing so much as I did today. I say enjoyed, but I guess the cleaning process was more of a necessary evil; the apartment I'm living in has finally been shorn of the grimy crust left by its previous occupants and is now something approaching a home. I must say that the most harrowing part of the process was not the removal of hitherto unseen rotting foodstuffs from the corners of cupboards, nor scrubbing unwelcome stains from around the toilet bowl, but opening a dresser draw to find a hair staring back at me...someone else's hair...eeeugh...I think I have a new phobia.

On the school front, I still have no students but I now have a list of names, so I may soon have to work for a living once again. Can't argue, I suppose; at least we didn't all end up being swallowed by a black hole today. Would have got rid of those unwanted hairs though...

Thoughts of summer

To quote a line from Les Miserables, it was a case of 'Empty chairs at empty tables' at school today. Still no students, and I had to spend the day looking busy by re-filing last year's paperwork and tapping out important looking missives on my laptop. My thoughts drifted back to the summer, and particularly to the week in August when Melanie and I ran poor old Barry off his feet. Barry was visiting from the UK for ten days, and in that time we fitted in the following:

- A performance of Les Miserables in Gananoque

- Dinner at the 360 Restaurant atop the CN Tower

- A Blue Jays game

- A Hippo Tour around Toronto

- Becoming last minute audience members at Canadian Idol (don't ask!)

- A canoe trip on Charleston Lake

- A Great Big Sea concert in Buffalo

- Niagara Falls and all the necessaries, plus...

- A helicopter flight over the Falls, and...

- White water jetboating on the Niagara River!

Now, that's a chronological list, and I'll leave it up to you, dear reader, to rearrange it in a suitable order of preference. I think Barry had fun, but we certainly did!

Oh, by the way, still no cargo, but I now have a phone, although Bell might take two weeks to hook me up; it's a long way for their man and his ladder to come, you know...

Casting the net

Sunday 7^th September

I am now online, sort of, thanks to someone else's wireless network which is unsecured and cunningly named 'wireless'. The connection is of Shatneresque quality (see my first post), but I have been able to send and receive a few emails and catch up with the outside world. Andy Murray has made it to the US Open final, Lewis Hamilton has won a thrilling Grand Prix only to be demoted to third and England have snuck past the mighty Andorra by a couple of goals. Oh, and Stephen Harper has called a snap election for October, which should serve as the B-Movie to the one in the US in November (although as this is Canada, perhaps that ought to be an 'Eh-Movie'). I haven't missed much, then.

Still no cargo, so had to hand wash smalls and socks. It's a rock 'n' roll lifestyle up here.

Went down to the river with Dominick and Celine this afternoon, and enjoyed a fine couple of hours fishing, skimming stones and eating berries which Celine assured me weren't poisonous. If my blog entries end abruptly in the next day or so, I will know that she was wrong. The landscape by the river is truly beautiful, a fact that one forgets once the snow has come.

No fish were harmed during the writing of this post.

I feel old

Friday 5^th September

Recruiting has now begun I've been told, so who knows, I may yet have company in the house of learning that is my classroom. Still no cargo though, and consequently the pants and socks situation is reaching crisis point. Forced to make an emergency shopping trip to the Northern store for essential supplies; wonder if Manchester City's new owners would be able to afford to shop up here? Now let's see, do we buy Robinho or this loaf of bread...?

Went to a party at Stephanie's house this evening and got to meet most of the new staff at Innalik. I am now officially old. I need to take care not to over use the phrase "Well, in my day..." Maybe I will now be viewed as the wise old man who lives on the hill, and everyone will now make pilgrimage to my door in order to hear my sage words of wisdom. Trouble is, I don't live on a hill...

Students? Ah, I thought we’d forgotten something!

Thursday 4^th September

My first trip into school revealed the fact that no recruiting has actually been done for my course yet, so I face the term as a player playing to an empty stage, much like the third Mummy film after its first week of release. I had the misfortune to see that film this summer and let me tell you, when the Yetis appeared, I think I momentarily lost the will to live. However, I survived, although whether Brendan Fraser's career will do the same is debatable, when one couples the Mummy with Journey to the Centre of the Earth...now don't get me started on that one!

But I digest...

Still no cargo by the way, so I'm surviving with what I had in my suitcase. Down to my last two pairs of socks and underpants now...

And so it begins...

Wednesday 3^rd September

Well, with all the decision making ability of Brett Favre I'm back in the North again, and after three years I thought it was about time I recorded my thoughts on paper, or the virtual paper of this blog at least. The regularity of updates will depend very much on the reliability of the internet which, at the moment, seems to be at its lowest in the time I've been here. I think rather than Tamaani, the service needs to be re-christened 'Shatner net' as downloading...even the...smallest file...is time consuming...and disjointed, much in the way that every word that comes out of dear Bill Shatner's mouth seems like...its...very...own...sentence.

So, it is with great anticipation that I await the arrival of both my cargo and my students as I cannot really function up here without either, although at this stage I would hesitate to place any bet on which might appear first. Maybe my next post will bring more news!