January 7, 2009

Welcome!

The purpose of this Journal page is to record my experiences as I travel to northern Quebec on a once-in-lifetime adventure. 

To set the scene: 

Eva Colmers and I are creating a new children's show called BENEATH THE ICE which takes place in a small Inuit community called Kangiqsujuaq in Nunavik Quebec. We have been fortunate enough to receive funding from the Canada Council for the Arts to travel to Kangiqsujuaq to learn, experience and research the area and it's people and culture for the development of the play. We have been in contact with several people from the community and have researched as much as possible via the internet and library, but actually being in Kangiqsujuaq, talking with the local people and observing the way that they live is such a wonderful treat for us and will prove very valuable in what we will be able to then bring to the play. It will be an exciting 10 days!

The journey begins:

Today we traveled to Montreal on the first leg of our trip and arrived during a snow storm. The tarmac was covered in the blowing white stuff and a tractor with a plow on the front had to lead the plane to the gate since there was too much snow to go through on those skinny wheels. Although we are just staying in the hotel tonight, it is so great to be back in my favourite city!

First thing in the morning we will be flying to another northern community called Kujuuak. It is about 21/2 hours from Montreal and quite the hub of Nunavik with government offices, stores and businesses. From there we hop onto a Dart 8 prop plane and fly to Kangiqsujuaq stopping in two communities along the way. To give you an idea of how far we are going, Kangiqsujuaq is 1800 KM from Montreal and is at the very top of Quebec on an inlet called Wakeham Bay, which is right across the Hudson Straight from Iqaluit. There are no roads or cellphone service, but there is an arena, a pool, a school and 2 hotels. Not bad for a community of only 500 people.

The moon and mussels:

A main focus of our play is the amazing event of collecting mussels under the ice. In Kangiqsujuaq the bay freezes over in the winter, and when the tide goes out the farthest during the full moon, people cut a hole in the ice and crawl down to the bottom of the ocean. Apparently it is much warmer underneath and you can hear all kinds of strange sounds as the ice shifts above your head. This weekend is the full moon so Eva and I are hoping that we can take part in this magical experience and go under ourselves. We will see...it has been warmer than usual this past Fall, as it has been in Edmonton, and the ice may not be thick enough to go under. I'll keep you posted...

Discoveries:

Over the last year and a half,  Eva and I have grown to be quite fond of this remote area of our country as we have been researching the area and learning from friends and colleagues in Edmonton who have experienced the north themselves.

At the moment we only know Kangiqsujuaq as it is pictured in our minds. But by this time tomorrow, we will be able to place real pictures in our minds... 

I have heard from a few sources that once you travel to the north you catch the northern fever and will want to go back again and again...so maybe this will be the first of several journeys to the top of our country...who knows?

Either way, I look forward to sharing our many discoveries with you on this very page.

Talk to you soon, 

 

January 9, 2009

We made it!

After flying north from Montreal to Kujuuak, Kangirsuk and Qaqtaq, we landed in Kangiqsujuak and were greeted at the airport by Lukasi, who works at the local Landholding Coorporation. He is so nice, wanting to make sure that we arrived safely and he gave us a list of local contacts.

It’s not as cold here as we thought it would be, however the wind is very strong and it is loud! The Co-op Hotel is right on Wakeham Bay and we have been listening to the wind howling outside the windows. Although we think the wind is strong, everyone here is calling it a breeze.

After settling into the Co-op Hotel last night, we realized that we are the only ones here….not just the only guests in the building, the ONLY two people at all in the building.

While sitting in the common area the phone rang, and a man named Enookie was calling to tell us that he is a carver and would like to come to the Co-op to show us his soapstone carvings. Five minutes later he was telling us about his hunting trip that he just returned from today. He and his uncle were fishing for Arctic Char about 9 KM outside of Kangiqsujuaq. Tomorrow he is heading off again and will be away hunting for two weeks. He showed us a lovely seal and an inuksuk  that he carved out of stone that is found nearby. I expect that we will have more visitors throughout the week.

This morning we woke up late, and went outside immediately to see the sun rising- at about 9:15AM. Eva thought we were like kids at Christmas time, anxious to wake up and see the gifts in the morning. Beautiful pinks that have a quality of colour and cold that I’ve never seen before were on the horizon. Chunks of ice on the bay have a light blue colour in them, the sky is a beautiful blue and the mountains are all around. A team of sled dogs were tied up right next to our hotel, very content to just sleep in the harsh wind…oh right, it’s just a breeze.

After a nice breakfast, Eva and I walked up to the Landholding Coorporation and Interpretive Centre. I guess we are dressed properly thanks especially to Gin May, Michael Clark, Liz Lepper and Marissa Kochanski- the boots and coats are perfect! But I was absolutely sweating by the time we walked up the hill. Am I overdressed? I’ll just have to experiment with lots of layers.

We had a great chat with Brian Urquart who is in charge of tourism with the Landholding Coorporation. He has lived here on and off since the late 1960’s and knows a great deal about the area. He is a very informative source for us and a great contact to have in the community. We also had a tour of the fabulous Interpretive Centre, which has pictures and artifacts of the area and of the nearby Pingualuit Park. This park surrounds an amazing crater that is almost perfectly round, is 2.5KM in diameter and has the second most pure water in the world. It was created 1.4 million years ago by a meteor, and guides can take people out to hunt and fish or just to see this amazing site.

Our tour guide was Elaisa and she was very helpful and proud to teach us about her community. She even offered us some Cloudberry tea, which Eva and I adore. We are on the search for a variety of Inuit teas that we can bring home- they are so good.

We can’t believe how busy we are all of a sudden. Eva is now speaking with the principal of the school so that we can arrange to do a workshop with some grade 5 & 6 children on Monday, we need to speak to Father Dion who has done some translation for us for the play, and we need to arrange with our guide when we will be able to go under the ice- yes, it looks like we can go!!! So there is lots to do while we are here.

In my first journal entry, I said that there are no roads here. Well, there are no roads going in and out of Kangiqsujuaq, but there are roads in the community and we have been astonished at how many vehicles there are. It seems everyone has either a car or truck an ATV or snowmobile. There is even a van for elders to help them get around.

This is truly a beautiful part of Canada. I’m pinching myself that we are even here!

Our morning mantra now is ‘Thank you Canada Council!’ We are happy to be here experiencing it all.

Well it’s almost 4PM and already the sun has gone down.

I may not be able to submit another entry until Monday, and by then we will have gone mussel picking under the ice!

Until then,

 

January 10, 2009

We woke up this morning an hour earlier than yesterday and put on our snowpants and parkas to head outside for more picture taking. There was no wind at all so it was very quiet; the moon was hanging low above one of the mountains across the bay as the sun was rising slowly behind us. We are absorbing the beauty and fresh air at every moment…

Dogs

The pack of dogs next door are tied up but are right in the open by the bay. Their owner, Peter Kiatainaq lives across the road and is an awarded dog-sled racer, winning a local race that is over 100km long, 4 years in a row.

Most of the dogs were sleeping, curled up into little balls, as one was crying and yelping away. The sound of his crying resonated across the bay, and other dogs started barking and yelping too. At one point it sounded like a chorus of sound from different parts of the village. When Peter finally came out to see his dogs, they all woke up and wagged their tails and jumped up to gather around him. They obviously adore Peter.

Although the dogs next door are tied up and people can approach them and pet them, many dogs just run around loose and it’s not recommended that you go near them at all- they are not pets. Yesterday morning I was taking pictures and I turned around and found a little friend right beside me. The click of the camera startled him when I took his picture, but he was interested in staying close by for a while. He just sat near me to see what I was doing, and when I turned around again he disappeared.

Lukasi Napaaluk

Last night, Eva and I watched a DVD that our friend Brian Urquart from the Landholding Corporation gave us of a documentary that was made here a couple of years ago. It focuses on Lukasi Napaaluk who in the film goes seal hunting and mussel gathering under the ice. We have heard lots about Lukasi as he is in a Canadian Geographic magazine feature that I found last year, and I have been told by several sources here that he is an expert in going under the ice. He is also the founder of the Co-op store and now travels all over to help communities start their own stores. And yes, he travels in Canada, but has also been as far away as Chile recently. We haven’t met him yet, but learned about his parents at the Interpretive Centre yesterday. His father is still alive and has been quite the storyteller all of his life. Lukasi’s mother who passed away in 2007 had done much teaching of the Inuktitut language and was the first to write a book in Inuktitut. The Inuit culture is steeped in verbal tradition and storytelling, and only in the past century has there been any writing down of the language. In the interpretive centre there is a large soapstone sculpture that Lukasi’s mother made decades ago that is based on storytelling. There is someone fishing, someone hunting and a mother with a baby on her back- beautiful! She received the Order of Canada a few years ago and the community is very proud of her.

Ice

Back to the video-

There is awesome footage of Lukasi with his children, wife and grandchildren, cutting a hole in the ice right near where we are staying and picking mussels beneath. Wow!! It is a remarkable practice, a tradition that has been passed on for generations. Since it is harder and harder to find good places to go under due to melting ice, Lukasi is actually afraid that this tradition may one day have to end. Brian told us that the freezing of the ice is 6 weeks later than when he lived here in the 1970’s. Global warming or climate change is affecting the very way that the Inuit live and there seem to be many studies, much conversation and much concern over this issue at the moment.

In the documentary, there is great time-lapse photography of the tide coming in and going out…you can see the ice moving up and down as the water gets higher and lower. Also, the sound of the ice crackling as it moves is quite remarkable. This morning as the dogs were crying and barking, I went down closer to the bay, and could hear the crackling and pops of the ice shifting. The tide must have been coming in as the ice looked a bit low…I’m starting to recognize this now. What a wonderful sound- how is it that the water can even freeze over all of that movement?

The Whale Hunt

Last year Kangiqsujuaq was awarded a license to hunt a Bowhead Whale, and in August the search for a whale was on and they were able to capture and kill one- the first in 100 years!!!!!

There was a large team of men who trained and prepared for the event, everyone with specific jobs to ensure that the hunt went smoothly and safely. They actually used something called a Penthrite Grenade that works somewhat like a harpoon, where the grenade explodes once it is inside the whale.

Noah Annahatak who works for Pangualuit Park was the hunter chosen to harpoon the animal, and it is an honour on behalf of his people to do so.

The whale was 48 feet long, and the whole community came out to pull it into shore where they butcher it right away. It could weight 80-100tons so you can imagine how many people could be fed with that much meat.

In each community in Nunavik there is something called a community freezer. So when a hunter comes back with fish or caribou or seal, they put it in the freezer and get paid by the government to do so, then if someone in the community needs food they can select something from the freezer for free. The communities throughout Nunavik shared this whale, and the next whale to be hunted, later this year, will also be shared by all of the villages.

I asked our Interpretive Centre guide Elaisa what they did with the skin of the whale, and she said that they ate it- ‘It’s the best part’, she said.

Baleen

‘Baleen is a multitude of long hairy fringes, compacted together to make a flat plate made of fingernail-like material called keratin. The baleen plates are attached to the upper jaw and can number up to 325- 360 plates.’  Makivik Magazine

This whale had 350 plates of baleen on each side of its mouth! The keratin feels like plastic and is what was used in corsets long-ago. I always heard it was whalebone in the corsets, but it is this softer material that is more flexible that was used.

There are two baleen in the Landholding office and I never would have imagined that they would look the way that they do. At first I thought that the hairs were glued on, thinking that baleen was only the hairs. But no, they are 8-9 feet long and about a foot wide with a slight curve to one end, which is pointed.  We’ve seen a few that have artwork carved into them and they are just marvelous and unique to see. I took pictures for my son Jack’s friend Luke Nelson, who knows a lot about whales and about many sea creatures. It was very exciting to think that Luke would really appreciate that I had seen and touched real baleen from a bowhead whale!

Well, obviously there is a lot to talk about…this is the longest journal entry yet.

I will leave it at that for now and add more updates soon…

January 12, 2009

Ice Ice baby…

At 8AM yesterday I looked out the window as I do every morning to see the bay- the entire shoreline had changed! It looked as though the big chunks of ice near the shore had moved out a few feet towards the centre of the bay and left just smooth bluish- green ice in its place. It was strange to see such a difference overnight.

It was windier and definitely colder- our hoods were up more all day to block the strong gusts. The afternoon was the planned time to go under the ice!

I had on 2 pairs of wool socks, long johns, snowpants, a turtleneck, fleece sweater, neck tube, fur hat, huge Baffin boots, the Snow Goose parka and long warm mitts. I was roasting indoors, but was good to go for our adventure!

Our guide named Johnny came by the hotel to pick us up with his snowmobile. He had old frostbite marks on his face and his moustache was full of ice. We rode in the wooden sled that was attached behind the snowmobile and Johnny led us right down over the ice chunks behind our hotel and onto Wakeham Bay. It was pretty bumpy until we got out into the open where it was a smooth ride for the few minutes that it took to get to the chosen spot...and windy! The wind was even stronger where we ended up as we were closer to the opening to the Hudson Straight, and the ice was in amazingly huge bluish-white chunks all along the shore- beautiful! Johnny looked through a long crack to see if he could find a place where he could see down to the floor of the bay. It didn’t take him long before he was chipping ice away with a long metal rod…

…unfortunately, we didn’t go under since it was deemed too unsafe to do so- the ice is too new. We did look down into the hole and Johnny even jumped in to get some pictures from below with our cameras. We knew before we came here that it may not be possible to do this but it was very disappointing not to be able to see the mussels on the bottom of Wakeham. It was still a great experience to see another part of the area though and to capture pictures of the amazing ice formations. On our trip back we were going against the wind and Eva had turned right around in the sled and faced backwards as I faced sideways because the blowing snow was piercing our cheeks.

Church

Before our windy adventure, we went off to church- not something either Eva or I do on a regular basis- but we were curious to see what a service would be like in Inuktitut. We have a small town map that shows all of the main buildings in Kangiqsujuaq, and the Church building is just up and around the corner from where we are staying, so that is where we went thinking that we would be going to a Catholic service since there is a priest who lives right across the road from us.

When we arrived everyone there was singing. There was a man on guitar, a lady playing the keyboard and a young man on drums, along with 3 women who were leading the singing with microphones. The service was 2 hours long and included a lot of joyful music as well as talks and sermons from members of the community. There didn’t seem to be one preacher as I’m used to, but instead the entire service was a real coming together of the congregation. Everyone was very welcoming to us- the young man who played the drums sat beside us while an elder was speaking and translated his ‘sermon’ for us. He gave us his English bible so that we could read along while he used his Inuktitut bible. At the end of the service everyone shook hands and hugged and wished each other Happy New Year, and we were completely included in all of that warmth. It was lovely…

Today we found out that there are actually 3 churches in town- Catholic, Anglican and Gospel, in a community of only 600, and that we were not at the church that we intended to be at.

Yes, a perfect example of the southerners’ naiveté in a small community.

Children

Whenever we meet up with children they ask what our names are. This was true the other night when a group of kids were tobogganing beside the Co-op. One of them asked if she could come inside to get warm with her friend…she wasn’t wearing a hat and her coat was open, so Emmanuelle and Louisa entertained us for a while talking about their families and friends and asking us lots of questions. They were very sweet.

This morning we went to the local school to do some workshops on shadow-puppetry with some grade 4-7s. Each group experimented with shadows against a screen that Eva brought with her, and then the children made their own puppet-characters out of black construction paper and mounted them on a stick. Tomorrow we will be working on their stories, some made up and some based on the myth of Sedna, and on Wednesday they will perform their short plays for other students.  Our friend Louisa is in the grade 4 class, so when she saw us she said ‘Hello my friend’.

At the school, the children learn in their first language Inuktitut until the end of grade 3. They then choose to learn either French or English as a second language, so the grade 4s that we worked with spoke only a little English since they have only been learning it for the last few months. We have come across many adults who actually speak all 3 languages very well.

Father Dion

As I mentioned earlier, across the road from where we are staying is the Catholic Mission where Father Jules Dion lives. He has been living in Kagiqsujuaq for close to 50 years, arriving when there was nothing here but a couple of buildings and the cold wind. We visited Father Dion the other day and spent a couple of hours speaking with him about the area and the changes he has seen since he arrived. Eva had sent him some words and phrases from the script to translate into Inuktitut for us. We sat and listened to him say each word for us as I recorded our conversation and we sipped on Earl Grey tea. He has seen a lot of change in this community, most notably the advances in communication. When he was first here, all of the missions in Nunavik had radio contact every morning at 9AM. If someone needed help in your community, you would tell the Father in Kujuuak who would then pass on a message to the Department of transport in Kujuuak and they would send a message to Montreal. From there, help would come, but it would take some time to get a flight way up here.

Nowadays, there is satellite phone, computer, and television service, there is a radio station in the village and there is even something called a Spot GPS tracking device that you can call for help or even 911 from if you are in trouble out in the wilderness. Brian Urquart from Nunarturlik Landholding says that you actually have to work hard at getting lost nowadays…

The Father always seems to have young people around him. A young girl regularly helps him with keeping his place clean, and many children like to play in the mission at any time of day. Although Father Dion likes to have the children around, he says he gets tired more easily now and has to send them all home when they’ve depleted his energy.

Before we left Father Dion, we were talking about local food and mentioned that we would like to try some Arctic Char and wondered where we could find some. Without missing a beat, Father Dion sent the young girl with a key to his freezer, and she came back with a whole fish for us to take. Knowing that we couldn’t eat the whole thing, he kindly sawed it in half for us, and after it thawed we tried some raw, and cooked the rest for a wonderful Saturday evening dinner. We love it! It smelled and tasted so fresh and delicious. We are now fans!

Alright, more discoveries to come…

Talk to you soon.

January 14, 2009

I am sitting in the lobby of the new Kangiqsujuaq Inn where they have wireless internet. It was built by the Landholding Corporation and is very nice inside. It has 11 rooms, a sauna and exercise room, a large lobby with high ceilings, and a cozy dining room area with kitchen. The internet wasn’t working yesterday, but we have been able to pop in here on occasion to check messages and for me to add entries to the journal.

Brian just took Eva and I on a little tour of the area outside of the village. Oh, it was so worth it! We call Alberta big sky country, but the sky here is so vast it seems to go on forever. The landscape is very rocky being above the treeline and the horizon seems to undulate with its curves and gullies and packed-down snow.

We found several Inuksuit- I hope I got the spelling right- and we were able to take some good pictures as the sunlight was just perfect. It was really nice to be able to see the surrounding area a wee bit since we arrived last week in the dark and couldn’t tell how Kaniqsujuaq fit into the area…a great way to wrap-up our visit. Yes, we are scheduled to leave tomorrow for Kujuuak and spend the night there so that we can learn about that community as well. The forecast however is a little daunting as it is expected that there will be a storm in the morning, so we may be staying in Kangiqsujuaq a little longer than expected…

Throat Singing

On Monday night we had some guests at our hotel-

A lovely woman named Ellisapie arrived with her husband and two small children as well as a friend named Siasie. Ellisapie had braided her hair, worn her decorative sealskin boots and with Siasie put on her beautiful white costume. Then, right in the common area the two performed throat singing for us. It is a mesmerizing deep, rhythmic sound that is created right at the bottom of the throat, and with a partner face-to-face, the sounds are made back and forth until one partner laughs or has to stop. Traditionally, this 4000 yr. old art form only included women but sometimes now, boys learn how to throat sing as well. While here, Ellisapie made a quick phone call and in about two minutes a former student of Ellisapie’s was in the hotel singing with her as well. Mark is just 14, but he was very good. Many of the songs are short- anywhere from 30 seconds to a minute and a half long. Mark and Ellisapie at one point sang for well over a minute, and then all 3 singers sang together. Wow, it was wonderful to hear this incredibly unique art form. And although throat singing is performed all over the north, each region has it’s own sound, so we were very lucky to listen to this wonderful treat. Do you know that there is actually an Inuit Throatsingers Associaton? Back in 2001 they held a Throat Singing Conference which brought 100 of the best singers to Pivirnituq, Nunavik, and the performances were all recorded. An historical event that has helped to preserve a part of the Inuit culture. We have a copy of the CD and have been listening to the talented singers from all over Nunavik and Nunavut.

Sewing Class

Guess what we did last night?

Eva and I both chewed sealskin!

We went to a sewing class where women gathered to make sealskin boots (kamik) and at first we watched the women making the patterns for the designs out of cereal boxes, sewing the designs, chewing the skin and stepping on other tough skin to make it soft. We tried to help by chewing a piece of hide that will end up being the bottom of the kamik and I actually helped Ellisapie (yes, our throat singer) by stepping on her rounded piece of hide with my big Baffin boots. It is a lot of hard work to make just one pair of kamik, and good exercise too with all of that stepping. Many girls don’t know how to make kamik, and just like the throat singing association, this small sewing class is an effort for the local Inuit women to keep their culture. The ladies had fun together, laughed and even had a competition going on where they challenged each other to not speak in mixed- language. Any time that someone would say an English word, they had to pay a quarter. They were very welcoming to us, we learned a lot and this is another art form of the Inuit that is beautiful and unique in the world.

On our way home, we saw the Northern Lights- sweeping and green across the sky. We went down closer to the bay to get away from the streetlights to see them better and besides the wind, we could also hear the cracking and popping of the ice. It’s like something you can’t imagine in the south, and it makes me wonder what is going on underneath- the water always moving, pushing huge, thick sheets of ice so that it rises and falls, creating a new picture several times a day- pretty powerful!

Sedna

We have been asking people here about an Inuit myth that Eva is incorporating into the play about the sea goddess Sedna. The story varies and she has different names throughout the Arctic. Many have said that they haven’t heard of this myth, but yesterday when we went to the Co-op store beside the hotel, we saw quite a few sculptures and even baleen for sale. Included in the shelves of soapstone carvings was a beautiful sculpture of a woman with a tail and no fingers on her hands. It was Sedna!

The Inuktitut language has only been written down for a short time, so as you can imagine there aren’t books in Inuktitut readily available. To print this syllabic language is an expensive challenge, and only the school board has taken this on.

While we were at the school yesterday working on the shadow-puppet workshops with the students, we spoke with Annie who takes care of school materials. She showed us books and books of Inuit legends that have been printed in Inuktitut for the students. There are also a few larger books that include several legends in Inuktitut, French and English- very interesting and a great record of the myths of the region.

We discovered that Sedna has a different name here, and although Annie couldn’t find that actual story for us, I felt good that we had a good place to start in finding out more information about this myth.

Today the students at the school performed their shadow-puppet plays, and although we didn’t have a lot of time with them, they impressively created their own puppets, scenery and stories and did a great job with their groups in performance. We are very proud of all of them, and it was a pleasure to work at the school with the students and teachers.

Church-Part II

We wanted to see Father Dion one more time and also apologize for not making it to his church service on Sunday. We walked past his red Kia Sportage that was plugged in at the mission and he greeted us at the door. Behind some folding doors in the main area, is the chapel. You would never know it was there, but when the doors open you enter and charming, humble yet colourful room. On the wall behind the pulpit is a large cross with a soapstone carving of Jesus. There is another carving of the Virgin Mary as an Inuk woman that was actually created by Mitiarjuk Napaaluk, Lukasi’s mother that I mentioned in an earlier journal entry. It is beautiful. There are also two candle holders that are carvings with crosses on them. Father Dion was happy to speak with us again and even told us about a trip he took a couple of years ago near Lethbridge. Keep in mind that the Father is somewhere around 80 years old. It was nice to go back and say a proper goodbye to him before leaving.

We may be in touch after we go…There is a recent book that has been written about him and at the moment it is only in French. He has my address so that when the English version comes out he can send me one.

Well, I guess that’s all for now…I have more errands to run before we leave tomorrow- I tell you, it's non-stop up here...

I'll be in touch soon…

January 16, 2009

Yesterday we left Kangiqsujuaq just ahead of a blizzard that was blowing into the area. It was extremely windy and it was expected that the gusts would reach 80 km later in the day. The night before we had concluded that we may have to stay one more day if the plane can’t fly, but despite the high wind, we took off with no problems.

Flying over the southern coast of the Hudson Straight and Ungava Bay was something to behold- white, white and more white covering the rounded landscape which reaches to the floating chunks of ice on the water. Amazing!

We landed in Kujuuak, which is below the treeline and the hub of the 14 communities in Nunavik, almost 4 times the size of Kangiqsujuaq. A lady who works at the hospital saw us waiting at the airport for a taxi and offered us a ride to the hotel. We accepted and she was very friendly, telling us a bit about the area. Just before getting to the hotel she told us that she grew up in Edmonton. We told her about Beneath the Ice and she is going to tell her family about the show…

So, you know the story of the Three Bears…Goldilocks has visited the Bear household and has tried the porridge, the chairs and the beds until she is absolutely satisfied with the temperature for her breakfast, the comfort of her seating and the coziness of her cot…

The Auberge Hotel is pretty fancy compared to the simple accommodations we had farther north. There is both a restaurant and a bar here, neither of which exist in Kangiqsujuaq. We lugged our bags to our room at the very end of the hotel, and were greeted with an ice-cold reception. After turning up the heat in the frosty room we went for lunch hoping that the room would be a little more comfortable when we got back. On returning, we discovered that the small window had actually been left open so the heat had obviously not improved. The window was fixed and a space heater was brought in, but even after going out for a while in the afternoon, the room remained icebox cold. So, we changed rooms, again lugging our duffle bags down the hall to our new accommodations. Only one key out of the two we were given worked in the door, but the new room was much warmer so we were happy and ate our instant rice dinners and glasses of red wine while sitting on the beds- very glamorous!. Later on we discovered that the TV wasn’t working and although we were happy to be in a warm room, it seemed to be getting a little too warm... so, we changed rooms again…lugging our bags even farther down the hall. We ended up in a very comfortable, TV-savvy room with 2 working keys closer to the lobby- perfect! Goldilocks couldn’t have been happier…

On our afternoon excursion yesterday we walked down the road to an art gallery and shop that carries many beautiful Inuit carvings, paintings and jewelry. It was so nice to see such a great collection of pieces by artists from across Nunavik. We then walked further down the road and in the same building as the Landholding Corporation and CBC Radio North, is a little shop that sells handiwork by local Inuit women. Wonderful parkas, sealskin jackets, vests and mitts along with woven hats unique to this region and little Ookpiks were all there. So we were real tourists today, not having to gather research for our play.

Kangiqsujuaq

We will be flying to Montreal today, and back to Edmonton tomorrow, hopefully with a full load of bagels from the city. It will be nice to see my family again and to catch up on all of the activities at home.

In my first journal entry I talked about catching the northern fever and wanting to come back to the area again. I think I can safely say that I would definitely want to return. It would be nice to go back in the warmer months and do some hiking, maybe travel out to Pangualuit Park to see the crater, and even collect mussels on the beach. Eva and I have also talked about wanting to discover other parts of the north like the Yukon and North West Territories, which are just north of Alberta. But we will always have a warm spot in us for Kangiqsujuaq- the scenery, the people, the culture all beautiful and special to us. I’m going to miss being there, seeing the ever-changing shoreline of the bay, the intense glow of the moon and the vastness of the sky.

Final Observations

I’ve mentioned before that there are many vehicles in the community, none of which have a license plate on them. There are also a lot of working vehicles- a water truck, garbage truck, bulldozers etc. It was so interesting at times to be out by the quiet bay and then all of a sudden hear the rumble and warning signal of a ‘city’ vehicle backing up. An example of the modern world clashing with nature.

People in this community love their pop, especially children. Whenever we saw children there was always someone drinking a Pepsi or Coke. As this can become a real problem for people, leading to health problems like diabetes and rotting teeth, there are actually posters in the school asking students if they can stop drinking pop for 5 days. The incentive is that they could win prizes from their teachers if they do it.

In Kangiqsujuaq everything except the two stores close down at lunchtime. So everyday at Noon, people go home for lunch and see their families. Even the students at the school go home, and all of the staff too- when we were working at the school, we left one day at lunchtime after our workshops and there wasn’t one person in the building. We are so used to eating over our computers while we get a little more work done over the lunch-hour. It was refreshing to see a place that slows down at one point during the day. Wouldn’t it be nice to see people in the south doing the same thing as life is so fast these days and only getting faster…?

Well, I guess that’s it for now. The next step is to incorporate all that we have learned into our play- lots of work to do before our run in March.

Eva and I feel really good about our trip. We accomplished so much and absorbed more than we expected from our adventure. Big thanks go out to all of the people of Kangiqsujuaq and especially to Brian Urquart who was a wonderful tour guide for us. It’s an amazing part of the country and I am so glad that I was able to have this experience.

Thank you Canada Council!

Thanks for following along with my adventure to the north. The next chapter will be the creation of Beneath the Ice- another adventure closer to home…stay tuned!

Tracy