It has been a while since I have written a blog entry, and I must admit that the entries will become less and less as time goes on.
These past couple of weeks have gone by extremely quickly, we have gone to see speakers about the permafrost, a man back in 2003 was attacked by a polar bear and told us his story, we have seen a tattoo documentary about Inuit people and the reason why they tattooed their faces and how within the last few decades face tattooing has decreased. As a group we have started taking French classes every Thursday night from 6:30 to 8:30 and I am pretty much acing that class. It is all review of French material that I have learned back in grade 4 and the teacher noticed I was restless so I became her 'go to girl'. I am the one she asks to write on the board and do other jobs around the class.
We also took a flamingo class, went to the youth centre and participated in traditional Inuit games. And the two highlights of the past weeks are one we went ski-doing also known as snow mobile. It was great fun; our group was taken with sleds that were pulled by ski dos. The people who took us there were friends of our project leader. They were really amazing, the husband and wife took care of us and their children were amazing as well. We travelled to parts that were frozen over.... once we arrived there we went ice fishing, some group members went hiking and me and a couple of the girls took the ski dos out for a spin. I was able to reach 50 km and accidentally went over some snow bumps and Sam almost fell off. Of course everyone in the group was freezing no matter how many Canada Goose coats we put on. And the wife her name was Moosie, she took very good care of us because when I became cold I put on another pair of snow pants and she completely took over and put on the extra snow plants for me. This of course happened in the middle of the Arctic. It was an amazing experience. All of which lasted about 2 hours and it was the best 2 hours that I have ever spent.
The other highlight was yesterday. We went to Sylvia Grinnell which can be compared to Algonquin Park in Ontario. We walked there and climbed the mountains, took photos and true to our nature went sliding down hill tops that were not designed to be sled down. The drop from the mountain top was high and scary. Of course the first time going down it I had to be pushed down because I was so scared. And the second time I went down a steeper part I sort of did that all by myself. Us girls went all the way down the mountain part and took a mini tour the national park. We walked around and just chilled out by a rock. It was extremely comfortable; snow may be cold but it is really comfy. Instead of going around the mountain we decided to go back up the way we came, the semi-steep mountain. I was exhausted by the time we reached the top. On our way back I saw huskies that were tied up and I decided to go closer to them. Upon coming closer I realized that all the dogs had blood on them and I wondered why? But there was no one around to answer my questions, there was about a dozen dogs barking at me and my heart just went out to them. There is one thing that I have noticed while being here in Nunavut is that there are plenty of stray dogs. I even made friends with one of them, his name is Marco and I feed him left over whenever he comes by. But back to today, I took pictures of the dogs and I just felt so helpless because I could not help them. However, all in all it was a really great day!
This past week at work was blissful. It was their March break/ reading week and so when I did go into work there were no children!! I had to prepare and photocopy the preschooler’s homework for next year and had to clean up the offices but this week there was really nothing for me to do. I really did enjoy this week, no kids, no headaches, nothing. Even though I went into work every day it was relaxing and delightful.
This upcoming weekend we have our 48 hours off. Which means that starting Friday March 5th after work we can do whatever we want to; we do not have to spend our nights at the Katimavik house nor do we have any planned group activities. Sam and I have thought about renting ski dos for the day and travelling around Iqaluit. But it is still not set in stone, we are still undecided.
I know that a lot of you went somewhere for your reading week and I would love to hear what everyone did. I know that some of you went to Jamaica, Nova Scotia and Ohio. What did everyone else do? Fill me in; even if you went nowhere, I still would love to hear it!
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