Friday, January 13, 2017

WE COME ASHORE!

     Not long after our landing a couple of motorized canoes gingerly approached the pitching aircraft and attached themselves. They were to be our taxi to the shore. It was a challenge to get luggage and ourselves transferred from a bouncing plane to a canoe that was bouncing the opposite way. We were about .5 km offshore and since the swells were a factor we slowly moved toward shore where people were waiting to grab the pitching canoes.

     The trusty G 5 was there to load our baggage and take us up to our house. The G 5 was a small tracked vehicle that was like a small pick up truck. No roads, just ruts.

     Kangiqsujuaq was a village of 188 Inuit and 10 others. The school had been open for 5 years. The Hudson Bay trading post had been there for 40 or so years. the Catholic mission had been there about 30 years. Inuit had lived in the area and came to the trading post from time to time and pitched tents or made snow houses while they stayed a few days and visited. In the 1920's there had been a radio station for airplanes as they crossed to Europe. A few Inuit had worked at those places.

     However the government in its wisdom had decided it was an improvement to have the Inuit live in settlements and so provided housing and schools. Hunters were expected to hunt from the settlement which wasn't going to work. These people were nomadic for a good reason. They had to travel far and wide with the seasons to successfully obtain their food,

    So here I was in my house with all my baggage around me. We had to unpack quickly and get organized . We couldn't go to the local restaurant for dinner. We had to make that ourselves.

    Also, here I was , the principal of a one room school and the administrator of the settlement. My feet had to hit the ground running. I had responsibility for all federal government activity in the settlement. We had an engineer and power plant and assistant. There was a large warehouse with extra food. There were people who had government business.

    There were about 20 students in 2 classrooms. One girl was 20 and she had been in school for the five years. The kids had a pretty good grasp of English but most of the adults knew very little English. I used an interpreter to conduct business.

    We had decided to order our  years's supply of food. It was a huge job but worked out well.  The food was sent in by ship. The ship dropped off many other supplies. We had some fresh vegetables such as potatoes, carrots etc. We had frozen meat. We probably had a greater variety of meat than we've ever had since. We had lamb chops! There was only one problem . They put our potatoes in the freezer on the ship. They told me when the potatoes were thrown off the ship it was like a sack of pool balls.

    We had to make all of our own food. This time we did bake bread and fresh homemade bread was wonderful. Many days I came home from school for coffee and fresh bread.

    We did get settled in and got to work. It was a steep learning curve.







 

22 comments:

  1. Interesting post to read, a great adventure.

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  2. Wow! What an adventure that was, Red. I know those students were lucky to have you. I look forward to hearing more about this time in your life. :-)

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    1. I'm not sure how lucky they were. The education system just didn't come up with a suitable program for thee kids.

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  3. I go to the store 3-4 times a week so would have a hard time figuring a years worth.

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    1. It's actually easier than you think to plan for a year. We had a two year supply in most things.

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  4. This is such an amazing adventure! I enjoy reading these posts.

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    1. Yep, I spent a few days in Montreal at expo before I flew north.

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  5. Wow what an Adventure but really was hardships. Bravo you were.

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  6. Quite an adventure to have lived through!

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  7. Needless to say few retired teachers have adventure memories as exciting as yours.

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    1. Some of the people I taught with are still there and retired.

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  8. Boy, you really have lived in some remote places!

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  9. I can imagine the huge challenges.

    What did you do with the frozen potatoes? Wouldn't they turn mushy when they thawed?

    It's sad what our forebears did to indigenous peoples. It is some small comfort to know that there were kind and helpful people such as youself in positions of authority.

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    1. Yes, the potatoes were thrown away but if I'd have kept them frozen they would have been usable.

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  10. So much of our diet now is fresh fruits and vegetables. It would be hard now to go without. Ordering food for a year would be tricky.
    I had to stop the mind movie of you getting off the plane and into canoes. It was too scary!

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    1. It's surprising how much takes the place of fresh fruits and vegetables. It's just that you don't have the great taste. We had lots if dried and canned fruit.

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  11. It must take quite a lot of planning to figure out what food you need to live for a year. I take it after the first couple months you had no fresh fruit or vegetables. I would find that difficult. Homemade bread would be no hardship though.

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    1. It's not as hard as you might think to order a years supply of food.

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