After a week of cold, nasty, dull weather things changed yesterday Mar. 6.
We had clear, bright, blue skies. However, it was still cold. We have one more day before it warms up.
So I have some photos from the yard which really don't show how bright things are. With the new snow it's very bright so sunglasses are a must.
Now I like winter. I don't mind the cold. I like snow. I like wind and prairie blizzards.
Now having said all that, I'm about to do a 180.
This winter has been very different from our usual winter. Generally it's been a mild winter with above average temperatures. We've had long stretches of above average winter.
This photo was taken from a window in my house. It was very dull.
However , I don't like constant change to the extremes. This week we've had lows of minus 28 C and highs of around minus 20 C. This is the first week of March! We should not be getting these temperatures, although they do happen. The week before we had similar very frigid weather. Then it was mild and thawed so that we had ice. We've had icy conditions all winter. I like to walk but I stay away from ice now. I watch kids who look for the longest patch of very slippery ice and then slide. If they fall, no harm is done. If I fall, I could remain broken for the rest of my life.
This winter with the mild spells we have lots of ice.
So I would like a winter that starts with snow and cool temperatures at the beginning of Nov. Then it can gradually get colder with snow piling up. Then in Mar. and April it can warm up and snow and ice slowly melt.
However, the world doesn't work like this. We have a great variety as weather change all the time.
Maybe it's time to buy a gym membership and walk inside. We have a city facility with a 400 m walking and running track.
George, my first cousin once removed, can ask some questions that are far out of the box. George reads my blog but does not comment but makes contact by messenger. These are great questions and make one go back and take a good look at what was said. I always think faster than I type. Neither one of them is very fast.
George wanted to know on what basis I said that the skills and loss of will were lost . I should have said much of it was lost. They still celebrate traditions but do not depend on hunting for food.
First , I didn't stress enough that this was in 1967 -69. It was a much different age and time. I made a statement that the Inuit lost hunting skills and a will to hunt. Maybe I should have said most.
The economy in the Arctic was changing rapidly. There was much employment for wages. There were various DEW lines constructed in the 50's. Many men were employed. They had lots of money. However, this was largely part time. They did not have any dogs and this was before skidoos. So it was difficult to hunt.
There were many sad reasons as to why there was next to no hunting.
Inuit were nomads. They followed the game. Once they moved into villages they were much less mobile. A hunter now went out with other men on skidoos. Women who were a part of the hunting did not go. Women did the butchering. Women prepared the skins for trade or use in making clothing. All clothing I saw in 67 to 69 was made of cloth. There was fur trim. So their hunting pattern was severely disrupted. Once you get used to a heated wood house it's hard to go back to staying in a snow house.
Where I was, the hunters would go out in the fall for a week or ten days hunting caribou. They would come back with about 20 animals. This wouldn't go far to feed 200 people. They always gave me some meat. They also went fishing for Arctic char for a week or ten days. They also included me and gave me fish. Arctic char is the best fish I ever ate. Locally they hunted seals. They may have got 3 or 4 seals in one day and then may have not gone sealing for another week. One little seal can be eaten very quickly by a dozen people. They gave me seal liver which was the best liver I ever ate. However seal meat was awful. I tried to cook it. It is better frozen and raw or heated a bit.
Where I was there were 4 or 5 good hunters and the rest went out rarely and didn't get much as they didn't know where to find the animals. Sitting at a seal breathing hole waiting for a seal takes great patience and it's incredibly cold.
They were subsistence hunters. In other words they hunted to survive.
George, at one time our dads farmed with horses. Neither one of us are farmers or would want to be farmers. There are too many other opportunities. I wonder if either one of us could work with horses. Most of all we could not make a living. We have found more lucrative and challenging ways of making a living.
A similar thing has happened to the Inuit. they have found better ways to make a living. Dr Joey Carpenter from Banks Island was a surgeon at the hospital in Brandon Man, He practiced for close to 40 years. At one time the Carpenter family was the only family living on Banks Island.
Yes, today some people do a lot of hunting. Much of it is for sport.
It's a complicated issue and a brief over view is not enough to understand the situation.
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In my last post there were details missing that could help to make more sense of the situations.
The isolated settlement I went to had 188 Inuit and 12 white guys. I was hired as Local administrator , principal of a two room school and teacher. The administration was a tremendous amount of work but very interesting. For the local Administration I had a one hour open office right after school. With this job I issued welfare money. I would give them gas so that they could go hunting with canoes or skidoos. I bought soapstone carvings everyday for the government. I had a $2000.00 monthly budget to buy carvings. I supervised the mechanic who didn't need supervision. I had to check off supplies that came in on the ship. I looked after visiting administrators. Since there were no facilities to look after travelers I looked after them and as a result met some very interesting people. Fred Breumer a noted photographer and author stayed with us for a week. In other words administration at times was a full time job. However, it was very, very interesting. For all this work I received $1000.00 per year. This was in 1967.
The Inuit did not speak English. There were a few younger people who could interpret. The people looked after their own affairs as in if someone died, they looked after all of it. Al and I were worried about the lack of communication. However, they knew this situation was different and did not interfere.
I had written to the Quebec Dept. of health describing Alisi but received a blah, blah letter which said they would do nothing. My predecessor had also written.
So in less than a year Alisi came back on the plane with clean clothes and tailor made cigarettes. None of us had any idea that she was coming back. She was not charged but was probably assessed and given medication. I don't know how any assessment could be made as she didn't understand French and they didn't understand Eskimo. I don't know how she would get more medication as we were 300 miles from a pharmacist.
One day one of the elders asked me where Alisi's baby was. So the child was taken out so decisions could be made. So none of us had thought about the closure needed for the loss of this child. This was a serious mistake in handling the body.
However, I've always said that this whole northern experience changed my life forever.
In most ways these Inuit were very independent. However, since they were encouraged to live in a village and send their kids to school, they very quickly lost hunting skills or the will to hunt.
I wrote the last post for my friend, Bob. He commented that we had taught together in the same school for 24 years and he didn't know the story of my first year teaching. So, I was trying to explain how Bob could find more about me.
I thought I'd have some fun with Bob and ask him to search for murder on my blog. To be safe I checked it out myself. I was very surprised that the story I was looking for was not there but there were five other stories.
So that gives me my topic for today.
Many times I've told you of teaching in a very isolated northern community. I have no idea how close the nearest road came to me. I know that I was 300 miles from any service like medical and air transportation. Flights into the community were only occasional.
Did I say this was supposed to be about murder? Well , yes, but I had to set things up.
I was working for the federal Government. I was in the province of Quebec so there was some friction between the two governments.
One early Sunday morning, when we were still in bed, one of the people came and said, "Alisi's baby not good." The Micro Manager had been treating this little girl so she quickly got dressed and on her way to check on the baby.
To The Micro Manager's horror, when she got there, the little girl was dead. Furthermore, it was very obvious that the little girl had been beaten. The MM hurried back to the house to take the next steps in the case.
The Quebec Govt. looked after justice matters. So off to the Quebec administrator we went. Al, The Quebec administrator, radioed the only police man within 300 miles. Horror of horrors. There were no airplanes to bring him to our settlement. He said it could be six weeks before he got in. So , over the radio , he told us what he wanted us to do. We were to collect the body. That was the Al's job but he asked me to go with him. The MM was to make a sketch showing the injuries. It was gruesome There were many burns and bruises.
Now, I was a naive prairie boy, who never ever dreamed that I would find my self looking after such situation. We were to put the body in a box and keep it in the Al's garage. It was late Sept. so the garage would be cool. Now we were pretty nervous as neither one of had any experience with bodies. We went down and Al picked the little girl up in his arms. After we said we should have taken the box and carried her in the box.
Fortunately the police man who was younger than Bob and I came in 5 days later and took the body and mother. Oh, I didn't say that it was obvious the mother had beaten the child. What did we do with the murderer those 5 days? We couldn't arrest her. We could not hold her in custody. Her niece said that she would stay with her aunt and they carried on with daily life. The lady was seriously mentally ill and was not likely to harm any one else.
So again, I never thought I would be in such a situation. I'm sure that no other criminal situation would have been handled the way Al and I looked after it.
I haven't had to look after another case since!.
I belong to a local naturalists group that has speakers for 6 or 7 months of the year.
We are not a rich group so have to be careful in selecting speakers. We have a policy where we cover the speaker's expenses. Of course that limits getting some of the more prominent speakers. We sometimes have speakers from the local college, grad students from various universities and some scientists doing research. Speakers are quite often looking for publicity about their studies.
Last night we had a speaker on bison. He is connected with the Grasslands park in southern Saskatchewan where they are trying to establish a large herd of prairie bison.
I have always been interested in bison. The speaker we had last night was disappointing in a number of ways. I was expecting to hear about the history and operation of Grasslands Park. There was nothing except in questions after the presentation. I was expecting to hear abut prairie bison in North America. There was very little.
The speaker gave the world history of bison over millions of years and how they got to North America. I was not interested in the long history of bison. So , although the guy was well prepared and knowledgeable I was not interested in the part of the topic he presented.
So close to 100% of our speakers are great and their topics interesting. So one disappointing speaker once in a while isn't bad.
The scary moose at the nature center reminding us to be cautious.
My last post was about my beginning as a teacher. Now some of my followers had not seen anything like this before. They wanted to see more. And I'm embarrassed to admit that when I went back and checked I found another very similar post only it was better.
So searching my blog is easy. On the top left side of the home page is a blank with a search symbol. So you can type in a topic and if it's on the blog it will come up and you can read it. So if you type in Louisville you will find another similar post and for all I know maybe some other posts on Louisville. Try typing in such things as teaching, education, students, Wakeham Bay, Inuvik, school. You will find many posts that I have written on my teaching career as well as my reflections on education.
I have written very close to 2000 posts. There's lots there . You just have to find it.
When I started the blog, I had in the back of my mind a biography. Most of my life is on the blog. I would have to pull it out of Hiawatha House and tie it all together and add some missing parts. I know what to do , but it isn't going to happen.
Anyway enjoy searching through the blog. Search and let me know what you find that's surprising.
