I HAD A SNIFFLE

    Yes, I'm a sniffler. I told you that before.  There are certain things that bring a little sniffle and tear that does not drop. I'm proud of my kids even thought they are 47 and 49.  When they achieve something and I'm proud of them I sniffle. I sniffle when they get married. 

     Now yesterday I was listening to the noon radio show. It's a talk show and the topic was the North. The hostess had asked  if we'd been in the north and what our experience was. She had 2 northern guests to add to the conversation.

   She had many phone calls, emails and twitter comments. 

    All people emphasized how impressed with the North they were. They mentioned vast open spaces. A feeling of peace and quiet. Discovery. Personal growth. Most people said it had caused a major change in their life that stayed with them.

    Most callers were strongly urging that every southerner should have a trip to the North. One caller suggested that all northern travelers be paid for their trip North.

     When I heard the comments and descriptions , I was brought back to my time in the north. I was influenced by aboriginal culture. Then I was influenced by colleagues who were from many other parts of the country. We had to mix or at least I did. I couldn't help but come away with a different point of view.  Various comments reminded me of different experiences. Flying on bush planes and landing on floats. All night parties when it didn't get dark! The characters who had lived in the north...trappers. 

    I met them all.

    My wife and I talk about the North everyday. We relive experiences . We wonder what would have happened if we'd stayed there.

    So listening to this hour long show brought back many good memories and a sniffle.

Soapstone carvings

 My favorite guy

My 34 pound lake trout from Great bear Lake

    My winter coat ans sealskin

DIMA

     My job as Local Administrator had me doing many different things. It may not have been that time consuming but there was a great variety of things to do.

     I was the government contact for all government business. On the opposite side I contacted the government for all local business. There was lots of ordering and then maintenance for school, shop ,houses and power.

     We had a diesel generator producing power. We had two identical Diesel's. One would run seven days and then be serviced and the second would run for seven days. So Our mechanic would go out for holidays and I would look after the diesels. They had to be checked numerous times a day and then serviced. Guess who got the job? Me!

    One job I really enjoyed was buying soapstone carvings. Several afternoons a week I was open for buying soapstone carvings. The government gave me a monthly $2000.00 to buy carvings. So the learning curve was steep as far as pricing carvings was concerned. Most carvings were in the $10.00 to $20.00 range . There were a few good carvers and their pieces went for much more. I bought one carving for $1200.00. You should have seen the look on her face when I said $1200.00 She could buy 2 skidoos with that money. O emember the Inuit would say something like sikidoos

    Before the ship came in I had to tag and wrap all carvings...big job and not fun. If you wanted to buy the carvings from me the price was doubled.

   I also oversaw soapstone mining. 4 guys would go out in the winter, build an igloo and work for a week. They picked and pried the stone out of the rock. There were big and little pieces and all could be used. The rock was hauled in with sleds and skidoos.

    There were weird problems that came up. The government kept asking about a child and wanted me to identify the child. Families were paid family allowance. The government had been paying for this child but somehow did not identify the child. I would get a letter to check. I would go to the family and ask about this child. They would shake their heads and say they knew nothing about it. After two years they looked at each other and discussed. It was a baby that had been born out on an island and the baby died. Now the government had to get the overpayment back. 

   Any government people who came through stayed at my place. One very interesting person who spent a week with us was Fred Breumer a well known writer on the north. We learned so much from listening to Fred for a week. Another interesting guy was a French dentist who was doing research on teeth. He came every two years. He didn't speak English but we understood his Parisian French almost perfectly. We had difficulty with Quebecois French.

   We had surprise visitors when planes landed because of bad weather. Two twin otters landed one day. They had floats but there was no open water so they landed in the snow which was an amazing thing to watch. We were expecting to witness a crash. They made  an excellent landing and then took off the next day.

    There was something different every day that made things interesting.

     Now the Inuit would tell you something and say "Dima." Dima meant "I'm finished", "I have nothing more to say."

     So with this post I'm finished. It's been fun to reminisce with you.

    I will set up a question post in a couple of days.

Finally Success in Internet Search

      This week I finally found success in a search that I have been pursuing for a few years.


      I had written in a previous post that I had taught in an isolated Inuit community from 1967 -1969. There were less than 200 people in the community. It was a two year period that had a tremendous impact on my life.


      At the time the settlement was called Wakeham Bay. Today it is called Kangiqsujuaq which means large bay. It is 1500 miles north of Montreal. We flew 1200 miles to an administration center and then another three hundred miles on a bush plane which banged along a 100 mile an hour. We landed on the sea and the idea was to hit the top of the swell and bounce to the top of the next swell until speed was reduced enough to settle into the water.  That was one of many things that contributed to the impact.


     For a few years after I left in 1969 there was some limited contact and then everything dried up. So for the last few years I have been searching the Internet. It was easy to Google and get a map and pictures, but I wanted to find out about the people. I  thought that they probably weren't on the Internet so I didn't really dig. What happened to my students?


     This week I finally made a hit and that led to many other leads. It was extremely gratifying to find that some of my former students had assumed significant leadership positions. One former student is the mayor. Some had excelled in business and others in the arts. I was very surprised to find out that they had been responsible for making a series of TV programs for the Inuit. It was also sad to learn that some of the older people had died. I had come to highly regard the adults at that time so to find the they had passed away was sad.


      In 1967 when I arrived the school had been open for five years. These people had only recently moved off the land into a settlement. They were still excellent and successful hunters. I was given some of the wild game and will remember the taste as well as their kindness and generosity. I had seal, arctic char, caribou, ptarmigan and mussels. I didn't like the mussels as they were very coarse but who could resist when some little kid with a runny nose showed up at the door with a pail of mussels. They always knew they would get fifty cents.


      The adults spoke only a few words of English. I used an interpreter. These people were talented
 sculptures with soapstone. Each day after school they would bring carvings which I bought for the Government. I always watch for carvings from that area.


     One fellow who I will never forget was the oblate missionary. He was Belgian and had a very French accent.  Pere Dion had to be extremely independent as the church support he received was limited. His parish was 10 to 20. He had been in the area for 12 years and knew all people well. It was fascinating to find that Pere Dion is still there and continuing the mission at age 89. About the only thing different is that he has a brilliant red sporty KIA. When I was there there were no roads and no vehicles.


     So this week was exciting as it took me back to some very fond memories. Even though I left Kangiqsujuaq 43 years ago the memories and influence are always with me. I still have some more searching to do.

Experience with Inuit Soapstone Carvings

        One of the more interesting experiences that I bumbled into in my life was to be in a position to buy soapstone carvings from Inuit carvers. As I've said before I spent five years in the Arctic. It was an experience that was a major influence in my life .

       In one remote settlement I was teacher, school principal and local administrator for the Canadian government. One of the jobs as administrator was to buy soapstone carvings from Inuit carvers. A program had been established before I arrived and I just carried on. I had a single signature bank account from the government which allowed me $1000.00 per month to buy carvings. Single signature because there was nobody else to sign besides my wife.

      Each week day I had an hour after school where locals could come to see me about Govt. business. Each day people would bring carvings. Now I had a crash course from the previous administrator on how to "evaluate" carvings. I looked at such basic things as size, finish, detail, shape and artistic expression. I was quite the judge! In the late 1960's most carvings were in the $12.00 to 16.00 range. Little seals and birds which were numerous and were about two bucks.  So you see the producer of the carving received very little as you are familiar with retail prices in stores.

      Some carvers had some artistic talent as they could look at a piece of stone and see something in the stone. Others tried to create something that was representative of some aspect of their cultural background. But many carvers just worked hard to produce something which they could sell to get some cash. When I arrived there was a pile of stone in front of each house. This stone had been brought in by ship and had come from a nickel mine at Sudbury Ontario. There was local stone but it was of rougher quality. It was harder and not easy to work with. I had one stone mining project while I was there where men went out for a week and by hand mined local soapstone. Tough work!

      So most of the project was basically a handcraft production. It was meant to give the people some opportunity to earn some money. As I said before some of these people had artistic talent.
  
     Much of what I learned was taught to me by the carvers. They were somewhat competitive. They didn't like to see someone play tricks on me. To polish the stone and make it shiny some people rubbed it with lard. I was told how to watch for this. You could smell it. Others polished with silver paper that was in cigarette packages at the time. They were quite interested to watch as I bought the carvings as I think they maybe had side bets with each other as to how much would be paid for each carving. Keep in mind these people did not speak English. I had an interpreter too help me.

     At the end of the year I had a small warehouse of carvings which I had to wrap and box up to be ready to load on the ship and send to Ottawa.

     I got to know each carver very well and appreciated the effort they had to expend to make a carving. I once tried to carve a little seal, but I gave up. So you can see that with the intensity of this experience I was deeply influenced in several ways.

    I did not buy very many carvings for myself. I have regretted not buying more. I  did buy carvings to give to my family for Christmas. I'm always surprised when I visit relatives and see a carving I sent them . It's like meeting an old friend after a long absence. When my step Mom and Dad died they gave me back the carving I gave them. I was really pleased to get the carving back.

      This carving was done by Ningiuk. He was a hard worker and wanted to support his family. However , all his carvings were mostly the same.

     Masiu  carved this piece. He was more artistic and had great skill. However , he didn't produce many pieces. He was an excellent hunter so spent much of his time hunting seals. His wife helped him in the finishing of a carving.

     This carving was different than many pieces produced and showed great skill in using the piece of stone.