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.

 

THE SECOND NORTHERN ADVENTURE

    I enjoyed writing a series of posts on my northern adventures from 1963 to 1966. I was young and adventurous. I was with many other young people and as young people we tended to have a good time.

    On my second venture things were different. I was older. I was married. I had much more responsibility. I saw things through different eyes.

    So in August 1967 I was on my way to Kangiqsujuaq (formerly Wakeham Bay.) Kangiqsujuaq is in northern Quebec. It's below the Arctic circle but the climate is very severe. It's on the Hudson Strait and Wakeham Bay which is a 24 mile deep bay. The tides are very high ...40 ft. The Bay froze up in late November. Small lakes froze up in late Sept. or early Oct. It was a very windy area as winds blew in from the Hudson strait or westerlies blew across northern Quebec and when they reached the east coast they dropped down to sea level with a bang. Snowfall wasn't great but what there was blew around and we had many blizzards. Snow would last from mid October to June. the ice on the bay would disappear in late July or early August. The ice actually went out on a tide to Hudson Strait rather than melt.

    Because of the severe climate vegetation was sparse and small. There were willows, spruce and birch trees. Some of these trees were knee high but most were half way up the knee. There were grasses , sedges and other plants. Flowers were plentiful and the spring was beautiful. In the fall much time was spent picking blueberries.

  So August of 1967 found me making my journey across Canada to this small isolated settlement.

  I first flew from Saskatoon , Sask to Ottawa. We were to spend 10 days in Ottawa for orientation. I was pumped for a 10 day orientation as I was going into something that was a completely different experience. There were three couples. We met the old superintendent the first morning and he suggested we look around Ottawa for the ten days and discover what we could find. Awesome. Just hang out. He shouldn't have given three young guys so much leeway. The 10 days went by . We learned a few things,  had a good time and felt more prepared for our postings.
 
    Notice that there were no flight delays or excitement over airplanes. We flew 900 miles northeast of Montreal on a Super Constellation. We were then in the small northern outpost of Fort Chimo. After a few days we were on our way to Kang on a twin Beech 18..a rather old airplane on floats. So another 300 miles and we land at Kang. The landing was exciting as there were 5 to 7 ft swells. the pilot had to hit the top of a swell and skip and bounce on two or three until the plane slowed down and awkwardly settled into the water. It was a landing like no other I had made.




   

NUTTINESS IN CLIMATE CHANGE DISCUSSION

   Yesterday , in the local paper, a local columnist had a piece on climate change. The guy is very right winged and anti everything. He's also a very skillful writer.

   Of course I read his piece very carefully. He starts out by painting climate change people as people who use big words. He also twists a few things on science as science is to come up with things that are open ended so how could there be proof of climate change if the science is wrong. He skillfully asks questions and then provides the answers he wants. Of course, this guy has lots of followers here.

    One argument that plays well is that we produce a very small fraction of world greenhouse gases. If large green house gas producers don't make an effort to control greenhouse gases , why should we?

    Alberta Canada is an oil producing region. The first big gusher came in in 1948. Development continued rapidly after 1948. Many people made good money working in oilfields and others developed service businesses to look after the oil fields. Many of our people have made their living from oil so find it difficult to go along with climate change. Many of our people are very much to the right. They brag  about the value of private enterprise and they do not like any regulation that regulates what they do. They are an easy mark for someone trying to argue against climate change.

   Alberta has a large area of tar sands which are being developed. Billions have been spent on tar sands plants.

    We recently changed governments here and ended up with a left wing government. The right wingers have been foaming at the mouth ever since. They use Trump's call to lock her up as we have a very sharp female premier.

    Now the new government has brought in a carbon tax. Debate has been vigorous and ridiculous as facts seem to have become very scarce.

   Now if the people who are against carbon tax could stop and take a breath they might see that the purpose of a carbon tax is to cut use. Now if they controlled their use of carbon fuels maybe there wouldn't have to be a carbon tax. Maybe if they quit driving giant pick up trucks there would be less use of carbon fuels. 99% of the people do not need the big trucks so it would be easy to cut down.

    I'm afraid people want their toys no matter how much destruction  they may cause.

    A carbon tax is only one of the ways to deal with climate change. All of us can contribute to lessening greenhouse gases by just cutting our use.

CLIMATE CHANGE

      The climate change issue has been on my mind for a long time.

      In this province, Alberta, a carbon tax has just come in on Jan . 1.

      Now the climate change goes off in many directions. Some people deny that there is climate change caused by the activities of man. What really gets me is people who talk about believing in climate change. You can believe in ghosts or fairies but when it comes to climate changes it's there. It can be measured and felt.

     Two stories stick in my mind when it comes to climate change. They are both northern in origin.



     When I taught in Inuvik, we had some students from Sach's Harbor which is on the southwest corner of Banks island. When we flew across the Beaufort to take these kids home in mid June we found open water for 2 or 3 miles along the coast of the Beaufort. This quickly changed to ice and then solid ice.

     Now in the 1930's the Sach's Harbor people had a 60 foot boat. Their nearest trading post was Aklavik in the Mackenzie Delta. Once a year they would make the trip by sea. Follow the map. They would first sail east along the south shore of Banks Island (which is the 5 th largest island in Canada). Sometimes the ice was caught at Cape Lambton which is the bulge on the bottom of Banks Island. They would wait. The ice usually cleared but sometimes they could not get through and would go back to Sach's Harbor and wait and try again next year. Anyway some years they would cross the Beaufort at Cape Lambton to the mainland near Paulatuk.. They would then sail about 500 km west to the Mackenzie Delta and Aklavik. Some years they went further east and found open water close to Victoria island. They usually got to Aklavik in August and then had to go back. Sometimes they couldn't get back and stayed on the mainland for the winter.

    What I'm trying to tell you is that in the 1930's there was lots of ice and it was difficult to get to Sach's Harbor by sea.

    Now there's lots of open water. They can always cross at Cape Lambton. Today they cross that stretch of water in speed boats that carry lots of gas.

    So there has been a major melt of the ice.


    Now I taught in Northern Quebec at Kangiqsujuaq. It's a barren area. The biggest trees were knee high but usually ankle height. They were spruce, birch and willow. We had lots of blue berries but the plants were only 2 or 3 in high. It was a bleak area but beautiful. Now you see photos of the village and there are large spruce trees. In the 1960's the maximum height of trees was 10 to 15 in. Now they have 20 ft trees. WHY? The temperature has warmed up and larger trees can grow.

     So climate change is with us and we have to take action before disaster strikes in some areas. We may debate about how to deal with climate change , but we have to deal with it in a very realistic way.

HAPPY NEW YEAR

    Since it's New Year's Day the usual thing is to say something of significance. I have nothing significant to say but that hasn't stopped me before.

    I'm not going to deal with how fast the year has gone by.

    To me there are new year's and that seem to be an important time compared to others. One such New Year was 2000, the millennium. The hype started a few years before the date. The hype got higher and higher. People were actually very frightened that the world would fall apart. People were worried. I remember being concerned about what might happen. 2000 came and went . It passed as quietly as any other New year's day. I always think back to the millennium which was now 17 years ago.

    The New Years Days from my childhood will be forever imprinted in my brain. Our New Years Day was exactly like Christmas without the presents. We lived in the country and still used horses for travel. (We didn't go very far.) Mom and her cousin would alternate Christmas and New Years. The big meal was at noon and I mean big meal. We had turkey and all the trimmings. It was an all day event. Adults visited and kids played. We had a warm up meal in the evening. Before going home at midnight we had a cold plate. Did I forget all the Christmas goodies? Yes all those too. It was a great day of celebration and I will never forget the New Year's of my childhood.

   Now I'm not anybody for resolutions so I'll stay away from goals.

   What I did find the other day was a blog that nailed the old year and new year. Martha at Plowing through life has a knack of saying  very meaningful things that are precise and concise. Her post made much sense to me. I hope you'll go over and take a look at what she had to say.

    In the meantime have a great 2017.

I'VE BEEN AWAY

     I've taken a longer time between posts than I usually do. There are probably some who will say ,"I never missed you!". I won't give them such a chance. I had topics to post on. I had lots of time. 

    But one excuse laid me low and I haven't suffered such and excuse for 20 or more years. I picked up a miserable head cold. Ordinarily I don't get head colds and ordinarily I don't pick up bugs that are circulating. So I can describe  all the miserableness of a head cold. I had no energy. I stayed in bed most of the day and went to bed before 8 PM. I had aches and pains in every part of my body. Nothing tasted any good. I didn't have an appetite. This is a time when there's lots of good Christmas food around. I didn't have my afternoon coffee for 5 days. Coffee didn't appeal to me. Now I could go into the finer details of certain undesirable secretions but you don't need those details.

    Now I've been retired for 19 years and have not had a head cold like this one. I've had colds but I was able to carry on.

    So I was not able to force myself to write a post. It's probably just as well as I'm sure it would have been a pathetic post.

    So even if I feel miserable now, I know I'm very fortunate not to suffer head colds or any other issues that causes one to feel miserable. My thoughts are with those who have issues that attack and challenge them on a daily basis. 

    So here's to a wonderful 2017.

HO! HO! HO!

    A  while ago I told you that I was doing a 4 hour shift selling books and other things for the Nature Center bookstore in one of the larger malls. I like this shift and look forward to it every year.  I like watching people. I have a front row seat as people go back and forth in the mall. Then lots of people stop to browse and see if there's anything that would be  good gift. Some people just stop to visit. Many of them have something to ask about the natural world. Others have something they want to tell you.

    Now I like kids...little kids. Usually little kids go by my stall and don't even notice it. The other day I noticed the odd little kid gave  me a wave and smile.  I wondered about this. Then a mother was talking to me and the toddler was in the shopping cart. This little kid was really giving me the big smile. Then I heard her say "nanta". Oops ! I got it.

    These poor little kids were going by me and thinking that I was Santa Claus! Wow! I didn't think I looked that old!

     I guess the white beard did it for these little guys. I wonder what they would have done if I had my red fleece on?

    So this is my Christmas Eve story.

    Have a wonderful Christmas.