WHERE ARE WE GOING NEXT?

   John from John's Island asked me where I was taking you next. I told him , "Back to the same place."

     For my newer readers a brief explanation on the background of these posts. I was a teacher and spent 1967-69 in the small Arctic community of Wakeham Bay, Quebec. There were 188 Inuit and 10 white guys.  I was a teacher , principal and local administrator.  They were all very interesting positions but very challenging and a lot of work and time. . The community was 1200 miles north of Montreal , Quebec. There were no roads to this community and no regular air schedules. We went 6 or 7 weeks at a time without mail.

     I had a 14 year old boy as a regular paid interpreter. the Micro Manager was eager to do nursing there but there was no position. She got $50.00 per month to do health care and there really was full time work. She didn't have an interpreter but between her limited inuktitut and their limited English they got along. When there was a serious case she got Lukasi to be her interpreter.

     This post is really about Lukasi. There was nobody finer that Lukasi. He was 18 years old at the time. I don't know where he picked up his English. In this video he is talking about petroglyphs which were found a few miles away. It's the only place in the north with petroglyphs.

    While we were there a well known photographer came to photograph the petroglyphs.  Fred Breummer came and stayed in my house for 8 days. Those 8 days should have counted for at least 5 university credits. We talked late into the night about his experiences. Fred had had a tremendous amount of northern experience. I think Fred wrote about 25 books. Most of them featuring his photography. Fred did a major article on the petrogyphs.

      I found this video of Lukasi discussing the petroglyphs.   youtube.com/watch?v=TJSolwDrxbo   Sorry I can not the video link on the blog.

MORE YOU TUBE

      Sometimes I find something like you tube and later on I get playing on it to see what's there. It looks like there's no limit at to what you can find. I like to look up the different places where I have lived.

       So last night I just put in Wakeham Bay and a number of videos came up. I checked to see if there was anything interesting in the list.

      Well one of the little videos featured a woman who was ten years old when I was there in 1966-1969. There was Jessica explaining how to dig clams and eat them . She speaks Inuktituk and there are English captions. She digs the clams , cleans them and tells about eating them. She likes them raw with a bit of old whale or seal oil.

     So what a big surprise! So check out this link. Jessica Arngak, Wakeham Bay

YOU TUBE ADVENTURES

     There are times when I some how or other get taken down a rabbit hole on the Internet! Lately that rabbit hole has been You Tube.

     Now I like listening to music and with You Tube I can listen to what ever I want. So when surfing I sometimes find things that I have forgotten long ago. It's sometimes surprising when I find a group that I had long forgotten and then I find out that I have an LP , Tape or CD.

     Last night I bumped into two performers that I really liked.

     So first, Billy Vaughn. I had completely forgotten about Billy Vaughn. Listening to one tune brought back all Vaughn's music. The Billy Vaughn band had hit after hit. You can bet that I listened to a few if his tunes last night.

     The second performer I rediscovered was Mr. Acker Bilk who made much music popular with his clarinet . It's always interesting the long road that performers have to take to get to the top of the heap. Acker Bilk was English and became popular overseas as well. So I did have a tape of Mr Aker Bilk that I remember listening to many times.

     So take a listen to these long forgotten performers . Some of you will remember them from a long time ago. and some of you will discover some great music.

A GOOD BIRD WATCHING DAY

      Yesterday (Jan. 25) we had a fine winter day with a high of 4 C and clear.  What better thing to do than to do a little bird watching.

      At 4 above C it's reasonable to use field glasses and cameras.

      I had put this on my bird watching call list Fri. night so had 2 people show up to go with me. I also persuaded the Micro Manager that it would be very good for her to go with me. She enjoyed herself.

    One of my favorite winter birding sites is Mackenzie Trails. It's an area of old growth forest. It has never been logged. It's a mixture of aspen and spruce. We are fortunate to have this right inside the city.

     Here the birds we will see in the winter is quite predictable. So yesterday we saw: black-capped chickadees, red-breasted nuthatch, white breasted nuthatch, pine siskin, common raven, downy woodpecker, hairy woodpecker, woodpecker and a blue jay. Possible sightings could have been: boreal chickadee, black-backed wood pecker, great horned owl, brown creeper.

               A look toward the forest.

      I can't understand why birders would go the wrong way. But this shows the dense forest.

       I look at a bit of a clearing caused by a viscous wind storm five years ago.

       Bird nests are easy to find in winter when the leaves are gone.

      
    

DID I EVER TELL YOU I HATE SHOPPING?

    I think I've written about my dislike for shopping many times. I've written more times about snow but not about disliking snow. In fact, I like snow. I don't even mind shoveling snow.

    So every once in  a while things happen and it sends me over the edge as far as shopping tolerance is concerned. 

    First of all, this week had too many shopping trips in it. 

    Then some of these shopping trips had just too much of trickery involved.

    Other trips were combined with shopping. 

   Okay Mon Morning we went to the walk in clinic. A prescription was given which we decided to fill after lunch and wouldn't it be a good idea to call at the bank while we waited for the prescription to be filled. 

   Wednesday was a physio therapy and lab appointment . And after that wouldn't it be great to have lunch at the casino. Then let's call at Canadian tire and get a sand bag for the car. And wouldn't you know it somebody decided to look at CO 2 detectors and if that wasn't enough a huge amount of time was spent looking at air fryers. I'd never heard of air fryers. Thur after lunch at Wendy's, we just had to go the Jysk because certain sheets were on sale and it was a good buy. And guess what?  It would be good to go and have a coffee with the skaters.

    Well, Friday was a plane old grocery run.

    I don't really mind some moderate shopping but this is way too much for me!  Poor me!

FELT SHOES

      It's still cold here so I'll carry on with an example of vintage winter wear.

      How many people remember felt boots? Yes, a boot that was made completely of felt...soles and uppers  and laced up. Not the big boots we have now with a heavy felt liner.

    Since I lived on a farm we wore leather boots in the summer so naturally felt boots in the winter.

    This footwear was very warm. We had an outer shell called an overshoe that we put on to go outside in the snow. This kept the felt dry and added some more protection from the cold.

     The old houses we had on the prairie were notorious for having very cold floors. The felt boots meant that your feet were warm in the house as well.

    These shoes did not wear well. Every fall Mom would order all of us felt boots for the winter. At a certain time all of us put on our felt boots and wore them until spring.

    I looked to see if I could find felt boots on line. No such luck. I think they may have been a western Canadian type of shoe.

   I still fondly remember the felt boot and how comfortable and warm they were. I wish I could still buy them. I remember my paternal grandmother wearing her felt boots. Women and girls usually did not wear them.

LONG JOHNS

      So how many of my followers know what long Johns are? Don't worry. I'm gong to tell you what they are

      For those who know what long Johns are, they will be saying., "What ever next is he going to talk about?

     Well , it's been very cold here for about a week. We've had lows of minus 37 38 C ( minus 40 F). It warms up very little in the daytime

     I still have to go out. I can't stay in the house until it warms up. I had a medical appt. The Micro Manger had a physiotherapy appt. We had to get groceries and oh ya we had to go out for lunch. I just have to dress properly and I will be fine.

    One thing I did put on one day this week were my long Johns. So long Johns are a type of combination underwear made of fleece or today more modern fabrics. Sometimes this underwear comes in a separate top and bottom. So what you have is a complete suit that you wear under your clothes of course. Over top of the long Johns you wear your regular pants and shirt. Now over your shirt you can put a heavy sweater and then your parka . This will keep you warm.

     The long Johns aren't  worn much an more. We tend to use wind pants. Some of the better wind pants have a liner of heavier clothe.

     Now I talk about playing in the snow as little kids and we didn't get cold. This is what we wore plus a snow suit. Yes, another piece of combination clothing which went over everything.

     We had enough clothes on to live outside all day.