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Hi everyone,
So I got here a day early, caught a standby flight from Iqaluit
(now, pull out your atlas and see if you can find it. It's
on Baffin Island -- used to be called Frobisher Bay. Okay,
now look northwest just south of the top of Baffin near the
mainland, up past the Arctic Circle, and see if Igloolik is
listed on your map. No? I'm not surprised.)
So, it's a balmy -15C today, so warm, in fact that people
opt out of their toques on a day like today. You know, it's
really not that cold, it's just the wind that comes whistling
across the land (with absolutely nothing in its way to stop
it) that'll kill you. But I've been equipped well by Paul,
windpants, a toque, seal skin mitts(wicked!)...
I guess I should tell you a little bit about the town that
I'm in.
Igloolik's population is around
1200, 95% Inuit, and 5% non-Inuit. There are 2 stores here,
a Co-op, and a Northern Store (apparently affiliated with
the Bay). Both sell everything from (literally, I saw these
items sitting beside each other in the Co-op yesterday) bananas
to snowmobiles. The town is alcohol-restricted, which means
that you can't buy alcohol here, and if you want to bring
it in, you have to apply to the Alcohol Education Committee.
Igloolik is on an island (if you find a map that has Igloolik
on it, you may not be able to tell that it's on an island)
just in between Baffin and the mainland, the Melville Peninsula.
If you're wondering why on earth there's a community here
in the middle of nowhere, it's because (to quote the Nunavut
Handbook, which I bought yesterday) "the area has long
been blessed with abundant natural resources that Inuit culture
and identity thrive on: walruses, seals, whales, polar bears,
caribou, fish and waterfowl."
I may be able to get some work here substitute teaching,
and I'm hoping to do a little volunteering at the facility
for real little ones (up to 4 yrs) here called "Headstart"
but I'm told that none of the little ones will understand
a word that I say. Inuktitut is alive and well in Igloolik.
Paul has a book on the language that I'm going to take a look
at, but even with my Linguistics degree and basic knowledge
of three languages other than English, I don't think I have
a hope in hell of learning it. And the syllabics
are very interesting indeed. We'll see.
Flying here it was very clear, and the land is breathtakingly
beautiful --- such an amazing expanse of white! Once you got
high enough, though, you couldn't tell whether what was below
you was land or cloud or ice, as they're all the same, vast
and white. I flew out with a car (in the front half of the
plane) to Iqaluit on a 737 and on a little 20 passenger number
to Igloolik. So many takeoffs and landings (I flew Vancouver-Edmonton-Yellowknife-Rankin
Inlet-Iqaluit-Hall Beach-Igloolik) and airplane meals that
I'm pretty damned happy that the next plane I get on won't
be for a month. It's so BRIGHT here! I love it! It absolutely
never gets this bright in Vancouver, as there's no snow, so
I'm in heaven. Also, it's light out at 10:30pm and 3am, too.
Before I leave we should be up to almost 24 hours of daylight.
After a dark and damp Vancouver winter, this is a real treat
(bright and dry --- well, maybe a little too dry, I'm cracking
up, not a problem that many Vancouverites have).
Well, that's about it for now. I'll write more as the adventure
unfolds.
Lynn
P.S. Paul just came and got me as most of his class just
left on a hunt so he wanted me to see them all geared up in
their caribou, dog and wolf skins.
They looked amazing --- don't worry, I got some shots for
you all to see. Incredible that these designs of parkas, boots,
mitts and pants are centuries old and they're still the best
things for one to wear out on the land.
You know, I brought 8 rolls of film and I just don't know
if it'll be enough!
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