Sunday, May 3

Well, Yesterday Paul and I had a great day. We went to Avvajjaq, which is a few kilometres northwest of here. Avvajjaq is an area of islands of granite, but for now they just look like hills and flat land, as the water is frozen beneath you. We went skiing once we got out there, and at one point the snow had been blown off the ice so you could see clearly that it's quite thick. You can't even see where the ice stops and the water begins, and I'm told it's at least 6 feet thick.

So Avvajjaq was very pretty. We skied for a while and then hopped back on the skidoo and toured all around the islands, at one point getting our qamutik (the sled we pull behind the skidoo. Another traditional design which has no nails in it, just one long piece of bearded sealskin rope holding all of the slats onto it. It's about 10 or 12 feet long, and as there are no nails in it, it kind of snakes along the snowbanks and hills.) stuck beside us and the skidoo jammed nose down into a snowbank. Those skidoos are something else, though, they'll move in any position! So we just repositioned the qamutik and away we went. On the way back we went by the abandoned Catholic mission house dating back to the 1930's. There was someone living in there as few as 30 or 40 years ago, I believe. Also, you can see where houses used to stand, as there are still flat circles outlining them. Apparently by the late 1950's the settlement here in Igloolik had been established, and by the mid-60's a school, nursing station, RCMP, and the Co-op were established. By then, I guess everyone out at Avvajja moved to Igloolik.

Oh! Toby lent me her kamiik (kamik=singular, kamiik=plural: caribouskin boots) for the trip. I think I mentioned before that they're the traditional footwear. Now, the way that they get the caribouskin soft is by chewing it --- that's right, CHEWING it. And it takes a lot of chewing to get them as soft as the ones that I was wearing. Paul said that you can also bang the skin with a hammer on bone (or something like that) and that'll work, but the woman that they bought their kamiik from still chews. It works, I tell ya! And talk about great footwear! NO HARD SOLE. That says it all for me, as I'm a shoe-hater. This way, my feet are toasty warm and it feels like I'm not wearing shoes at all. Excellent, padding around in the snow in those things. I don't know if I mentioned this, but all of this skin clothing is kept outside, frozen. It's not cured so if it thawed in your home it would reek of dead caribou and seal.

So, all in all, it was a great day. Got to see some new terrain, do a little skiing, and learn a little history, too. Lynn