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Hi everyone, |
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| 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.) |
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| 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!)... |
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| I guess I should tell you a little bit about the town that I'm in. |
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| 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." |
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| 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. |
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| 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. |
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| 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). |
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| Well, that's about it for now. I'll write more as the adventure unfolds. |
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| Lynn |
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| 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. |
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| You know, I brought 8 rolls of film and I just don't know if it'll be enough! |
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