The Arctic Fox

The Arctic Fox is super cute. His sweet little face makes me feel beyond guilty that his cousin was at one point tanned, dyed black and retailed for the value of his life - roughly $500.00... only to be sewn onto my parka to keep me from freezing over.

Then I look around at every other parka around me that dawns a fox, wolf or wolverine and I feel even worse until I remember what life is like without an animal fur saving my skin from hardening to the rock form that is frost bite.

A couple of weeks ago our local friend Patrick came by to tell us to take a look out back of our house. Katie and I wandered out to find a successfully trapped fox. He was beautiful and reminded me a little bit of my cats.

He's dead now, he was dead that day. He was likely skinned right away to eventually become fur trim on a hood, or to adorn a hat or mitts.

And while we're on the topic of Arctic animals. I just asked Katie if she was using a really old dishcloth... you know that smell? ... turns out shes boiling caribou tongue. Yum.

Brain Freeze and Snow Drifts

Fresh air for kids is something I deem to be important. I have always felt that they need to be outside, stretching and playing and breathing the air.

Environment Canada has the temperature with windchill for Ulukhaktok to be negative 34 degrees Celsius. This isn't near the coldest I've felt but my goodness this town has nothing to block that wind.

We fought for half an hour to get the babes ready. Brody does NOT under any circumstances, even on the best of days, enjoy getting geared up for the outdoors. We managed to walk to the Northern... which is about 3 minutes away before we had to get indoors and warm up. The little hairs on my face were instantly fusing to my neck warmer and I actually had a cold headache, the kind you get when you drink a slushy too fast. My brain was freezing in the cold wind.

We got out just in time to catch the light. It barely sticks around at all. Around 11 am, I enjoy watching the pink sky to the left of the house as the sun tries to push through, and at the same time, watching the moon to the right of the house, still lighting the town. It feels almost like watching a wrestling match and knowing that the sun is getting weak and will soon give up the fight.

While out in the light, I got to see the six foot (+) snow drift that had formed on the road next to our house after yesterdays winds. No wonder I felt lost as I tried to walk through it in the pitch black of yesterday evening, with only the tiny illuminated window from our garage to assure me that I was still heading in the right direction.

It's the tiniest things that remind me that I am further North than I ever have been.

Brody's typical outer wear - though on days like today, he is also inside my amauti which acts as a second parka for him.

Sunrise and Sunset in Ulukhaktok

I've never seen a sunrise, a sunset or a moon like I have in Ulukhaktok.

For a few weeks now I have been working as a substitute teacher at Helen Kalvak School here in Ulu. The classroom that I have been in for the majority of the time has windows that span the entire side of the room and has one of the most gorgeous views that I have ever had the pleasure of enjoying.

I've seen a lot of sunsets and a lot of full moons. But I have never seen a sky like the one here. When it isn't covered in a think blanket of cloud, it is majestic. It is a source of inspiration and radiates life. I feel full when the sunset shines pink and gold through my soul. I feel full of awe when the moon and the stars glow the way they only could atop of an unpolluted night sky, in a quiet, dark town in the middle of nowhere. I feel close to God when I look out through the windows in this town.

I cannot photograph the sky to do it any justice. I cannot come close to capturing the way that this town takes my breath away.

The sun doesn't last long anymore. We are about to lose it completely until somewhere near mid January when it will return for the same kind of peek-a-boo appearances.

During the one hour class I've been teaching from 1:30 to 2:30, the sun has been both rising and coming close to setting. By the time I leave at 3:45pm it is dark again.

View of the sunrise from the front of the school

View of the school parking, now mostly snowmobiles, the playground, the Ulukhaktok community center and the town

Sunset with a view of the other playground, the town and the RCMP station on the right

When I left work the moon was just coming up over the hills, it was an image of perfection. The moon, full and round and bright white. I wanted to share it, to lasso it. I wish with all of my being that the people I love could be here to see what I get the chance to see.

Hey Southerner, does my blog make you feel cold?

I'm not going to lie, if I were down South enjoying the beauty and sweater weather of fall, I probably wouldn't want to read this blog often... it would make me feel cold and really, who likes feeling cold?

I never owned a own home before moving North. I wouldn't know the first thing about my furnace needing fuel refills, or how to replace a furnace filter and if you leave me a thermostat with no manual... it becomes obsolete, useless to me. So until now, I got by just screwing around with the buttons. It would get cold so I would push a few things and somehow the house would (usually) warm up. For the past week our furnace has been shutting off in the middle of the night and we have been waking up freezing. After many days of Katie flipping the breaker off and on again... which seemed to have been working, I realized no silly thermostat games were going to save us.

Dramatic? Maybe... but I doubt you know what it feels like to wake up to a blizzard pelting your house so hard that the glasses in the kitchen cupboards are shaking. The wind is so cold and so strong as it hits the windows that if you close your eyes, you could easily imagine that you are in the storm rather than sheltered in the house. Embarrassingly enough, I am not kidding when I say that the wind at night in Ulukhaktok freaking scares me.  

Long story short, I was on hold with tech support so long that I actually managed to fix my thermostat woes before the man on the other line managed to figure out which model we have on the wall. Proud. 

With the wind and the snow come days off for the municipal truck drivers... I think... but honestly I'm not sure what they do. All I know for sure is that when the wind is too high, the water truck cannot deliver water. 

This means a few things: 

a) my showers are getting shorter, and believe me when I say, if the furnace isn't working, you don't want to get out of the hot shower... ever

b) laundry is pilinggggg up 

c) the dishes are also piling up

d) this one is perhaps the most horrific. The daycare and preschool are closed 

e) due to point d, I cannot work as I am home with the tots

As you can see, my income is directly effected by mother nature, my sanity is also directly effected, as is the cleanly state of this house...

Just kidding, this house is never to be classified as 'cleanly' or any other similar descriptive adjective. If it has been, its a lie. We have toddlers. If you come over and it is remotely clean... we faked it.

The following picture is the lovely view from by bedroom window. The top half is a picture taken in September while sea lift was here. The bottom half is what it looks like now. Looks fun right? If you look the wind in the face, you cannot breathe and you get frost bite. 

I am past the point of ready to book a tropical vacation. I'm pretty sure the fireplace is tired of having a front row view of my ass.

Skidoos and Fresh Snow

Well, we're frozen now. The water lake is frozen, (where we get our drinking water) the rivers are frozen and all three Bays are well on their way to being solid. Yesterday I took my second slip and fall, my entire left butt cheek and thigh are red and scraped up. And though snow brings falls and wet boots and a soggy front porch, it also brings the beginning of a beautiful time in the Arctic. That time just before the sun disappears and just after summer has passed. It's a time where the sun shines brilliantly, with a closeness that seems to light the settlement on fire with golds and pinks. Yet at the same time, the moon, bright as it is at night, sits peacefully, untouchable just above the town. We have had three breathtakingly picturesque days in a row. Yesterday the snow fell in soft clumps. When you look into the sky, you feel as though you are living within the confines of a perfect painting, where the only sight you need to see for the rest of your living days is the tunnel of light shining down on you through a break in the pink clouds, illuminating the miles of slowly falling flakes above. My world is filled with pale blues, soft pinks, all shades of gold and the fresh, innocent white that has fallen all around us. It is hard to feel anything but peace during this time.

Though, it is the calm before the storm.

Perhaps the most exciting bonus that comes from the fresh snow is that we can now begin to enjoy our new snowmobile.

The new machine

I hope this makes my dad want to visit... haha

Early Christmas Prep

So Christmas is coming... perhaps that isn't on the minds of all you Southerners quite yet, but I have been planning since the middle of September. I already have a few things wrapped. There are reasons why I start so early...

a) This town is covered in snow. I sing 'it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas,' on a daily basis. It looked more like Christmas here after our first August snow than it does December 25th in Southern Ontario.

b) If you live in a community that is 'fly-in only,' you know 1) you will most likely have to be ordering in Christmas gifts and 2) there is no guarantee that they will arrive in a timely manner. You cannot afford to procrastinate for Christmas in the Arctic.

Even though I have started this process on time, I am feeling so annoyed. No one has free shipping anymore. My only options are amazon.ca and costco.ca but costco generally sells oversized items (play kitchens, doll houses and so on) and I am in the mind set of, 'no more big things that we can't afford to take South when we finally move back'.

I bought all of my kiddies Christmas books from amazon. This year we are doing a book advent calendar, where I will wrap 24 books and put a date on them, to be opened one per night until Santa crosses the river and drops off gifts.

My thought right now is, how do Santa's reindeer survive travels through the North without being shot for tuktu stew?

Back to the annoyances... there are no boots for me to buy for Brody in this town. His feet are way too fat to fit into anything under a size 6 (He's 15 months old) and his seal skin kamiks are too small now. There is nothing made and nothing in the stores.

Today's frustration is that there is no corn meal in town and I just really want to make corn bread muffins.

I guess both will have to wait until December when my mom arrives for Christmas! It will be her second Christmas with me in the North, her first Christmas in the NWT and her first Christmas spent with her favorite (and only) grandson. I used all of my aeroplan miles and two handfuls of hundies to make it happen but that's what daughters are for. Right?

Suicide is NOT the Answer

Life has been so seemingly peaceful here since I came to terms with the onslaught of winter. There has been a wave of serenity hovering over me. Perhaps it was sent by some divine power to keep me sane but regardless, through all the stresses of life lately I have been able to enjoy the days here. Katie and I have been settling in and enjoying the people, we even got an invite for dinner with the Captain and his crew from the sea lift barge. (which was another throw back to Southern life) Stephen went back to Arviat to hunt and be with family and the kids are settled in at day care. I was so looking forward to this Sunday, Katie is off today and she spent most of the day playing the guitar while the kids danced and I spent some time in the garage working on a pallet wood toy chest project I have created for Brody’s room.

No matter how peaceful we had hoped today would be, we went through the motions of the day with heavy hearts and the hope of distractions. Turns out we both turned to creative outlets to divert our thoughts.

For as long as I have been in the North I have been witness to the suffering that suicide brings. I am never truly surprised when I ask the cause of someone’s passing and the answer is suicide. Over the last couple of years it has been inspiring to see many Northerners band together against the tragedy of lives lost so pointlessly. With posts all over Facebook on Suicide Prevention Day dedicated to the souls that have passed, I realized just how many of my Northern friends (and family) have been burdened by the heart break of loss.

Last night a beautiful nineteen year old girl named Tina swallowed prescription drugs that weren't hers. When she showed up at our door it took me a few seconds to realize that she was outwardly in decent shape but that physically she was in trouble. I let her into the house and sat her down on our steps, held the bag for her to vomit in and wiped her face when she finished. With the intention of getting her to the health center, as she had requested, I opened our front door and found the officers that had come to help her. She reluctantly got into the truck and that was the last time I will ever see Tina. Today, just before they could medivac her to help, she passed away.

She caused her own death but I know that even after doing such a reckless and irresponsible thing, Tina didn't want to die, she wasn't ready to die. Some of her last words to me were, ‘take me to the health center.’

Today, there were a handful of things that ran on repeat through my mind. I stood in front of the stove and cooked through my tears, with every part of my brain wondering why they couldn't save her. Thinking about how her family and friends would never hear her voice again. Questioning why she did it. If she had of thought a little bit harder about the value of her life, perhaps I would see my neighbor leave her house tomorrow morning, perhaps she wouldn't have had to regret her actions when it was already too late.

While Katie and I dined with the Captain, Tina was here playing with our babies. When we came home, my sweet son was sleeping soundly against her chest, dreaming along to the beat of her heart.

Just a short while ago she was alive with promise, with opportunity for the future and like the drop of a hat her entire life has been cut short, ended, stopped.

The ease of losing a life is horrifying. The stabbing ache of realizing, again, how fragile life is, feels unbearable. It fills me with fear for the future, for the North, for the children.

Suicide is never the answer, ever. Life is a beautiful gift, even when it hurts, there is the promise of a happier day, maybe not tomorrow, maybe not next week, but there will always be light at the end of the tunnel.

If you happen to be reading this because you Google searched suicide and have been thinking that it might be your way out of a hard situation, please talk to someone you love. Please call someone; there are crisis lines that are waiting to listen, judgment free. Please message me; I will be there for you if you have no one to talk to because I believe that your life is precious. Suicide will never be the answer to your feelings of hopelessness but I think that hearing someone else’s voice and telling someone else what you are going through could help you clear your mind.

NWT Help Line

Serving Northwest Territories

Crisis 7pm-11pm (Mountain Standard Time) 7days/week: 1-800-661-0844

Yellowknife, NT X1A 2PG

Business: (867) 873-9903

email: nwthehelpline@mail.tamarack.nt.ca

website: www.nwthelpline.ca

Nunuvut

Awareness Centre

Nunavuat Kamatsiaqtut Help Line

Serving Nunavut and Nunavik (Arctic Quebec)

Crisis 7pm-11pm (Eastern Standard Time) 7days/week: 1-800-265-3333

Crisis 7pm-11pm (Eastern Standard Time) 7 days/week: (867) 979-3333

P.O. Box 419, Iqaluit, NU X0A 0H0

Business: (867) 979-2742

email: slevy@qikiqtani.edu.nu.ca

website: www.kamatsiaqtut.com

OR

Call Kids Help Phone: 1-800-668-6868

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