Traditional Sewing of Kiiyuk Kamiks - Western Arctic Style

I've been trying to keep busy and entertained while getting much needed breaks from my little love bugs.

I have been working as a substitute teacher which is always a fun and exhausting day when the opportunity to be there arises. Today I got up and showed up only to find a power outage. Last week I had a call to be there and we had a blizzard. The Universe seems to be working against my attempts to stay busy outside of the house.
I spent last week in Librarian training with some folks from Hay River. My hopes that the role of Librarian will ever come to me are slim to none - though if I had a dream job in Ulukhaktok, that would be it - small town politics and a line up of entitlement to the job lay ahead of me.

We did just finish taking a class on Kiiyak making. Kiiyak's are traditional seal skin soled kamiks, or mukluks. This type of seal skin sole is chewed into its form.

Me beginning the chewing of my kiiyuks

Our first class we spent on the ground using old 12 gauge shot gun shells on the end of scissors to scrape all of the fur off of our Ugyuk skin. The Bearded Seal is used for this because of its tough, thick skin. The skin under the fur is dark in colour, almost black, and the reverse side is a sort of yellow shade, that sometimes doesn't smell very nice due to residual oils.

Our second class was when we started chewing. You can chew either side, happily we were chewing the dark side where the fur had been removed. The elders who were teaching our class had taken the skins home to soak them for us. We then cut them to the right size and made folds where our crimping via teeth needed to start and stop.

We scraped and chewed and gagged and chewed and eventually sewed them into finished products.
My first pair ended up being the wrong size sole as my pattern had been made too small. So I put them aside and made a pair to fit.
The pair that fits me I sewed without a design on them and in natural seal skin so that they are simple and match all of my attire. I am undecided about what kind of design to add to the duffle socks.

First finished boot without laces and with
 an unfinished duffle

My finished kiiyuks - just need to add
 some colour to the duffle

The second pair I am working on - the first small kiiyuks that I chewed - are my practice pair, which I got a little bolder with and sewed in a design. The ooh's and aww's I recieved in class and from the elders made me blush and made me overly proud of my first attempt at sewing with seal skin. They are far too big for Mekia, though her tiny feet get extremely cold so I may sew her some caribou slippers to wear inside these kamiks to keep her warm. 

My experimental pair. Sewing in designs is a lot of hard work

Katie's kiiyuks didn't fit her either so she made a second pair as well. Her first pair she finished in seal skin and her second pair she finished the traditional way - with canvas.

Katie's first pair of small kiiyuks

Katie's collection of Western style kamiks from left to right,
seal skin, caribou fur and the canvas kiiyuks she made herself

We didn't make it into the class that is running now, which certainly got me down. They are making seal skin parkas and couldn't take more than five ladies due to costs. My hope is to borrow a pattern from one of the ladies who are also making parkas for their small children and sew at home with my own materials so my boy can have one too. I am really enjoying sewing with animal skins, it is all done by hand with sinew thread which is thick and waxy, making it strong and water proof. My last experience successfully using a sewing machine must have been my days of making doll pillows with my moms machine. My comfort zone lies within the limits of hand sewn projects. Sewing traditional items has me thoroughly captivated, it's nice and relaxing to focus on the project at hand and it also opens my eyes up to the way they did things in the past - when they couldn't stop by the Northern store to buy new boots.

Our last Kiiyuk making class. Our instructors Mabel Nigiyok on the left, Mary Kudlak
in the centre and Mary's lovely daughter Emily Kudlak leading a drum song

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?