Polar Bear season.

In the last few weeks I have witnessed yet again, a lot of change.  One thing that has become very evident in my short stay here is that the only thing that is guaranteed... is... change.  The vast open land that we travelled over with absolutely no trail, covered in small shrubs, lichen and berries

...is now covered in a thick layer of hard packed ice and snow.  The lakes that we were fishing in less than a month ago, are now blanketed by almost a foot of ice.

And most amazingly, the sun that was up past midnight on the night of my arrival... now sets before 3:45pm.

I thought of how I was going to write this blog entry, and a lot has happened since my last. I decided that the best way is to break it up into two sections (my social life, and the polar bear hunt) this might make it easier to read and more importantly...easier to write.

What to do on the weekend?

Whale Cove, as most of you know by now, is very small. 

It is only roughly 400 people.  There is no restaurant, no pool hall and definitely no dance clubs.  This does not mean that there isn't anything to do.  

Take for instance a few weeks ago... I was sitting in the staff room talking about what I was planning on doing for the weekend.  Before I knew it, my plans changed three times and I was taking part in a 9-ball tournament on Friday, going fishing Saturday and playing in a poker tournament Saturday night. 

I know, I said that there is no pool hall... and there isn't.  One of my co-workers (Sophie) and her husband (Peter) have a pool table in their house.  This thing is amazing!  A very nice pool table.  I couldn't believe it!  Anyways, I lost badly.  So did Morteza.  But it was very nice to get out and shoot some pool!  Next time I will do much better! ;)

Poker here is very common and popular.  I guess it is just like everywhere else I have been.  Poker is played to basically get a group of friends around a table and have some laughs.  Really good poker players here. I have been lucky a few times... but I am convinced now that they are just trying to make me feel comfortable and confident before they fleece me! haha.  I really enjoy the times that I can get out and play poker with everyone.  It is a lot of fun and a great way to become more involved with the community and get to meet more people.  My poker buddies have also become some of the people I am closest to here in town.  Shon, George and Benji are great guys who have taken the time to show me a lot of their hunting and fishing ways.  There is a lot to be learned as a Qaabluna (white person) up here and I am very grateful and glad that they are taking the time to show me.  I owe a lot of my fun times and amazing experiences to these guys.

As I said, the lakes are completely frozen over and are safe to go on now.  They have been for a few weeks.  We have started making our way out fishing as well, but have yet to catch anything through the ice.  Hopefully next weekend! I have never gone ice fishing and interrupted a hockey game before.  That is what happened this past Friday.  After school, Morteza and I went out to Fish Lake with Joe (one of the high school students) as our guide.  

We wanted to try our luck with the Land Locked Char.  And when we got there, we were met by a heard of our students wearing their hockey skates and gloves. 

 They played hockey around us... and watched us catch ... nothing.  Haha, it was a real neat experience.  The boys helped us cut our holes (without an auger, it is much harder)

and they gave us a ton of tips on where to go, what to use as lures, one of my students (John) even helped me by tying my lure on my line.  (he wanted to show me how they tie their hooks on).

The winter days are going to obviously get shorter, and shorter until there will be no daylight (outside of working hours) for us to enjoy.  I think it is safe to assume that those weeks if not months, I will have many hours to write wonderfully edited blog entries.  I will be up to date on the T.V. Series Dexter and I will know all of the newest movie titles!  But I also expect to be able to go on the land and see some more remarkable things.  Hopefully at least.  I have met some amazing people here that have done their best to make me feel at home.  I am very thankful for this and only hope that some of them have felt my appreciation somehow. 

The Polar Bear Hunt

Now, I know that this is a very touchy subject for animals rights activists, Greenpeace and Inuits as a whole.  I am going to do my best to just tell it how it is. 

As far as I know, Nunavut is one of the only places left in the world where the polar bear hunt is legal. In the Nunavut hunting regulations there is a section for polar bear.

  I also know that scientists around the world have speculated that there is about 20000 - 25000 Polar Bears left in the world.  About 15000 of those Polar Bears reside in Canada's far North (most living in Nunavut).  I do believe most people here expect there to be a change in this soon, but the hunt is completely legal and from what I have seen, it has been justified. 

On November 4, 2013, the Whale Cove residents and hunters all gathered into the hall.  They had a meeting (an annual meeting), which they have every year to discuss and decide who will hunt the Polar Bears).

  I went to this, and even though I couldn't understand most of what they were saying (mostly in Inuktitut), I was really amazed at how the entire community was involved in this decision.  Everyone who wanted to speak got their turn, and many people made some very good points.  There were 7 tags to be handed out to the hunters of Whale Cove.  Do they just do a draw? Who would be entered into that draw? Do they have a open hunt? (meaning everyone hunts and the first people to get bears get the tags for their bear.) After a long deliberation and many conversations it was decided by the entire community that the first 4 tags would be open, and then the last 3 would be drawn at random from a pool of all the residents of 16+ years of age.  They voted almost unanimously for this.  It was really cool to see it all unfold. 

After the meeting was over it was a mass exit to the door and the awaiting polar bears. It was seriously a race to the first four bears.

  And it really didn't take too much time.  With in 36 hours all four of those open tags were filled.  I have yet to see a Polar Bear.  I can not believe that there were four that close to town. 

The night after the meeting, there were still open tags to be filled.  Shon called me, and asked... "wanna come see if we can find a Polar Bear?"  I jumped at the opportunity and geared up, Morteza and I met him down by his place where he had seen some Polar Bear tracks.  These tracks turned out to be a few days old and were not worth pursuing, so we ended up going on a little adventure to the point. 

It was about 9:00 pm. completely dark and Shon and Don were using spotlights to try and see in the distance. 

We drove along the shoreline of the ocean but we didn't see any Polar Bears. 

The bears that do get hunted are used for many things.  Every piece of the animal is used.  The meat is all eaten by the local families, the bones are all used, the organs are sent away to scientists for research and the fur is sold.  If the fur was the only thing these bears were being killed for, I would have a huge problem, but that is a misunderstanding that has no truth behind it.  The polar bear is a huge amount of meat that will feed families for months. 


I hope everyone is doing well, and I look forward to seeing you all at Christmas!

Travel guide for Iqaluit

So I am back in Whale cove after a week long trip to Iqaluit. It was a great trip... But it's also nice to be back in whale cove. 

As we all would, i expected that in Iqaluit the taxis would be just like everywhere else... after the cabbie explained that it was 6 bucks per stop anywhere in iqaluit, I said generously, "I'll get the cab fare". There were 3 of us in the cab... Julia and Jenny (my new teacher friends from Repulse Bay) were nice enough to let me in on a little secret of the north. The cab fare is per person. Haha. That would have been a pretty pricey cab ride!

So yea. There are many things like this that are different here.  A good thing to remember when in Nunavut is to not assume anything. Many things  you would just assume are just the same as everywhere else until its too late and you notice they aren't. 

The people in iqaluit are very artistic, the local cultural art is the  most amazing I've seen in regards to carvings and jewellery.  It may be an Inuit art themed Christmas!!

The whole city is lined with this cultural art. The streets have carvings on every corner, the buildings have cultural "graffiti" on them and the government buildings all have cultural aspects to them as well!  It's really neat to see. 

Another thing that was very different from anywhere else I've been is the restaurant/bar atmosphere here. It is very common and completely expected to have many locals come by your table to try and sell you their artwork.  Some come by to show you their latest carvings, others want to show you their earrings or necklaces... but, my personal favourite was an artist (a regular in the bar) that everyone knows as "smiley", he stopped by to entertain us, to make us laugh and also to talk us into buying his amazing wall hangings. He started by showing us a really nice painting on canvas, it was of narwhals and had a Nunavut theme in the background with the flag, some Inuktitut syllabics and an inuksuk. I really liked it, so I asked, "how much?" And the games began!! Smiley named his price, "100 bucks for this one." He knew this was a game of bargaining and definitely named a high price to be able to settle a little lower, but this bartering is an art in itself, and Smiley has definitely been doing it much longer than I.  We went back and forth for a bit and settled on $60. Julia (One of the girls I met on the plane & my new nunavut teacher friend) said she wanted one too, but he had left... I'm sure he heard her, he went away, only to return with 5 more. 

He came right back to our table. And this time he started much cheaper. He said he would give us a "deal" 1 for $40 or all 5 for $150!! This was a deal if you went on what I just paid for 1! But I am sure he won on that last sale. We ended up somehow getting all 5 for $100. The lesson here is ... if you are ever in any restaurant, Name your price when they come around with artwork. They will definitely leave at first, but if you have named a fair price (one that you and they are comfortable with) they will almost always come back and accept your offer. Make sure you have the cash on you. It's probably a wise thing to have a few hundred on you when you go out... Just so you are ready for the artists. 

The local artists depend on this market to make their money. They depend on the transient crowds in the hotel bars and restaurants to buy their artwork, and to be honest, I was taken back by how good it all was!

You definitely can get deals in these places too. If you were to go and buy carvings at the art stores, sometimes you could pay 3-5 times as much as you would in the bars.

You kinda cut out the middle man. The main trick is to know when to buy. A carving that was priced at $250 at dinner time may drop to $150 by midnight. Sometimes the artists need to sell, (for various reasons). The later the time, the better the deals!  But remember, the best quality artwork can be found at dinner time. 

Flying around Nunavut a little has given me a different perspective too. Many times during this trip to Iqaluit I witnessed the extremely laid back way of life that I am getting used to here. As an example... I got my boarding pass to board the flight back from iqaluit. On the pass it says that my seat is 10A. Normally you get on the plane and find your seat... Well today when I boarded the plane, there was only 1 guy on the plane before me... I looked for my seat, the guy was sitting in my seat! Haha. Before I could say anything he said, "we just sit wherever we want in the north... Grab my seat, I think I was 6A."  And that was it.  So when you get on a flight up here (if you are ever travelling in the north) and you like window seats, make sure you board the plane quickly. Before they are all taken. 

I was lucky enough to meet many people during this trip who made it very fun and also informative!  I was given a great tour of the city by my new friend Cheryl... She showed me the old Hudson Bay company buildings

that were built a very long time ago, showed me many different places that had unbelievable views and took many great pictures.

After the tour we went to a movie (by far the smallest theatre I have ever been in.) and she also took me out for a night of karaoke at the world famous Iqaluit legion.  Was great to get out and see the sights!  Thanks Cheryl! 

All in all, it was a great trip to Iqaluit. It was interesting to see how BIG a city of 7000 people could actually be.  

While sitting in the restaurant I didn't feel like I was in Nunavut. The city of Iqaluit is truly multicultural.  I know that seems weird because it has such a small population, but I can say that I was amazed with the different races, ethnicities and cultures that were present there. It definitely has a feeling of a big city.

 Most of Nunavut's government buildings and headquarters can be found in Iqaluit as well.  

Anyways, it a great place to visit! Lot to do and many friendly faces, cultural art and expensive groceries!! 

Until next time!

My first few days here.

Thursday, August 1, 2013

I don't really know where to start. Tomorrow is my first day at the school (kids start next week) and I'm actually a little nervous!  It's been a long time since I've felt butterflies... But I feel them. 

I have been welcomed into the community of whale cove with outstretched arms wide open.  This may be the most friendly place I have ever had the opportunity to be a part of. My roommates are incredible. Suzanne has been here for a year now (teaching her 2nd year) and is an unbelievable help in getting to know the "ins and outs Nunavut style", she gave me a tour of the community, visited a few people, met many of the students at our school and helped me get my fishing licence.  I am now a legal fisherman of the territory of Nunavut! 

I met a few of the RCMP who were kind enough to give me a ride from the airport to my new home. And also met a few friendly faces around town. The conservation officer (Steve) is super awesome... Loves to fish and hunt and definitely seems like a well of knowledge that I will continually bother with questions about everything. 

Honestly, I am a little overwhelmed with the kindness of everyone. It's amazing. Today (my first day here) 5 of our students came with Morteza and I out for a quick fishing adventure. They are the happiest kids!  I caught my first fish! It was a Ouga fish (cod).

One of the students said that her grandmother loves Ouga fish, so I gave it to bring to her granny. :)

I've been told that the polar bears are very close to town an are extremely dangerous (obviously) which really sucks actually because we have been told that going to the more inland lakes (where the better fishing is) is too dangerous right now because the polar bears are hungry!  ;)

Well tomorrow is coming quick, going to get some shut eye before the sun peaks through my window. I definitely need curtains!