Shrouded

Many of the staff members at Nasivvik High come from the Maritimes, which means that, as a collective, we've been glued to weather websites as this blizzard has pounded the East Coast, dumping huge amounts of snow and entirely closing down Nova Scotia in particular. I've spoken before about how spoiled we've been with weather up here in Pond Inlet but, perhaps fittingly, today was a day shrouded in grey and the peculiar dingy white that cloaks everything when the sky is overcast. A mirror between here and home, even if ours came with the tiniest dusting of snow rather than the omnipresent and aggressive onslaught in Nova Scotia.

But what we lack in volume of snow we certainly make up for with a surreal quality. Although days like today tend to be more mild than the sunny days and thus perhaps are more comfortable, the light that penetrates the entire day is both bright and disorienting. Mountains are lost in the distance; horizons disappear entirely; the sky becomes as perceptibly close as the ceiling. Everything that is usually so clear in the distance disappears, lending the sense that anything and everything could be close.

One of the teachers on staff noted that, on days like today, being out on the ice is absolutely bizarre. Without buildings and the landscape of the town to give you direction, the ice, the horizon, and the shroud of grey-white become one, a seamless and directionless reality. And, despite the gloom, light suffuses the day, lending a harsh brightness to the confusion.

A surreal day for a walk while thinking about everyone in Nova Scotia.

Past the Coop, looking toward the airport.

The white sun, veiled.

To give you an impression of how easy it would be to become disoriented in the landscape that, usually so bright, defined, varied, becomes monotonous: our usual iceberg.

And speaking of surreal, tomorrow marks my last teaching day at Nasivvik and in my entire degree. In one week, I'll be arriving back in Nova Scotia. It's hard to believe how quickly this time -- both my practicum placement here, which has certainly have a tremendous and positive impact on how I will teach and who I am an educator, and my entire degree -- has slipped by. The thought of leaving Pond Inlet in a week and concluding, in one fell swoop, my degree and my experience here in a place that has been so formative, is bittersweet. I am excited to enter my career and to translate all I've learned here and elsewhere into teaching practice, but I'm going to miss the students I've formed those crucial relationships with, the feeling of this community, the wonderful collection of staff members -- all of the particularities of this experience. But I look forward to setting out and finding and making myself a similar space in a school community and in a community as a whole. I am ready to step beyond the bounds of student teaching and to enter this profession fully.