Rebekah Wheadon: Up Close and Personal

It's the small things that matter here in Pond Inlet, the small things that seem to catch attention and cause people to notice. An unfamiliar face and adults will pause to say hello and welcome me to town, while children gleefully inquire after my name (Kinauvit?) and are thrilled when I tell them (Riipika uvunga) and inquire after theirs. They are even more thrilled when I ask Qanuippit? (how are you?). In a small town, heading out the front door means seeing familiar faces around each corner and in every aisle of the two small stores. But it's a comfortable feeling. Our welcome in this hamlet has been warm, genuine, and heart-felt. Students from Nasivvik are happy to see the two of us around town and greet us by name -- students who I've met in the hallways but have never been in a classroom with will call after me and wave enthusiastically. Even strangers wave and smile when we drive by.

The sky and the landscape here are so large, so overwhelming, that the small details come into focus. I stand at the window that faces the water and the iceberg and watch snowmobiles coming and going, pulling kamotiks, humming across the expanse of snow and ice, zipping out to the iceberg or the dogs or the distant horizon and beyond. I watch as the cold air and light create illusions on the horizon, where the play of shadow and sun make strange, striated cliffs in the distance where I know there are none.

Small things become bigger in small communities. Welcomes are warmer and more genuine, smiles are exchanged by strangers whereas, in cities in the south, eye contact would never be made and any smile would be tense, terse, and perfunctory. And little things, like the seal skin left on edge of the water, the dark cracks in the ice, the frosted crystals lining each split, become beautiful and note-worthy things.