Ayurnamat: Bleakness and Bold Colour

Today marks my last day at Nasivvik, as I'm staying at our host house tomorrow to pack and get all the necessary things in order for leaving Pond Inlet. While the weather looks like it should clear on all stops along the way (and it hasn't been great at either end, that's for sure!), I'm cautious about hoping for that clear shot through to Halifax I've booked. Things are unpredictable here, flights often delayed or cancelled due to myriad complications. But that's the way here: we take things as they come and adjust as necessary. There's no point worrying about that which can't be changed.

Yesterday's activity for the local youth had a good turn-out and there were some phenomenal cardboard chairs and foil boats built and tested. We're hopeful for the turnout for today's event as well. And this has been a really nice way to wrap up our time here, by spending time with engaged and interested teens. They are, after all, why we do this whole teaching thing in the first place -- and what a treat it is, to laugh and listen to hip-hop and make juice with junior high students who are just happy to visit and work away at the little activities we've schemed up.

A few photographs from the trip up the hill Brooke and I took the other day to visit the graveyard. The day was much like today: warmer, but overcast.

A qamutik, a cabin, and the sea ice. The sliding hill is down in that direction.

The graveyard was a place both solemn and beautiful: so many of the markers, often bearing syllabics and wreathed in bright plastic flowers that were in stark contrast to the bleak landscape around them, were for the young. They were carefully tended sites, sad and remarkable all at once. The view from the site is phenomenal and I wonder if there is some comfort in the vastness of the landscape for those who visit the sites of their lost loved ones. Sometimes, feeling small and humbled by the sky and mountains can help; other times, it doesn't help at all. And I imagine the feeling depends entirely on the visitors and those whom they have lost.

Our way back down from the cemetery was marked by spectacular views of the hamlet below us and the change in perspective made the mountains look as new and remarkable as always and, perhaps, all the more solemn for the grey day and the place we had just left.

Shrouded watchers in the distance on Bylot Island, haloed by light.

10 Things

I finished teaching on Thursday and, because most of the staff is away at professional improvement sessions hither and yon, I am left largely with little that Needs to Happen Immediately, save my own professional development program which involves reading Thomas King (and you don't really need to twist my arm to convince me to read his work) -- and even that is not of great urgency, although it is of great interest.

We've had an overcast few days here in Pond Inlet but the weather promises to be sunny for our Thursday morning departure. I've finished my marking and tidying; Brooke and I are running two more extra-curricular sessions for students who may wish to do fun things like build chairs out of cardboard and boats out of tin foil or make artist trading cards to swap with each other. Beyond that, though, this time here is a curious little buffer between being done with student teaching (forever!) and diving into the job search proper and staring with the for-real teaching.

Still, there is always something worth photographing and, as I inundated you with text sans accompanying photos yesterday, here are some photos sans accompanying paragraphs. Of course, I have concluded the post with a veritable wall of text (in list form!), because it isn't one of my blog entries unless I try to force you to read a million words.

The snowmobile I flipped, which I have named Unexpectedly Speedy.

The splintery wood I to which I added some extra splinters. See that yellow bit? I did that, with the help of Unexpectedly Speedy.

Caribou skin, which I am fairly sure Mother Dog and Puppy were nibbling and/or sleeping on.

A grey day for a delicious brunch, with mountains lit up in the distance.

The best things in life: raw char, an ulu, and lunch break.

Things I am going to miss about Pond Inlet:

1) Unexpectedly Speedy (the snowmobile): Although we had an uneven start, I will miss driving this mechanical workhorse across the frozen sea ice. I wish we had more time together.

2) Bylot Island: Staring at those mountains has become something I do every morning and throughout the day. I am transfixed by them, by the way the light illuminates new shapes and carves out new shadows, by their ever-changing faces.

3) The Sunlight: Once we passed through the blindingly white and chilly sunlight and into warm and yellow and lovely sunlight, the sun, always fascinating, became a source of gorgeous light and warmth. Watching it move through the sky and across the horizon, seeing it gobble up darkness as we progress toward summer, has been magical.

4) Nasivvik High School: I love this place. The staff members are incredible. The students are wonderful. My cooperating teacher is fabulous. The paper room makes me want to weep tears of joy. I've felt so welcomed into this school community and leaving will be (has been!) difficult.

5) Bannock Wednesdays: I don't know how I will be able to make it through another Wednesday morning without Regilee's bannock. My own paltry attempt does not even approach her magical bannock.

6) The Community: The community events, heading down to the Co-Op or the Northern and seeing familiar and friendly faces, developing a sense of the rhythm of the town, saying hello to my students as they drive by on ATVs or snowmobiles or visit the weekend market... I've missed living in a small town and this small town does the sense of community right.

7) The Pragmatism: People here are sensible. Clothes and coats are not for fashion; they're to deal with the weather. Heading out somewhere? Take what you need. Be smart. Be safe. Things can, at first, appear casual -- teachers wearing jeans to school! sweatshirts! heavens! -- but it's all to a point. There is no need to be fancy, to fuss over things that don't matter. The focus on what really matters is, well, beautiful.

8) The Generosity: This may be linked to the pragmatism that abounds here in Pond Inlet, but people are giving and kind. There is a sense that we must, first and foremost, take care of each other. You don't knock on doors here; you enter households because there is no sense in staying out in the cold, not when it's warm and light inside and there's plenty to share.

9) Iceberg Water: How will I ever go back to drinking regular old tap water? I DON'T KNOW!

10) The Students: The students I taught and interacted with have been truly inspiring. They came into class with voices that, although they sometimes needed coaxing out, were well-developed and engaged, especially on issues facing Nunavut and young Inuit today. My students showed up ready to learn, ready to tackle whatever challenges they faced in day-to-day life and to triumph, to be better, to strive for more. I leave inspired by their passion and their capabilities; I leave hopeful for their futures; and I leave so much richer for having known them. Young Nunavummiut make me excited for Nunavut's future!

In short, I'm going to miss a lot of things about Pond. There will be some things that I won't miss (these include primarily the internet speed, waiting-between-water-deliveries water-conservation mode, and also the fact that my wife is not up here with me, very much not in that order! I'd have to put wifelessness first on the list of things I will be glad to put an end to!). On the whole, however, this experience has been so remarkable that I'm not quite sure I can put it into words. It feels like something I'm hesitant to share, something I want to try to keep to myself -- which, of course, this blogging thing has made very much Not Possible (and that's for the best as Rebekah-in-5-Years will enjoy re-reading these very much, I imagine).

I'm going to miss this place and, because I'm leaving so soon and because my teaching has wrapped up, I'm already feeling the missing, even though I'm still here.

But I'll be back at some point to this incredible territory, this time with Kerstin in tow. After all, there are still a significant number of meats to try and I take my list of Arctic Meats to Eat very seriously indeed.

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.

Vernal Equinox

An update: The puppy, feared lost, has been spotted following its mother. Now my heart can rest more easily.

Today, the sun over the mountains was especially beautiful, and brings promises of even more spectacular sights as we head out on the land this weekend to sand sculptures (hoodoos). We'll head across to Bylot Island on Sunday before heading out on our truly big adventure on Monday, when we'll be going out with Inuit guides and a school group to hunt a seal. We're heading out to the floe edge on skidoos followed by kamotiks. Dear readers, I am excited, but also have a healthy respect for the cold we're going to experience. Thankfully, I am surrounded by supremely knowledgeable people who have a back room full of Arctic-ready supplies. Expect some spectacular -- and potentially very bloody -- photographs early next week.

Endless sky.

Morning sun, still slowly working its way up the sky.

We've now gained about an hour of sunlight in the evenings, which means that, in our nearly two weeks here, we've gained approximately 2 hours of daylight. Incredible. And, while equinox now means that all places in the Northern hemisphere have more sunlight than darkness, the change here is noticeable -- in the demeanour of the community members, in the temperature of the sunlight, in the air, in the mornings and evenings, in the spectacular sunrises and sunsets that seem to go on forever. I never grow tired of looking at the landscape here, at the sky and light, the snow and shadow. It is truly a remarkable place.

And today marked the last day of my final full week of student teaching in my degree. We're out on the land on Monday, then I'm teaching Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, and then it's PD days and afternoon events for the children that Brooke and I are coordinating until we head home.

Halfway through and I can already feel the momentum building, driving this wonderful experience to its conclusion. There is still an incredible amount to learn, to experience, and to reflect on, and the thought of leaving makes my heart heavy. I know already that I will miss the crispness of the air, the startlingly beautiful landscape, the community of the school.

But change is the way of life here and elsewhere, whether in daylight, in shadow, or in the ending of incredible journeys.

(Don't make the mistake of thinking my thoughts are entirely turned to finishing up, though! There's still seal to eat, students to teach, sand sculptures to photograph, and an amauti belt that needs braiding!)

Tangled Yarn, Braiding, and the Learning Curve

Brooke and I were fortunate enough to be able to take advantage of a workshop happening at Nasivvik today after school (with another session next Thursday). A local woman came in to teach us how to create the braided belts that Inuit women use around their amautis -- packing parkas with a huge hood in the back in which babies sit and a remarkably popular article of clothing. After a long time untangling yarn that I was trying to spool out (not because it came to me tangled; I am just a good tangle-maker), I finally sat down, watched Geela work, and then set to it, determined to try it out for my own.

Well, that didn't go well. I had to start again, after observing some more and listening to her patient instructions. Alright, I thought, time to go again. We undid my work and I set back to it.

And again.

And again.

The fifth time seems to have helped all of the principles of this craft click into place. Under Geela's watchful eye and under the tutelage of her sure hands, I am slowly figuring out how to make this thing work. It is so humbling to learn something totally new about which I know absolutely nothing from a person who is such an expert. It is an incredibly important experience for an educator to have. Our students so often feel that frustration, the desire to push ahead and try and fail, the I'll never get it!, and then (if we're doing our jobs well) the success when things do click. But, heavens, was it ever frustrating when I had to undo my weaving for that fourth time! And I'm sure I will experience the same mixture of frustration at my own ineptitude and excitement at learning something new when one of the Inuit staff members tries to teach me to make socks during the upcoming PD days.

My mother, an excellent teacher indeed, has always said that she tries to take a class on something entirely new every few years so that she remembers what it's like to dive into a learning process without any familiar footing. Good teachers, she insists, need to experience that feeling to be reminded of what it's like to be in our students' shoes. If we want to be effective, we need to feel in our bones what the learning process is like, in all its ups and downs.

Well, Mum, good call. You're completely right.

So much of my time here has been coming face-to-face with things that I don't know and being okay with not knowing everything. I've learned a lot about asking questions and seeking guidance and, sometimes (often!), laughing off my mistakes and continuing to move forwards.

Progress so far. Fifth attempt.

 On our walk back at the end of the day, we walked by the same fluffy puppy as yesterday, waiting outside the kitchen window and staring in at his boy. When he saw us, he perked right up, yipped a hello, and came over to wiggle around and lick our mitts. But, let me tell you, this pooch knows which side his bread is buttered on. We turned to head off and he scampered right on back to the house to stare back up at his beloved 7-year-old owner, who watched with happy eyes from inside.

Why hello!

Puppy love.

A Walk Down the Hill

Life in the hamlet here near(ish) the top of the world continues apace. I stayed in last night because there's been a little bug going around and I was awfully zonked, but a good night's sleep did me wonders and I had a wonderful day today. Teaching in this new school environment and new classroom communities has really started to feel normal, like yes, I know how to do this and yes, this is the same work that I love to do. After a somewhat shaky start yesterday, I felt more deeply like myself at the front of the room today -- well, my teacher-self, with the bad jokes and quips and the thoughtful pondering of a story and the occasional raised eyebrows you-know-better-and-I-know-you-know-better look.

The day started, as days tend to start, with sunrise. It's incredible how much sunlight we gain every day: when Brooke and I arrived, the sun was setting at 6:35. Last night, it didn't set until 7:15. And we gain as much time every morning, except that I'm rarely coherent enough or caffeinated enough to appreciate it. This morning, however, I managed to snap a picture of the pink light over the mountains in the distance (justice is definitely not done to the beauty of the sight my eyes took in).

It was even pinker in real life. Oh, these mountains.

Brooke and I walked to school yesterday morning, which was kind of awful: we are staying at one end of town and school is at the other end, about a 15-20 minute walk away. Except that, going to school, that was is all Up. And the way we took, kind of by accident, was both Very Steep and Very Up. So we got to school, sweating inside of our beautiful parkas, with frosted eyelashes and eyebrows and extremely cognizant of the fact that, if we were out on the land, sweating like that could be a death sentence.

Today, however, we decided to walk back at the end of the day: down the hill and the less steep one at that. It was a gorgeous walk and, although by the end of the 25 minutes (we meandered) I could certainly feel the cold against my cheeks, it was still lovely. A mere -30C... Hard to believe that, a week and a half after arriving, we can walk in the door of the Parks's home and be asked if our walk was a cold one and reply, honestly and heartily, Nope! It was lovely!

Not to say that I would love to live permanently and year-round in -30 degree weather. A little bit warmer is also nice. In fact, it's going to be -24 later in the week, and I'm pretty excited to hit that low in the -20s. Just in time for us to go out on the land this weekend!

On our walk, Brooke and I would occasionally pause our meandering to take some photographs of that incredibly blue sky, the town, and, occasionally, those impossibly beautiful mountains.

The hamlet building (like town hall) and the fire station. As an added bonus, that beautiful NU flag.

Mountains and wires.

The infamous iceberg from a difference angle, an intersection in town, and the most popular mode of transport: a snowmobile (although there are certainly more trucks and cars than I'd anticipated -- and many of them are shiny and new!).

Sealskin kamiks hanging outside the door of a house. The cold keeps the skin pliant and ensures that the sealskin continues to keep those feet warm (sealskin mitts from Pond, for example, aren't much good when you head more south -- unless you keep them in the freezer).

A kamotik, loaded with fuel and a caribou pelt for coziness, with some lovely bi-colour seals frozen in the background.

Brooke, heading down the road and toward our house here in Pond Inlet.

Certainly, while the teaching process feels mostly familiar, this landscape is continually wondrous. I wake up every morning excited to drink in all of the sights and my camera is on me at all times. There is so much here I want to share, to take with me, to remember. The way the light changes every day and throughout the day, the colours in the sky, the beauty that is stark and sumptuous at once -- so much more than I ever expected.

"Fade Into You"

Today is our first overcast day in Pond Inlet. When I got up this morning, the light outside was particularly spectacular: the iceberg was illuminated by the morning sunlight, while gloom and shadow clung to the rest of the landscape.

The mountains were carved out of sunshine and snow and, in the distance, low and impenetrable cloud cover rolled in, gobbling up the familiar jut of the rock and snow of Bylot Island.

Creeping darkness.

And then, for awhile, everything was bathed in a white dimness as the mountains disappeared. Here are pictures of the creeping clouds (without editing, so you can get a sense of the thick gloom they brought with them).

It has stayed remarkably bright, however, even with the thick, if fickle, cover of cloud. And, since I've needed all day to do my planning, it worked out well. As Dave and Pat noted, with cloud cover often comes warmer weather, and we are into the 20s today -- by which I mean the -20s, but it's remarkable how much of a difference we feel between -30 and -28, even if at least half of that difference is psychological.

But, with a day of planning behind me, I feel even more like I'm settling into the routine of teaching here. Plotting out classes and texts, class activities and assessments, makes the teaching part more concrete, and that is a wonderful and familiar feeling indeed.

A song for a cloudy Sunday in the Arctic:

Junior Inuktitut

After school yesterday, Brooke, Dave, and I trundled down to the local library -- the Rebecca Idlout Library, which shares a building with the interpretative centre. On our arrival, we discovered that there has also been an artist in residence, of sorts -- a woman who specializes in a particular form of print-making, who was flown up for a few weeks to teach local folks how to create prints in this manner. The prints are beautiful -- depicting scenes from or animals relating to traditional Inuit life, either in black and white or stunning combinations of colour -- and show such incredible artistry. The instructor commented, astonished, on how quickly her students picked up the art form and how intuitively they used it.

The narwhal features prominently here: on the sign outside of the library, the model suspended in the lobby of the building, on the t-shirt of the man who let us into the interpretative centre. Entering the building, one is greeted by the expanse of glass at the interior space, the suspended narwhal model, the sound of children laughing in the library to the right. Boots are strewn across the floor just inside of the interior door: no one wears their boots inside; sock feet prevail, here and at school.

The interpretative centre reflects traditional Inuit life and how that existence underpins contemporary Inuit existence.

Boots to protect the dog's feet during spring, when ice melted and refroze and could cut paws.

A child's clothing, made from caribou that would have been harvested in the fall. Each woman would make two sets of these clothes for every family member.

An avataq, a float made of seal skin. If a hunter harpooned a whale, this would help keep the whale from diving down and would allow the hunter to track its movements until its death.

Similar small touches of the connection between Inuit culture and the land are evident in all buildings, from the high school to the co-op to the library and interpretative centre.

The library is a lovely space, warm and full of the sunshine that seems omnipresent in Pond. The selection of titles is better than I'd expected, and I was pleased to see plenty of books in Inuktitut, for both children and adults. The majority of video titles available have a very Northern focus.

A reading corner. Surrounded by the Arctic and bathed in light.

Inuktitut titles for adults.

An excellent selection for children.

Inuktitut is thriving here in Pond Inlet: it is the first language of all of my students and, from our very informal surveys, the children all say that they primarily use Inuktitut at home. English only sees use in the school environment (of course, it's also present in the TV shows and movies the kids watch). Other communities, especially those in the Western Arctic, have nearly lost their Inuktitut -- but here it lives on, and that is a wonderful thing to see. Of course, that means that English Language Arts is very much an EAL/ESL course, which means that my focus as an educator needs to shift.

Plus learning another language -- working in another language -- is exhausting. We received a brief lesson in Inuktitut from Pat last night, who has a phenomenal accent. Pat and Dave have three children, all of whom still live in Nunavut, and all three of whom are fluent in Inuktitut, having grown up in Pond. I'm pleased to say that, after a lot of work and frustration over some Inuktitut sounds that the English-speaking tongue seems very reluctant to make, I've managed to get a handle on a new sound: ng -- for ngi, ngu, and nga. My own junior Inuktitut, but it's coming. At least now I know my name in Inuktitut for the Pond Inlet dialect: ᕇᐱᑲ  (Riipika).

Finally, a little goodbye from a stuffed seal from the interpretative centre (I'll have to go snap some pictures of the white seal skins drying at a house just above the school -- and the full-on frozen seals waiting to be eating/skinned/something else... Seals are tricky to get this time of year, but very possible!), and an obligatory picture of the landscape.

The mountain on the right is shaped like the syllabic for 'i' and is named relating to that symbol -- although I haven't yet mastered that one.

Planes on the Ice

Last night, something big happened in Pond Inlet and immediately made the Pond Inlet News Facebook group: a plane landed on the ice.

Understand, this doesn't happen on a regular basis. We have an airport; planes don't need to land on the ice -- but land it did, and Pat immediately spotted it, and I jumped up to snap a few photos. We've speculated that it may be a Canadian Forces plane, as the CF is in town doing exercises (apparently, this is the conclusion that Pond Inlet News has drawn as well).

The plane -- the same bright yellow as the Iqaluit airport -- landed, rolled its way behind the iceberg, hid there for a little while, and then took off again.

The plane landed facing the other direction (west) and turned around toward the iceberg.

It rolled its way over to the iceberg and scooted behind the towering hunk of ice. This also helps put the iceberg's scale in perspective.

I'm finding now that Pond Inlet is starting to feel, to me, like more of a regular small town, as I'm also finding that this teaching still feels like teaching, although with different requirements and challenges. This isn't to say that the glamour has worn off, or the magic of this place has diminished. It's just that I find myself settling into the familiar aspects of teaching and living that one could find in nearly any community.

Before the NU 5 left Halifax International Airport, Nick reminded us that, although our trip would certainly be exciting, it is still our job to teach to the best of our abilities and to support our students as learners and as individuals. And I'm beginning to feel that on a deeper level, although I'd already grasped it intellectually. Yes, this is a different teaching environment than the one I just left -- indeed, each and every teaching and learning community will be different from others -- but it's still teaching. It's still about forming relationships and helping my students develop intellectually, emotionally, personally.

As much as a place can feel different, and the details of a particular community -- its norms, its values, its lived realities -- can seem in stark contrast to other places, the core often remains the same. We come together because we have hope for the futures of our youth. We watch a plane land, we speculate and take photographs. We post about it on our community news group.

Of course, in this place, we also get to go on quests for hunks of iceberg to provide delicious water, and, when we go, we take a harpoon in case of polar bears. So there's that, I suppose.

From Monday's quest. Thanks, Brooke!