Goodbye, Mountains

I promised myself that I would post this rather silly moment of realization before I left, and so here I am, sharing another story about garbage. Do you recall, diligent reader, when I found that syllabic graffiti? Here is a photo to remind you.

Wow, I said. Cool! But it's probably something not very nice, because, often, graffiti isn't very nice!

Well, in the perfect crow-eating remember-not-to-assume-the-worst moment, when I was on a little walk the other day, I rounded the side of that curious little graffiti-ed structure and found this written on the other side:

Sometimes, people just want to write what a thing is and, because they live in a place where Inuktitut is spoken widely and syllabics are broadly understood, they figure, heck, this should be written in both Inuktitut and English. Sometimes, garbage-collectors need to indicate where garbage can be deposited so that it can be taken up to the dump.

A box for garbage, readers. That's what I was snapping photos of. It was something plain and innocuous and practical, but I missed the forest for the trees. Well, the garbage bin for the syllabics.

That interesting self-reflective moment is one of the things I will miss most about being in Pond Inlet, but it's something I will certainly be seeking wherever I end up next. Seeing all of the invisible things I often take for granted, with English as my first language and because I'm white and able-bodied and cisgender and all of those other privileges I try to think about but still sometimes miss, is incredible. Trying to see and dismantle privilege is at the heart of what I hope to do in the classroom and in my life.

As the light fades today, I know that this is my last evening here in Pond Inlet as part of this trip. Tomorrow, we need to be at the airport for 7am, so we're all packed and ready to head out.

It's hard to believe that I won't get to wake up and look at this vista again.

Goodbye, mountains. Goodbye, Bylot.

Goodbye, dogs singing in the distance. Goodbye, clouds across the mountains. Goodbye, sea ice. Goodbye, snowmobiles and qamutiks. Goodbye, glaciers. Goodbye, iceberg.

Goodbye, Pond Inlet, and thank you. 

Qujannamiik. ᖁᔭᓐᓇᒦᒃ.

Sunset over the iceberg on April 2nd.

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.

Out on the Land: A Sample

Alright, so embedding is not going to work. However, these files are available for you on Google Drive if you click the following links. For your viewing pleasure:

Inside of the ice cave.

Zooming around Beloeil in the back of the kamotik.

Tomorrow it'll be back to your regularly scheduled (and wordy and picture-heavy) posts.

For now, a screenshot from another video of Kuukuluk (that would be little stream in Inuktitut, our name for the person formerly known as Brooke) and yours truly, frosty-hatted, bundled up, and supremely contented as we headed back to Pond Inlet.

Being out on the land: thumbs up.

To The Ice Cave!

Nunavut is a place in which the best laid plans can be completely derailed in the blink of an eye. Case in point: Brooke and I were supposed to head out to the floe edge tomorrow for a seal hunt but we just heart that both of the school's guides have taken ill and so our trip is cancelled.

We were also supposed to go to Bylot Island today to see the sand sculptures, but, after some discussion with Brooke's cooperating teacher and our on-the-land driver Anne, we determined that it was too cold for a trip of that length, so that plan went out the window.

However, other plans were afoot and we headed out this afternoon, a party of four snowmobiles and one kamotik, to find a cave in Beloeil Island.

Brooke and I, under the excellent guidance of Pat and Dave, bundled up in many layers. We were instructed to go wait outside before putting on the final layers -- the parkas, scarves, balaclavas, and seal skin mitts. My pre-out-on-the-land outfit (for the day's -34C):

Thanks for the snazzy photo, Kuukuluk! Arctic fashion.

After our crew arrived, zooming up to the beach in their fleet of skidoos, we finished bundling up and headed out. Anne had a kamotik all set up for us, replete with a caribou skin and a musk ox skin (so shaggy!). I may have fallen in rather than gracefully plunking myself in the wooden box, but there you go. True to form.

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Our crew. We had not one but two rifles in our party. I'm in the green parka with the backpack and Brooke is to the right in the red.

You can see one rifle in the picture and our party had a second as well. And it's a good thing. Although we didn't run into any problems, we did find out, upon our return, that there had been a polar bear at the edge of town the night previously. The teacher who called and let us know had wondered if we'd seen it while on our trip because that would have been the direction the bear was heading in.

It was a funny thing for me to look at those rifles and think, phew, thank heavens, now I feel safe. Guns matter here. So does fur. I was wearing a down-filled parka with a coyote ruff, a rabbit hat, and seal skin mitts (pauluk), and we used the musk ox hide to cover our legs on the way back. These are things that are necessary to survive in the environment. And I was recalling, adorned in all my fur and at least somewhat safeguarded by the guns in our little snowmobile fleet, the last protest I saw before leaving Halifax, a group of folk outside of the Public Gardens decrying Canada Goose as Canadian shame because they use down and real fur trim. And while I agree that fur-for-fashion can be problematic (although I don't believe it's always wrong; traditionally-harvested seal skin, for example, can be sustainable, ethical, and supports continued Inuit hunting practices and cultural knowledge), I would happily invite those who make a blanket statement about the use of animal products to come to the Arctic and see how well synthetic products fare (hint: they result in hypothermia).

Okay. Enough about fur! Here is a closer look at our lovely ride.

Remarkably comfy -- except in the super bumpy bits.

Zoom zoom! That's Brooke on the left and me on the right.

On our way to Beloeil, we decided to face forwards and be wary of our face masks/scarves (guarding against any stray breezes that could lead to frostbite). But the wind meant constant readjustment, even with the windbreak, and that meant constant frost on our glasses and goggles. I was worried that facing backwards would make my stomach very unhappy indeed, but, on the way back, I gave it a try and found the trip to be much more enjoyable that way. Although it was still fun facing forwards!

Our trip there -- what I could see of it -- was entrancing. The mountains rushed by as we zipped across frozen ice and cut through sun and shadow, dwarfed by mountains that loomed impossibly large above us. When we arrived, I got to look at those giants, so often featured in my posts here, up close, to stand at their feet and stare up and up and up, and then out and out and out across the ice and toward the seemingly endless horizon. The mountains stood guard on either side, drawing the eye forward toward the point where the world seemed to drop away.

We could see the wind whipping around out there. Did the bear lurk behind the snowy veil?
(Bonus: Some of the gorgeous seal skin mitt Pat let me borrow to the left of the shot!)

Shadow of giants.

The face of the mountain.

We arrived and made our way to a cave I could not have known was there. We had to shimmy up a little slope and duck through the small mouth into the roughly spherical cave, with an interior that reminded me in shape of an igluvigak. It even had a back wall that was made entirely of ice and a ceiling covered in shards of ice crystals.

The hidden cave. You can see that the snow to the right has been shifted as we crawled up and slid back down. We ducked in just beyond the snowbank.

The way out. The rope never saw use -- easier to crawl awkwardly. Grace is not easy in huge mech-like boots and stiff mitts!

Crystals formed perhaps by all the passerbys who came in with steaming thermoses of tea and coffee?

Structures like this lined the entire ceiling of the space. It was incredibly beautiful -- an crystal cave.

We couldn't stay forever, of course, and after some hot beverages and talk and the quiet of simply taking the magnitude of this place in -- a tiny cave inside a huge mountain lined with minute crystals while the impossibly huge sky stretched out forever beyond the mouth of the cave -- we headed out.

Shannon, Jaclyn, me, and Brooke, against the backdrop of the ice wall. Thanks, Scott, for taking this picture! (Scott is, incidentally, one of the MSVU grads who also did the Nunavut practicum placement and he now works along with his partner Jaclyn at Nasivvik). 

All in all, Brooke and I were fairly pleased with ourselves. The longer we were out, the more comfortable we felt -- our gear worked, we weren't dying, and we were both having fun.

Can't complain!

We went back in the kamotik and zipped around the island and headed back up the coast. And, dear reader, because you have been so patient about reading my blog and looking at all of my photos, I took my hands out of my mitts to shoot you a video and to give you a little sample of what it's like to ride between mountains while being pulled by a snowmobile across sea ice and blanketed in musk ox fur. I promise that I will try my best to upload it soon, but it's a challenge here in the Arctic, where upload speeds are sad indeed. A new challenge for tomorrow!

The whole excursion took about two and a half hours but it seemed like it all happened in a flash. Words absolutely fail to impress the sheer magnificence of this landscape, the exhilaration of flashing by and beneath mountains, the sun lighting up the sky that magnificent blue while we flash across the ice.

We both came back with stupid grins on our faces, and I felt a kind of warm contentment not unlike spending a lazy Sunday afternoon basking in the sun -- except that, instead of being snuggled up on a couch, I'd been out on the land, to an ice cave, and riding in the back of a kamotik, bundled head to toe. The thrill of it, certainly underscored by a healthy respect for the cold, for the land, for the animals that roam it, is heady. It's new. It's humbling.

And, to top it off, the sunset tonight was magnificent.

Even when plans fall through here -- and I think this may be one of those things that I'll be able to carry with me into other areas of my life, one of those things that just matters as a thing you know and understand in your gut -- other things can happen that turn out to be better than what you'd planned. And, while I don't believe in grand plans or in metaphysical machinations, learning to accept what has happened, what reality is, with a shrug and an ayurnamat and being open to what happens instead is, I think, a more profound and more meaningful understanding to carry forward.

So, nope, there's no seal hunt tomorrow and I'm sad to be missing out on that trip to the floe edge, but I had a beautiful experience today -- one that was exhilarating and bright and lovely and problem-free.

Also, now I don't need to worry about peeing in the open Arctic in front of a gaggle of teenage boys. That is an experience I am very much open to not having.

Silver lining, right?

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.

"How Near How Far"

I wrote the first part of this entry while sitting on my First Air flight from Ottawa to Iqaluit -- a flight that has been, so far, entirely uneventful and entirely pleasant. Nick told us that the Northern airlines were the only airlines left that make flying civilized, and he's entirely right: superb service, excellent food, and plenty of both.

For example, my breakfast on our little three hour flight:

Yum! The first of many meals.

The plane we flow on from Ottawa to Iqaluit was a 60 seater, with the body divided into two sections -- the passenger section and the cargo section, which is toward the front of the plane (it's separated from the passenger section by a little removable wall). Our plane from Iqaluit to Clyde River and on to Pond Inlet was only an 18 seater, but had a similar layout.

There was this fascinating moment when making the journey up that I thought i'd share. We flew over Northern Ontario/Quebec for ages, which meant that we saw a mixture of trees and frozen, snowy lakes. I snapped a photo and watched the world slip by beneath us while listening to a playlist Kerstin put together for me. Every time I would glance down, the landscape remained the same: the dark of trees, the stark white of snow.

And then I looked back and everything was white. I felt a funny little jolt in my stomach. We'd flown pas the treeline and were not (and are now) in the Arctic.

The white of the landscape, peering down from the plane we were flying in, was not unbroken. It was textured by the change in terrain, by the bright light of the sun and the accompanying dark shadows. I've included pictures to share, and, although the detail is certainly lost in translation, the different interplay between dark and light below the treeline (more of a patchwork quilt) and above the treeline (more like scrimshaw) should still be evident. I've also included a picture of the place where land meets water -- the texture is totally different when viewed from the sky than the regular lay of the land. The sea ice is flat, but broken up by cracks, the dark of meltwater almost like the way cream cracks apart when it separates from milk.

Over Ontario

Above the treeline

Where land meets sea

We stepped off the plan in Iqaluit to find that, no, the Northern cold does not feel like a punch to the face, despite the fact that it was -30C. Instead, the air is crisp and clean and, certainly, it's cold, but not nearlyas bad as any of us had anticipated. Jenny headed off to catch her flight to Pang, but, before she left, we caught a photo of her and Brooke in front of the plane we'd just stepped off of.

Colourful!

We made it! "Our" plane in the background, Brooke, and Jenny in Iqaluit (and me, behind the camera!)

When Brooke and I boarded, we headed to Clyde River where the landing weather was questionable. Nonetheless, it was an excellent flight -- again, lots of delicious food, excellent service, and this time I managed to take a little nap. We landed without event and were hustled into the little airport to wait: it was a small, one-room building with a few chairs here or there. There was a drip coffee maker in the corner, along with a plug-in kettle, for visitors in need of a little pick-me-up. Because it was windy in Clyde, it was a bit colder than Iqaluit, but, again, not as cold as I'd expected.

Interestingly enough, once we switched to the smaller plane in Iqaluit, we found that we ended up wearing our parkas while we flew. The cabin was cold when we first got in! Things did warm up as we made progress from community to community, but it was definitely chilly at first. Plus, squished parka hoods make nice pillows.

The flight from Clyde to Pond Inlet was absolutely stunning -- I was glued to my window, camera in hand. I've included two photos that my computer handily enhanced, as well as one that hasn't been enhanced with  so that you can get a sense of what it looks like without digital filters. Getting good shots was tricky. The sun was incredibly bright -- almost white -- and the windows were scuffed, but I managed to snap a few passable ones. Believe me when I say that they don't even touch on the drama and beauty of the real deal. The interplay of shadow, light, the ridges, the drifts of snow... Phenomenal.

The enhanced photos read a little more true to what I was seeing than this one does, except for the over-saturation in the former. The landscape was very white, but was dramatically carved out by dark shadows, ranging from blue to grey. Every angle brought something new, and many mountain sides had rock that stood against both the shadow and the snow. It was truly magnificent.

We arrived in Pond without issue -- truly, our experience has been painless and hassle-free from start to finish (thanks to our airlines and, most importantly, to the man who arranged it all and has ensured we are well looked-after indeed). Dave, our host, picked us up at the airport and gave us a quick little tour aorund town. Pond is absolutely gorgeous; I can't wait to take pictures of everything! Dave and his wife, Pat, have been here since 1979, so Dave has plenty of information on how Pond has grown as a hamlet.

It's really time for me to turn in, so I'm going to close with a picture of what we found outside of the living room of Pat and Dave's home: an iceberg, illuminated by the setting sun. We may or may not have had melted iceberg to drink with dinner tonight (spoiler: we did, and it was the best tasting water I've ever had).

I'm here, I'm safe, I'm excited, and I'm happy. I'll check in again tomorrow with the scoop on my first full day here in Pond Inlet and my first day at my new school!

Not too shabby. Pretty to look at and tasty to drink!

To Ottawa

We've arrived safely in Ottawa, where the NU 5 are hunkering down for the night before we all head to Iqaluit and then go our separate ways. It's so wonderful to see everyone again -- to catch up and readjust ourselves for our trip north. What a treat to share in this experience with such lovely women! I would encourage all of you, faithful readers, to visit their blogs (available handily under "The NU 5" in the sidebar).

This morning, I was treated to a lovely breakfast of steak and eggs and then said goodbye to Kerstin and headed to the airport with my brother. And, because I promised, here is a photo of the ensemble that I wore to the airport, and continued wearing as I tromped around between gates. Fashion.

Please note: Everything I need is packed in those three bags.
Packing Achievement: UNLOCKED.

Let me tell you, I was toasty all day. I did think to pack little flats inside of my carry-on luggage, and so was able to slip these monster boots off when I needed to be a little more nimble-footed.

We met Nick at the Halifax International Airport for a farewell lunch and then had a pain-free flight all the way over Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Quebec and into Ontario, where we found our way to the hotel and then on to food. Tomorrow, we're catching the airport shuttle at 7am (conveniently, Daylight Savings Time -- which starts at 2am this morning -- cancels out any time difference between Atlantic Standard and Eastern and so we will happily continue on in our 'own' time zone) and then Brooke and I will be spending most of the day en route to Pond Inlet.

As for now? Well, the hotel we're staying at happens to have a pool that is looking awfully tempting -- and, naturally, swimsuits were packed for our journey (and by naturally, I mean after researching our hotel and finding out it has a pool/hot tub, not because of a latent desire to take an arctic dip). So it's hot tub, tea, and getting a good night's sleep before continuing on!

The NU 5 -- Terin, Kris, Brooke, and Jenny (and yours truly behind the camera)
(Yes, all of that luggage is ours... Five trolleys in total!)