Inuvik
(posted from Inuvik Centennial Library, Inuvik, YT)
(This post covers 10-12 July, 2008)
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Saturday, 12 July-
We left the campground late this morning and took a look at the one-hole golf course. Actually, what’s known as the town golf course is a driving range with cutouts of moose, polar bear, and caribou for the golfers to aim for. Beside the driving range is the first and so-far-only hole of the golf course. It’s just now being built. We saw rolls of Astroturf lying alongside the first tee, yet to be installed.
After lunch in the visitor’s center parking lot we again went to the library, this time to see two films I had picked out yesterday. The first, “Summer of the Locheaux” was about an aboriginal summer fish-camp on the Arctic Red River. We learned how the natives caught and prepared fish for drying, then packed up the bales of dried fish for storage. “Dry-fish” is a delicacy around here.
The second film was “Between Two Worlds”, a documentary about Joseph Idlout, an aboriginal who, in 1952 was at the top of his world as a leader, hunter and fisherman in his community but a mere 13 years later committed suicide.
We then went to the Ocean Day celebration (one of three celebrations running this weekend). Labashi wanted to try the muskrat. (Un)fortunately, we arrived at the Traditional Foods area too late and the roast muskrat was already gone. But we did have traditional ‘doughnuts’ and two types of mukluk (seal blubber). The ‘popcorn mukluk’ was a mukluk deep-fried for a minute or two and it was delicious. We could eat the outer layer of the regular mukluk (not bad) but the inner layer was too rubbery—too much like a big piece of gristle. It may not have been thoroughly defrosted, though—we’re not sure.
We then watched several of the traditional games, including a muskrat-skinning race. It was amazing to watch the elder ladies skin a muskrat in less than a minute while everyone else struggled to get it done. Late in the day I participated in the final event—the blanket toss. I was one of the guys on the rope around the outer edge of the canvas ‘blanket’ as we tossed one of the aboriginal elders way up into the air to look for animals.
We then drove down to the riverside park for supper before going back to the campground for the night.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Friday, 11 July-
Today we started out looking for ‘Future Road’ where there’s supposed to be a geocache. But that road is now blocked off and has No Tresspassing signs so that didn’t work out. But that did lead us to the float-plane base area and we enjoyed looking around there and at the sign at the end of that road: “Ice Road to Aklavik”. Aklavik is another small community some 35 miles away but only accessible by road during the winter, after the MacKenzie River delta freezes up.
We stopped at the Visitor’s Center and talked with a college-age girl (I didn’t get her name) whose father is owner of the MacKenzie Hotels chain, a very upscale chain. She’s very bright, articulate, funny and just full of life. I’m sure she has a bright future.
We then drove to Aurora College for a walk through their classroom building. I enjoyed reading their catalog of courses (“Diamond Cutting”, “Underground Mining”, “Traditional Arts”, etc). While viewing the artwork in the halls we ran into the Director of Programs (I think that was her title), who told us 99 per cent of the students there are aboriginal. The computer lab looked like much like any other small-college lab in layout but the computers were all new Dells with flat-screen monitors. No hand-me-down equipment here!
We then went to the library where Labashi worked on an email to friends and family while I watched movies in the Community Room. I watched ‘What the Hell’s Going on Up There?”, ‘Kluane National Park’, and ‘Arctic River’. The first was a terrific farce which explains to Americans what’s ‘going on’ with Canada. Through interviews with famous Canadians I learned the reasons behind Quebec separatism, Canadian nationalism, and why Americans don’t know anything about the world and don’t consider themselves world citizens.
That evening we went to the opening ceremonies for the Northern Arts Festival. We had a great time seeing traditional drum dancers and throat singers and ran into Amir, a guy we had met earlier in the week. Amir was born in Sudan, near the confluence of the Blue Nile and White Nile and is Nubian. He has been in Inuvik 14 years and made himself a vital part of the community. He now has his own security and property-management business and is a volunteer fireman and ice-rescue specialist. We talked for quite a long time after the opening ceremony and he suddenly said, ‘Let me introduce you to the Premier” (meaning Floyd Roland, Premier of the North West Territory, who had made a speech during the opening ceremony and grew up in Inuvik). Amir introduced us to Mr. Roland who gave us a very warm welcome and asked about our trip up the Dempster Highway.
We then returned to our campground for the night and were surprised to see it was almost midnight. What a great day.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Thursday, 10 July-
This morning we first drove through the town cemetery (since it was on the road to town) and found it very busy. Town workers were busy mowing and trimming in preparation for the 50th anniversary celebration. We then visited the Inuvik Visitor’s Center and enjoyed a long talk with staffer Naudia Lennie. Naudia is an Invaluit and gave us some insight. The Arts Fest, for example, is simply a tourist thing while the native meetings at Fort McPherson are, as Naudia put it “the real thing”—and very important. While the former has a cultural aspect, the latter is primarily a business meeting, a time to work on problems and make decisions. It has a time for celebration but is critical to the self-government of the native groups. Naudia said we would have been welcomed but it would have been clear that the meetings were not a show for tourists. We mentioned meeting Robert Alexis at Peel River. She knows him well and says he’s absolutely perfect for the job (as we found). But when we mentioned the cemetery, she said ‘Don’t get me started’ and said she’s mad at them—they lost track of her grandmother’s grave.
We shopped for groceries and ice at the North Mart and visited several gift shops and the coffee shop. We went to the community greenhouse but found it closed until this evening. But as we were about to leave a car pulled up and local resident Roy Taylor offered to let us in—he was there to water his plants so we might as well go along. Roy is a native of Cape Breton and came to the North for work years ago. Like so many residents, he only intended staying a short time but loves the area. The community greenhouse is a great idea. The building was a former hockey/curling arena built in a Quonset style. To make it a greenhouse, the metal roof panels were removed and replaced with high-quality clear fiberglass greenhouse panels. The greenhouse is not heated except by the rays of the sun so there’s a growing season of late May until September but all the growing beds were certainly in full bloom today. During our visit Roy gave us directions to the End of the Road, which is simply a dirt road that peters out to nothing but marks the farthest north you can drive in all of Canada. It’s located a few clicks out of town, out Navy Road. Our little adventure soon turned into a badly pot-holed road, then a progressively-worse mudhole. We finally just stopped and marked our position on the GPS, then backed up some two hundred meters to reasonably-solid ground. So we didn’t quite make it to the end of the ‘End of the Road’ road.
We then drove to Inuvik Centennial Library and spent the rest of the day updating and posting the blog, then making phone calls home (via Skype).
=========== end of post ===============
(posted from Inuvik Centennial Library, Inuvik, YT)
(This post covers 10-12 July, 2008)
-------------------------------------------------------------
Saturday, 12 July-
We left the campground late this morning and took a look at the one-hole golf course. Actually, what’s known as the town golf course is a driving range with cutouts of moose, polar bear, and caribou for the golfers to aim for. Beside the driving range is the first and so-far-only hole of the golf course. It’s just now being built. We saw rolls of Astroturf lying alongside the first tee, yet to be installed.
After lunch in the visitor’s center parking lot we again went to the library, this time to see two films I had picked out yesterday. The first, “Summer of the Locheaux” was about an aboriginal summer fish-camp on the Arctic Red River. We learned how the natives caught and prepared fish for drying, then packed up the bales of dried fish for storage. “Dry-fish” is a delicacy around here.
The second film was “Between Two Worlds”, a documentary about Joseph Idlout, an aboriginal who, in 1952 was at the top of his world as a leader, hunter and fisherman in his community but a mere 13 years later committed suicide.
We then went to the Ocean Day celebration (one of three celebrations running this weekend). Labashi wanted to try the muskrat. (Un)fortunately, we arrived at the Traditional Foods area too late and the roast muskrat was already gone. But we did have traditional ‘doughnuts’ and two types of mukluk (seal blubber). The ‘popcorn mukluk’ was a mukluk deep-fried for a minute or two and it was delicious. We could eat the outer layer of the regular mukluk (not bad) but the inner layer was too rubbery—too much like a big piece of gristle. It may not have been thoroughly defrosted, though—we’re not sure.
We then watched several of the traditional games, including a muskrat-skinning race. It was amazing to watch the elder ladies skin a muskrat in less than a minute while everyone else struggled to get it done. Late in the day I participated in the final event—the blanket toss. I was one of the guys on the rope around the outer edge of the canvas ‘blanket’ as we tossed one of the aboriginal elders way up into the air to look for animals.
We then drove down to the riverside park for supper before going back to the campground for the night.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Friday, 11 July-
Today we started out looking for ‘Future Road’ where there’s supposed to be a geocache. But that road is now blocked off and has No Tresspassing signs so that didn’t work out. But that did lead us to the float-plane base area and we enjoyed looking around there and at the sign at the end of that road: “Ice Road to Aklavik”. Aklavik is another small community some 35 miles away but only accessible by road during the winter, after the MacKenzie River delta freezes up.
We stopped at the Visitor’s Center and talked with a college-age girl (I didn’t get her name) whose father is owner of the MacKenzie Hotels chain, a very upscale chain. She’s very bright, articulate, funny and just full of life. I’m sure she has a bright future.
We then drove to Aurora College for a walk through their classroom building. I enjoyed reading their catalog of courses (“Diamond Cutting”, “Underground Mining”, “Traditional Arts”, etc). While viewing the artwork in the halls we ran into the Director of Programs (I think that was her title), who told us 99 per cent of the students there are aboriginal. The computer lab looked like much like any other small-college lab in layout but the computers were all new Dells with flat-screen monitors. No hand-me-down equipment here!
We then went to the library where Labashi worked on an email to friends and family while I watched movies in the Community Room. I watched ‘What the Hell’s Going on Up There?”, ‘Kluane National Park’, and ‘Arctic River’. The first was a terrific farce which explains to Americans what’s ‘going on’ with Canada. Through interviews with famous Canadians I learned the reasons behind Quebec separatism, Canadian nationalism, and why Americans don’t know anything about the world and don’t consider themselves world citizens.
That evening we went to the opening ceremonies for the Northern Arts Festival. We had a great time seeing traditional drum dancers and throat singers and ran into Amir, a guy we had met earlier in the week. Amir was born in Sudan, near the confluence of the Blue Nile and White Nile and is Nubian. He has been in Inuvik 14 years and made himself a vital part of the community. He now has his own security and property-management business and is a volunteer fireman and ice-rescue specialist. We talked for quite a long time after the opening ceremony and he suddenly said, ‘Let me introduce you to the Premier” (meaning Floyd Roland, Premier of the North West Territory, who had made a speech during the opening ceremony and grew up in Inuvik). Amir introduced us to Mr. Roland who gave us a very warm welcome and asked about our trip up the Dempster Highway.
We then returned to our campground for the night and were surprised to see it was almost midnight. What a great day.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Thursday, 10 July-
This morning we first drove through the town cemetery (since it was on the road to town) and found it very busy. Town workers were busy mowing and trimming in preparation for the 50th anniversary celebration. We then visited the Inuvik Visitor’s Center and enjoyed a long talk with staffer Naudia Lennie. Naudia is an Invaluit and gave us some insight. The Arts Fest, for example, is simply a tourist thing while the native meetings at Fort McPherson are, as Naudia put it “the real thing”—and very important. While the former has a cultural aspect, the latter is primarily a business meeting, a time to work on problems and make decisions. It has a time for celebration but is critical to the self-government of the native groups. Naudia said we would have been welcomed but it would have been clear that the meetings were not a show for tourists. We mentioned meeting Robert Alexis at Peel River. She knows him well and says he’s absolutely perfect for the job (as we found). But when we mentioned the cemetery, she said ‘Don’t get me started’ and said she’s mad at them—they lost track of her grandmother’s grave.
We shopped for groceries and ice at the North Mart and visited several gift shops and the coffee shop. We went to the community greenhouse but found it closed until this evening. But as we were about to leave a car pulled up and local resident Roy Taylor offered to let us in—he was there to water his plants so we might as well go along. Roy is a native of Cape Breton and came to the North for work years ago. Like so many residents, he only intended staying a short time but loves the area. The community greenhouse is a great idea. The building was a former hockey/curling arena built in a Quonset style. To make it a greenhouse, the metal roof panels were removed and replaced with high-quality clear fiberglass greenhouse panels. The greenhouse is not heated except by the rays of the sun so there’s a growing season of late May until September but all the growing beds were certainly in full bloom today. During our visit Roy gave us directions to the End of the Road, which is simply a dirt road that peters out to nothing but marks the farthest north you can drive in all of Canada. It’s located a few clicks out of town, out Navy Road. Our little adventure soon turned into a badly pot-holed road, then a progressively-worse mudhole. We finally just stopped and marked our position on the GPS, then backed up some two hundred meters to reasonably-solid ground. So we didn’t quite make it to the end of the ‘End of the Road’ road.
We then drove to Inuvik Centennial Library and spent the rest of the day updating and posting the blog, then making phone calls home (via Skype).
=========== end of post ===============
posted by Bezabor&Labashi | 22:40
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