The Dance and Family Fun Night

On Thursday night Coraline went to her first "night time" school dance.  (Every year she has participated in an elementary school "Dance-a-thon" fundraiser that involved all kids from kindergarten and up.  This is different.) She is on student council, so she helped decorate the gym and designed posters to put up around the school.  She is also more than a little nervous.  Do you remember your first junior high dance?  Wondering if anyone would ask you to dance? Kind of confused as to what it was all really about? The stress!

She had initially decided not to wear a Halloween costume to the Halloween dance.  After all, she is in middle school and costumes are EMBARRASSING.  However, the day of the dance she found out all student council members must wear a costume.  To compromise, she decided on cool color-sprayed hair, and face paint.

Purple and blue hair

The dress Coraline wore.

I went along to chaperone.  Since the school was encouraging everyone to dress up, I chose to dress up as the "Other Mother" from the movie Coraline (one of MY Coraline's favorite movies).  It worked out perfectly! I didn't need to worry about embarrassing my daughter because no one knew who I was, plus I had a great time scaring the kids!  Some of the braver ones came up to ask me how I got the buttons to stick to my eyes.  Eyelash glue! 

Other Mother and daughter selfie.

Coraline with a new friend at the dance. There is a line-up
for the canteen behind them.

It was a very enjoyable night.  The school was excellent about policing the kids and controlling who came in and out, and there were lots of chaperones on hand.  About 20 minutes before the dance ended someone pulled the fire alarm (Ah, middle school. You haven't changed.).  Everyone had to immediately go outside.  It was at least -15 and there is lots of snow on the ground. The schools here have employed a common-sense approach--due to the extreme cold, adults at the school are permitted to re-enter the school multiple times to pile outdoor items (coats, boots) onto dollies and pull the dollies into the parking lot so the kids can grab stuff to put on. This gets the kids out of the school and safely away from a fire, but then not die of hypothermia.

Halloween seems to be a Big Deal here in Iqaluit.  There are multiple events going on everywhere in town.  The high school hosts a haunted house event, the local inn has a craft/dress up night for little kids, the library is hosting a Halloween "Craft-a-thon", and the local bar is having a costume party. (I think it is so cold for long, holidays are seen as a great excuse to bundle up and and get out of the house.)

One of the things I've noticed is the elementary school in particular goes out of its way to make the kids feel like going to school means belonging to a special community. The principal, Sonja Lonsdale, is in large part responsible for making this happen. Joamie School (where Captain Jack Sparrow attends) also has a special Halloween event. I first heard about the Halloween Family Fun Night at the first day of school assembly.  Yep, back in September Sonja was already planning for Halloween.

Posing at the house before we left in his Ninja costume.

"Scary" ninja face paint. "Make it look like my face has
been slashed open, Mommy!"

There was a bake sale, canteen, cake walk, carnival style games, face painting, guess the weight of the pumpkin, 50/50 raffle, and more. There were hundreds of people there, and the school raised $6000.

A truly northern penny-auction.  Up for grabs is a
homemade parka to fit a 5 year old, and 2 pitsi,
dried arctic char. Tickets for these items were far
 more expensive than the tickets for lego sets, books,
or other more typical prizes.

Cupcake sale

CJS trying out the bowling game.

Many parents carrying their toddlers in amautis.

I won a cake at the cake walk!  Yay!

Coraline with friend. Notice the ulu on her sweatshirt?
Ulu's are the women's traditional tool for cutting and scraping
seal meat and blubber away from the skin.

So, next up: actual Halloween!  Also, in the news today: We have had yet another polar bear sighting.  I think its neat that they found its "stash" of frozen food.  I wonder if I will get to see one while we are up here?

Shopping Part 2: Arctic survival and more!

When JJ and I lived in Kingston there used to be this great old department store called "S&R Department Store".  The building dated from 1812.  The S&R department store had cheap versions of EVERYTHING: scratchy socks, cheap wooden drying racks for drying your clothes, groceries, craft supplies, kitchen supplies, clothing, etc.  Imagine a giant four-story Biway (not sure what the American equivalent would be, maybe a cheaper version of K-mart?). It even had an elevator man. His job was to stand in the elevator, ask you what floor you wanted to go to, then push the button for you. I think his job was a holdover from the 1800's.......or whenever elevators were invented.

I thought S&R was the craziest store I had ever been in. I didn't think any store could rival it for character.

I was wrong.

Northmart and Arctic Ventures (see previous post on groceries) are amazing.  Northmart is like Walmart, but for the north.  Half grocery store, half "whatever-else" store. And "whatever-else" includes snowmobiles, potted plants, fishing lures, and animal pelts.

Arctic Ventures is 3-ish floors of crazy.  The first floor is mainly groceries, plus what I have dubbed the "magic window".  The magic window is where you can buy fishing licenses, top up your cell phone minutes, submit colouring contest entries, and any number of miscellaneous things. Three-quarters of the way upstairs is another "sort-of" floor, like a mezzanine.  An alarm bings, and you can walk to the right of the stairs through the only electronics store in town. This is also where you will find the only cellular phone dealer.  Continue on through the "appliance" section, and the "furniture" section.

Arctic Ventures' magic window of fun.

View of the grocery section from the furniture/electronics mezzanine.

Ovens, storage trunks, couches, shower curtains, and more.

You can choose to bypass the mezzanine by going left at the top of the first set of stairs. Another alarmed entrance brings you to the clothing section. The clothing section consists mostly of parkas, sweatpants, and the odd ladies top or kids' t-shirt. This "3rd floor" also houses kitchenware, stationary, a children's toy section (the quality is somewhere between china town and the dollar store), lightbulbs, and an extremely limited hardware aisle (its only half an aisle, actually). Oh, and fabric. And animal pelts.

You cannot cross from one alarmed-section of the store to another without first paying for whatever goods you chose from that particular section.  It is a unique shopping experience.

Clothing and false eyelashes at Arctic Ventures.

Fabric and craft supplies.

Sealskin owls and carved polar bears. 

I can't imagine trying to supply an isolated population of 7,700 with all the basics of life to get them through an arctic winter. Without these two stores this city would cease to function. Although the two department stores stock many of the basics, the hunt for "stuff" is still challenging.  The lid for the garbage can in the kitchen broke off our first week here.  To replace it with something appropriate for a kitchen (not a big "Oscar the Grouch" trash can that you would see outside on garbage day), I had to order online.  When hockey season started for CJS I realized we didn't have a rack to hang his gear on to dry it out.  That also had to be ordered online. Captain Jack is currently sleeping on a mattress on the floor--he broke his bunkbed ladder and we are waiting for a new hook to come in via Amazon. 
Another little gem of a store I found within my first couple of weeks here is called "Baffin Electronics". It is AWESOME!  It has a huge selection of ribbon, fabric, sewing machines, yarn, paint, and shoes.  Since I am going to try to learn to knit while I'm up here, I was excited to find it.  You know what it doesn't have? Yup. Electronics.

Baffin Electronics.  Even the store itself is for sale!

Quilting supplies.

Best craft and sewing store in town. 

Arctic Survival Store is great, too.  They sell fishing poles, parkas, boots, outdoor gear, and guns. And pelts.

All your hunting needs.

You know what ALL of these store sell? (Did you catch it in the body of the blog? Or are you just skimming?) Animal pelts.  I have seen them in every store.  They are dyed various colors and ready to add to a parka, or make into mittens, or a scarf, etc.

Conveniently dyed a variety of colours.

Electric blue sealskin is awesome!

Animals pelts aren't just for show, or for tourists, or because the Inuit think they are "trendy".  They are really, really important in the winter up here (more on that later).  The fact that you will never find tomato red (see it peeking out?) or lime green sealskin anywhere else is just bonus.

There are so many things coming up!  Halloween in the snow, Captain Jack's birthday, Family Fun Night at Joamie School....I'm not sure what you'll be reading about next! Any requests?

Bonus post: In honour of Gord Downie

For those of you who don't know (I know I am only talking to my American friends), Gord Downie was a Canadian icon and lead singer in a band called the Tragically Hip.  You can find out more information on his career here.  He was also a very strong advocate for Indigenous rights, and beloved by First Nation and Inuit communities. 

In fact, he was beloved by all of Canada.  In 2016 the Tragically Hip announced that Gord had brain cancer.  The band held a cross-country "final tour".  Canadians scrambled, crashed the Ticketmaster site, then fought over tickets until the band listed extra tour dates. Even those sold out within minutes. JJ and I were amazingly lucky and got to go to the Ottawa concert.

Gord Downie
source

Gord Downie passed away on the 17th. Many people in Canada were deeply moved by his passing, including our Prime Minister, who teared up talking about him on national television. The link to Gord Downie's obituary is here.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau getting emotional
talking about Gord Downie.
source

There is a local band in Iqaluit called The Jerry Cans.  I say "local", but they have toured all over the world.  The Jerry Cans have done a tribute to Gord Downie by putting their own spin on the tune "Ahead by a Century", complete with lyrics in Inuktitut and accompanied by throat singing.  It really is an amazing rendition, and brought a tear to JJ's eye.  The video is too large for me to embed in the post. Please click on the song title above and scroll down the page (not far) to find it. 

source

Aqsarniit

As seen from our back deck.

"Darling", said JJ to me as he was putting the dog out.  "Come forth, and gaze upon the northern lights, whose beauty is so unfathomable, it pales only in comparison to yours."  Or "Hey, c'mere! You gotta see this!"

We have been having spectacular displays of northern lights lately.  Every night before we go to bed we end up standing on the back deck staring up at the sky.

If you've never seen the northern lights, they are very difficult to describe.  A lot of photos you find on the internet have been heavily photoshopped and stylized to enhance the lights, which are a softer green than most people think. At times they can be difficult to really "see", as your eyes keep trying to focus on the soft dancing blurs. Then a sudden burst of brightness and clarity will occur, and they are as bright as Christmas lights. Its nearly impossible to capture the reality, although there are some time-lapse videos out there that come close.

The Inuit refer to the northern lights as "Aqsarniit".  "Aurora borealis" is a more scientific term.  I think L.M. Montgomery's Anne Shirley would describe them as "soft glowing waves of viridescence painted upon the depths of ink black canvas".  

The first night the lights presented themselves in full splendour JJ grabbed his iPhone in an attempt to take photos.  After a few minutes he calmed himself down in time to keep from throwing the phone off the deck into the lake.  The next night he pulled out his old Canon and googled "taking photos of northern lights." After some trial and error of playing with camera settings, he got some amazing shots (all the photos on this post are his).

Some people up here go to a website to check out the conditions for northern lights:

source

Walking out onto the back deck works just as well.

When we first got here the sun was setting late into the evening and the northern lights were happening after the kids were in bed.  Now we are able to spot the lights as early as 7:30pm.  In the middle of winter they will be even earlier, but at that point, it will likely be so cold that we won't be able to stand outside and look for long. Tonight, the kids put their coats, hats, and boots on over their pyjamas just to take a look.

Its moments like these that I think everyone will remember forever.

Email subscribers getting shafted?

Hi guys!  It has come to my attention that my email subscribers were not notified of the last blog update.  Sorry! I have no idea what happened.  I've changed the settings so that email subscribers should only get the first few lines of the blog, as the problem may have been that the last blog post was too....ahem.....large a file to make it through....

Sorry guys, I think this means you may need to push a link to get to the actual blog instead of just perusing your email. (Let's hope this works.) Scroll down on the blog homepage for yesterday's post on sealskin.

On the plus side: bonus photo for today! I saw this on the Iqaluit Public Announcements Facebook group site today.  A ten year old hunted his first polar bear yesterday. 

Sealskin

My mother stands by a sealskin on display at a school.

Many homes here have sealskins drying out in the yard on nice days.  The Inuit have traditionally made their living hunting seals, selling the skins and eating the meat, so obviously the seal hunt is a keystone of Inuit culture. There is no farming up here (permafrost makes it impossible).  No trees for lumber. Historically, Inuit also relied on skins for their homes and their clothing.  Bones were used for utensils, tools, and jewelry. Meat was (and still is in many cases) the primary diet. Many Inuit feel that eating seal meat and drinking seal blood will cure illnesses, and keep you healthy.

A house down the road from ours.

Very familiar sight.

Sealskin is therefore EVERYWHERE up here.  Walking through town you'll see women wearing sealskin hair clips, sporting sealskin flower pins or sealskin purses. The men and boys wear sealskin ties or vests for special occasions (or just to dress "spiffy").  Sealskin boots and mittens are very popular in winter.

Beautiful sealskin coats by Rannva.

Parka by Victoria's Arctic Fashion
(source)

This sealskin purse has an "ulu" design on the front.
Ulu's are used to scrape and clean skins. 

The new aquatic complex has sealskin upholstery on the seats, and the Anglican church has collection plates lined with sealskin that they use during mass.

Sealskin upholstery in the "Elder's Room" at the new
Aquatic Facility in town.

Selling sealskins used to provide the Inuit people with a comfortable living. It doesn't anymore. I did some research to try to figure out why, using Wikipedia and Government of Nunavut websites. I'm not an expert, but it seems many years ago some well-meaning animal activists protested the sale of sealskins with powerful ad campaigns.  These campaigns spanned years; selling us images of the cruel, evil hunter bashing baby seals' brains in with clubs.  To the best of my knowledge, this doesn't actually happen.  For one thing, most Inuit these days hunt with rifles, not clubs. When they do use hakapiks (clubs), they are designed according to regulated specifications (and have been proven to kill quickly and humanely).  And they don't hunt seal pups (the fur is worthless, and hunting them is, in fact, illegal). Seals are not endangered. The population is actually thriving.

There are still, however, a lot of websites out there with misleading information.  To be fair and completely honest, I can't speak to the commercial sealing industry in Newfoundland and northern Quebec. I do know these industries are highly monitored  as to the age of seals hunted and methods used to hunt them. I also know the commercial sealing industry takes in far fewer seals every year than the Department of Fisheries and Ocean's quotas allow. (source)

Beautiful sealskin kamiks for sale on Facebook.

Seal skin earrings, pins. Two seal skin poppies.
All for sale on Facebook.

George Wenzel (a McGill University geographer and anthropologist) worked with Inuit on Baffin Island for two decades.  His study, called The impact of the animal rights movement upon the culture and economy of the Canadian Inuit, "was among the first to reveal how animal rights groups, "well-meaning people in the dominant society through misunderstanding and ignorance can inflict destruction" on a vulnerable minority." (source)

According to a 2002 peer-reviewed study done by five Canadian veterinarians and funded by the Canadian Veterinary Medical Association (CVMA), "the large majority of seals taken during this hunt (at best, 98% in work reported here) are killed in an acceptably humane manner."

Even the World Wildlife Fund has changed its position.

In 2005, The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) commissioned the Independent Veterinarians Working Group Report.  With reference to video evidence, the report states" "Perception of the seal hunt seems to be based largely on emotion, and on visual images that are often difficult even for experienced observers to interpret with certainty.  While a hakapik strike on the skull of a seal appears brutal, it is humane if it achieves rapid, irreversible loss of consciousness leading to death." (source)

Sealskin seals and ravens (left), mittens made with dyed sealskin and fox fur (right).

The damage, however, has already been done. The Inuit people are struggling economically, and sealskins don't sell for nearly as much as they used to.  Many countries have even banned importing sealskins at all (although this is changing--see the report linked below). Recently, after extensive review, the European Union has decided to lift their moratorium on sealskins hunted in Nunavut.
http://www.gov.nu.ca/eia/news/european-union-approves-exemption-nunavut-seal-hunt

This is the principal of Aqsarniit school addressing the crowd during a school
function.  He is wearing a sealskin tie and vest.

Sealskin flower hair clip.

Here is my soapbox speech: I know there are a lot of people out there who feel that wearing "fur" of any kind is a crime.  Some think seals shouldn't be hunted simply because they are "cute". Some feel hunting and killing of any animal is wrong. These same people will often happily carry leather briefcases or wear leather boots, which seems odd to me. They may also have no problem consuming chicken (many of which are raised in atrocious conditions) or veal. If your argument is that you won't wear fur because of "cruelty to animals", there are many other lifestyle changes you will need to make as well. 

All that aside, to each their own. I respect the opinion that wearing fur is wrong. I will happily share a meal with any friendly vegan who chooses to wear canvas shoes and carries a purse made of recycled plastic (which are also cool!). If you feel its OK to wear a leather belt but sealskin is wrong because....well....whatever your reasons are, so be it.  We can still be friends.

I, on the other hand, will happily contribute to the economy of Nunavut by wearing my amazing sealskin boots and these mittens!  Woot!

Most gorgeous mittens ever from Rannva.
(These technically aren't "mine" yet, I bought them for JJ
to give them to me as a Christmas present.)

Author's note: I was going to save this post until later, but the topic seems timely right now.  Seal meat is making the news (find the Toronto Star article here) because of a restaurant in Toronto run by Joseph Shawana of Wikwemikong First Nation. Chef Joseph Shawana has had the audacity, in his Indiginous inspired restaurant Kukum Kitchen, to serve harp seal-- a traditional Indiginous food. In response, Jennifer Matos has authored a petition calling for the sale of seal meat to be banned in Toronto. I'm not sure what's really driving this petition, but it is full of a lot of misinformation I've already talked about above (like how baby seals are killed inhumanely).  Matos has further stated "the slaughter of any being is wrong", so I'm not sure why she has targeted seals and not all meat.   

I have signed the counter-petition (found here) started by Aylan Couchie from Nipissing First Nation. Thankfully, the counter-petition has nearly as may signatures as the original petition.  I think this shows people are investigating the facts of the seal hunt for themselves. Of his counter-petition Couchie says "the anti-fur and anti-sealing movements have jeopardized First Nations ways of life. It's stuff that Indigenous people encounter on a regular basis. There are often misinformed and misguided perceptions.  I was frustrated that this was another thing we must address."