Fort Albany, Tuesday December 13, 2011

Christmas is here. The week is half over and some of the teachers are heading for the airport as early as tomorrow morning. Some of the kids have already left for some of the surrounding communities to visit family and my class numbers keep rising and dipping, almost per day!
I was able to squeeze in a charter flight out of F.A. on Friday morning and won't be returning until January 3rd, so I'll take this opportunity to wish you all a very merry Christmas and an exciting New Year!

Fort Albany, Saturday December 10, 2011

A quick update since the last post:

- The Northern Lights have made another brief appearance.
- Temperaures have repeatedly hit -30C before the windchill.

- Prices at the Northern Store have gone up considerbly.
- Several skidoo rides have been offered and accepted this past week.
- The winter road is almost safely accessible.
- The school's Christmas concert went swimmingly (my kids performed a Santa play written by yours truely) and were complimented specifically on their Cree carol singing :)
- I'm now a quarter of a century old!
- Our community services' holiday dinner was last night. It was mouth-wateringly delicious but unfortunately my tickets were not pulled for the 32'' flat screen t.v... next time.
- The Christmas bazaar was fun, busy and a definite fundraising success.
- One week left until the holidays!

Fort Albany, Sunday November 27, 2011

Well I don't have any pictures. But I saw a fox out on the ice on Thursday and a beautiful white rabbit in the woods on Saturday. Unfortunately all the snow that's been falling and melting and refreezing makes walking a very loud exercise lately so I was unable to get a picture of either of them.
It seems like close to a foot of snow has fallen since last night and it's still coming down. Quite a winter wonderland out there again. Belinda seems happiest when she's able to bounce through it while playing with all her other neighbourhood canine friends rolling around in the front yard.

Fort Albany, Wednesday November 23, 2011

It’s been a bit crazy around here. Depending on how you look at life’s glass of water, I guess you could either say that it’s been stressful as hell and testing our sanity, or that it’s just a way to better appreciate the upcoming holidays and all the joys they include J

The Northern Store is handing out sheets for a colouring contest for the kids, so I’ve grabbed some of those and it’ll certainly be a nice treat for them next week.

I stayed after school a bit later last night and almost finished decorating the door – pictures to be presented soon! The classroom and bulletin board are next on the list. We’ve also begun our Christmas play – a short comedy on losing Santa and how the elves figure out who’s a fake and who’s the real St. Nick. A lot of the kids wanted to be Santa so I added in a few more to the line up ;)

The weather’s warmed up quite a bit from the last few days and was a couple degrees above freezing today – everything’s melting!

 

This is a beatutiful house they're building down the road where we go for a lot of walks. They've been going mad trying to get the roof finished before the real snow falls and I think they've just recently succeeded. It's gonig to be a 'quaint' wood cabin with two levels plus, and only seven simple rooms. A stone's throw away from the river and cozily nestled in to the bush just so. Sigh.

Fort Albany, Sunday November 20, 2011

The snow is officially here to stay. It hit -20C last night and it's a beautiful day outside now. We had a PD Day on Friday so we've had a bit of a long weekend to enjoy it all.

Fort Albany, Thursday November 10, 2011

Tuesday night there was a light drizzle with dark clouds at one end of the river and a brilliant sunset at the other. It was another perfect set-up for a rainbow, this time reaching from one riverbank to the other. Definetly making it one of my favourite evenings to be caught standing in the rain.



Yesterday evening was parent teacher interviews so I was stuck in the school for just over 13 hours. I'm sure the weather was interesting.
This morning we woke up to wet wet wet snow. Belinda (and all the other dogs) absolutely loved it!

We were able to get out again this evening before it got dark and have another fun walk. A couple of the bigger stray dogs came along with us and were in very playful moods so the walk was a little more tiring on my arms than usual but I think all the dogs had fun at least. Everything's beautiful at the moment and I don't think it's stopped snowing once today. It's just all so wet though. Great packing snow - making the snowman population of Fort Albany appearing to be almost on par with the humans ;)

As well as snowmen, I've been hearing a combination of four wheelers and skidoes driving by the house all evening. It's almost all the kids could talk about at school today - which is saying a lot considering the MW3 video game came out just two days ago!

Well, keep dreaming of a white Chrismas - it's coming true :)

Fort Albany, Saturday November 5, 2011

The tide was low when Bel and I went for our morning walk to the river, so we had a chance to play a bit on the ice along the edge. She wasn't quite sure if she wanted to go onto it at first but she was chomping down on it in no time!

The day ended up warming up quite a bit and some of the teachers started another bon fire out back behind the houses.

Bonus: All my progress reports are done - oh and it's Daylight Savings tonight!

Fort Albany, Thursday November 3, 2011

Halloween evening, around the same time the150-200 trick or treaters started trickling off I almost tripped over a puppy on the way back into my house. As it was below freezing and I didn't want to find an adorably frozen puppy on my front porch in the morning, I took him in for the night. Luckily, it turned out that he belongs to one of my own students so he was able to go back home Tuesday at lunch. He looks like a mini black lab and his name is Muskwa (No idea if that's how you spell it, but it means 'bear' in Cree).

Fort Albany, Monday October 31, 2011

Happy Halloween!

Today was absolutely crazy! Everyone brought in sugar packed candy from a kid's chocolate cake to jello and cookies from the health centre ;) All was declicious! One of the teachers put on a dance for the kids in the morning and then a movie in the afternoon; Hocus Pocus! Unfortunately we didn't have time to finish it before the costume competitions. I wish I could show you pictures of some of my kid's costumes - they were fantastic and the grade 7's came around right after the bell to paint anyone's face who didn't have a costum. Everyone did a fantastic job!

 We had a class competition for the best jack o' lantern and the kids voted for the one above. So last weekend I carved and decorated as accurately as I could with as few embelishments as I could manage.

Fort Albany, Friday October 28, 2011

As Halloween is fast approaching we've had to throw something together in terms of festive decor. Most of the first year teachers, including myself, were unaware of the door decorating competition until after we'd finished decorating, but I like to think we all did a pretty swell job anyway!

Fort Albany, Sunday October 23, 2011

Returning home from an afternoon of work at the school I found the neighbourhood 'alpha' out front one of the teacher's houses munching on some leftovers; A lucky hunter was feeling generous and threw her a moose leg :) She jealously guarded and ate the entire thing all evening.

Fort Albany, Tuesday October 18, 2011

The weather's getting cooler with snow a couple of times and frost every morning. It only seems to thaw on our walking road by the time I get home from school. The mud has turned positively intricate while frozen though and a simpe pot hole can be seen as a true, and beautiful example of the changing seasons.

You'll notice the dog beside Belinda is getting noticably bigger each time he makes an appearance - he's almost as tall as Belinda now and clearly still has a ways to go. When I got here in August, he wasn't even up to my knees!

Fort Albany, Sunday October 16, 2011

Update: It's snowing :)

Fort Albany, Saturday October 15, 2011

We had Tipee Days at school on Friday and I was able to take lots of pictures. It's basically a chance for the kids the have a little dose of Cree traditions. Some of it seemed pretty routine to them (which I guess is a good thing, meaning they're in touch with their own culture) but other stuff was more foreign to them than it was to me. The organizers did a great job and it ran really smoothly until the end of the day when the skies let loose.
The day began just after morning announcements and went straight through to the bell at the end of the day.
The first presentation was on the Seven Grandfather Teachings, which I am proud to say, my kids were able to name all of: Honour, Respect, Love, Courage, Humility, Wisdom, Kindness. Now we need to practice displaying them..

Our second activity was in Tipee 3 - Bannock and Tea. Unfortunatly they weren't entirely prepared yet and we missed out on the bannock. No worries though, it was also served at the dinner in the evening and had the added bonus of having rasins and butter. The tea was delicious though and was made even better by lots of sugar mixed in using an authentic pine 'stir-stick'. lol.

The third activity on our list was one tipee ove and that of Traditional foods - Fish fry and Caribou. There were two different types of fish - pike and walleye. The man running it showed us how to fillet them and where the bones were in both. The kids enjoyed the idea of eating the cheek the most I think. For me, tasting the caribou may have been the highlight of the day. Heavenly.

    

Fourth on our timetable came the third and final tipee, housing nothing but Moose and Goose (which incidentally was a lovely little bar we used to visit in St.Catharines - decorated in a very different style). Here they were simply preparing the food for the feast in the evening. The carving of the meat had no ill side-effects on me but I will admit to being slightly turned off by the discovery of a not entirely matured egg in one of the deceased geese. That being one of the kids' favourite parts, I can't complain!

Following the Moose and Goose, we visited traditional games where we warmed up with some good old-fashion tug-of-war followed by a game I've never seen anything like before but which all the kids were familiar with and absolutely loved. It's called Mooshum and Gookum (translation: Grandfather and Grandmother) where one person is the Mooshum, is armed with a small stick and tries to get people out by tapping them with said stick. Gookum protects all her children by having them line up behind 'her' in a kind of conga line. Obviously they're all running and the line is whipped every which way. Lots of giggles and fun.


From here we went inside for our fifth activity to the Cree classroom (they have Cree class like down South has French class) where we fashioned small medicine bags from dyed deer hide. I asked - they didn't tan it themselves though they have in past years. The picture here is of the one I was lucky enough to make. I tried to make sure I got a chance to try everything as well - what better time to be a tourist?

We got our usual lunch break and went right back into the festivities with some random dancing; line, square and of course, the Macarena. The rain was just starting at this point but was coming down nicely by the time we got called to our next station. Coincidentally, dancing in the rain has always been a personal fav of mine so it was perfecftlyy fine by me!

We went into the highschool side of the school and each attempted to make some beaded key chains. They were in the style that a friend and I used to do as kids - making lizards etc. but more simplistic. Luckily I remembered how to do it because I don't think they were prepared for my full class - most are about half the size.

Following the keychains we trooped back down to the elementary side and visited the Woman's Hand Drumming circle. They explained how to treat their drums with respect and why they wear skirts when they drum. They burned sage - a sacred plant to them and we each took turns cleansing ourselves with the smoke before they began drumming and singing. One of the girls in my class was able to sing along with them in Cree so I was very impressed!

 Our next activity, rabbit snaring, had been moved indoors due to the weather, so our presenter did his best with the chalkboard and artistic abilities. He explained how to spot a rabbit track, where the ideal spot on it might be to set up the snare and how to garauntee the rabbit will go where you want it to. With a few spare minutes he also went over some safety tips which was probably a good idea. A lot of the boys were far more concerned about how to dress camouflaged than how to make sure you don't get misaken for a deer. It took a little while to get the idea across to them.

Our last activity had also been designed for outdoors but was moved to the gym - Basic Survival skills. Between it being 2:45pm on a Friday and the kids and presenter having just about enough fun for one day, I ended up organizing a friendly game of Octopus, one of my all-time favourites and one I haven't gotten to play since I left in August.

The grand finale was of course the community feast. The meat was all donated by community members and prepared by volunteers. The moose meat had been stewed and simmered to a treat but the goose was a little tough and a little disapointing. I'm told it's much better in the spring when they return from eating all the wheat down south. None-the-less, I counted myself lucky enough to find a last, unexpected souviner - a shotgun pellet in a mouthful of goose!

Happy Tipee Days!

Fort Albany, Thursday October 13, 2011

Belinda’s found a new and entertaining (for me at least) way of keeping herself busy while I’m away at school.

I’ve given up trying to keep her off this table – I don’t use it and she has a great view of the sunset. I found her curled up sleeping on it one evening.

Fort Albany, Wednesday October 12, 2011

It's been raining off and on all day but it finally cleared up enough for Bel and I to enjoy our evening walk. Luckily, the sun was still shining enough to set up a breathtaking double rainbow just opposite the sunset to perfectly compliment its own splash of colour. It made my night!

Fort Albany, Monday October 10, 2011

The staff Thanksgiving dinner turned out around 25 people  yesterday afternoon, so it was well attended with lots of helping hands. Just the thing for a lonely weekend.

I made two pies for dessert, an apple and a blueberry. Everything was delicious.

I couldn't resist putting in this picture - this is Belinda's best friend and he couldn't be a more classic puppy if he tried.

Fort Albany, Friday October 7, 2011

Although there have been a few bear sightings around the outskirts of town, including my and Bel’s favourite nook, we have yet to see one for ourselves. Or maybe I shouldn’t include her in this – she grew up here!

Fort Albany, Monday October 3, 2011

We’ve had a few frosts now but several nice days as well. Certainly not on the level of taking a repeat dip in the river however.

 Thanks to a few choice windy days we seem to have lost much of what makes autumn spectacular and the variety of colour has been decreasing noticeably on a daily basis. Belinda seems not to notice as we are now much more easily able to see rabbits and squirrels running through the brush. My arms are getting much stronger as a direct result of said sightings; there are always a couple of inches of silver lining to be found J

Fort Albany, Wednesday September 28, 2011

It got up to 26C today which is comparatively hot when considering it's officially Autumn.
Another teacher and I just returned from a very refreshing dip in the Albany River - fed directly from James Bay. I couldn't quite get Belinda in; proving that she's smarter than we are. haha.







She did have a lot of fun getting the mud off me once we got home though!
Now she's helping me warm up a bit with her head on my toes. Such a sweet girl. Tonight we'll be putting up a baby gate to the living room, hopefully making life a little easier and the house a little more functional.

Fort Albany, Monday September 26, 2011

I just got back from viewing the spectacle that is the Northern Lights! They lit up the entire sky, dancing, shifting and changing colour. It flowed, burst and twirled.
Words can't describe the feeling of awesomeness and beauty.
Cameras were out in full force but I don't think anyone came close to capturing even the idea of them. Good night :)

Fort Albany, Sunday September 25, 2011

Today is my Mom's birthday so I thought I'd dedicate this post to brightening up her day. Enjoy!

 

 

Happy Birthday Mommy, I love you!

Fort Albany, Saturday September 24, 2011

As my grocery order came in yesterday evening I dedicated the morning to making salsa today. This afternoon I got together with another teacher and got our week's planning done all in one go. We also went for a couple of walks and I found out that there's actually a third store in town, just across the road from the Northern actually. Same stuff with similar prices, no idea how they survive.