Fort Albany, Wednesday February 29, 2012

It was a wonderful, near perfect weekend which, in retrospect I suppose should have foreshadowed the hectic week everyone's been experiencing thus far.
Friday evening at the school they were able to hold the somewhat monthly Fresh Foods Market. It's not a whole heap of food, but it's open to the entire community, and has a wide variety of comparatively inexpensive fruits and veggies.

Saturday was a bit of a lazy day but with weather to make you think spring was in the air. My friend and I went for a walk along the high road by the dikes and had a lot of fun letting the dogs off their leads. Belinda is so fast, but she always comes back when she's called and I haven't had any troubles getting her back on her leash.

Oji is the new comer and even when off his leash, he won't go more than ten steps away from either us or Belinda; not used to having an owner yet I suppose.




Sunday brough yet another glorious day which we were fortunate enough to enjoy from the vantage point of a borrowed ski-doo.








The inukshuk we came across was somewhat randomly placed, but very well built, and served it's purpose of being an excellent landmark.
As a physical geography major it's often embarrassing to admit how terribly awful my sense of direction can be, and following the Albany River as it twists and turns meeting up with the many other James Bay tributaries is not the best place to be unsure. Luckily I wasn't in charge of keeping track of the finer details and was left to marvel, uninterrupted at the overwhelmingly breathtaking, rugged landscape.
  

Even discluding our random inukshuk, the entire route was packed full of subtle beauty; terrific ice sculptures, terrifying pockets of open water, and curiously concentrated animal tracks crisscrossing the banks.

It was a Winter day to remember and a perfect prelude to the upcoming Spring.

Fort Albany, Saturday February 25, 2012

It's been getting cold again the last couple of days so I guess there's still hope for the winter road. When we drove on it Monday there were so many slush sections I was almost convinced spring had arrived a couple months early. There were heaps of workers out pushing snow around to patch up certain areas and smooth out others.


As you can see, housing for Attawapiskat is on the move, and has been for a while now. We saw some less-covered homes later on, but the trucks were moving too fast for a picture. They look really nice though!

Fort Albany, Monday February 20, 2012

ALBANY WON CREEHOOPS!



This was the school the tournament was being held at;
Delores D. Echum Composite School

Peetabeck's basketball program has only been running for five years so needless to say a lot of overtime and crazy hard work has been put in by all in order to win it this year. Every last one of them deserve it, and for two of them it was their last year before graduation.

Congratulations High Scool Girls!





Fort Albany, Friday Februay 17, 2012

The Great Moon Gathering started slowly with some visitors from surrounding communities arriving on Wednesday during the school day and most other people following that evening. By the next day there was luggage and sleeping bags crammed in corners, people filling hallways, and a constant supply of coffee coming from three separate locations. It stayed that way up until just a few hours ago. The gym was transformed more times than I thought possible, set for a social, breakfast, lunch, dinner, concert, breakfast, and lunch yet again.

Partially completed mocasins by yours truely

There were booths along the main corridor offering everything from hand crafted cards and information, to wooden Tamarac birds and quilted sleepers for babies.
All workshops were well attended, there was very little confusion throughout and Peetabeck and Albany were represented with pride. The organizers did a wonderful job, everyone enjoyed themselves, learned a lot, and had many great opportunities to network. I actually bumped into one girl that I hadn't seen since teacher's college in Australia; small world.

The keynote speaker for Thursday evening’s dinner was someone I’d been looking forward to, Joseph Boyden, a wonderful author and a very gifted speaker. Much of what he spoke of was either suffused with wisdom or designed to have the crowd laughing. On a few occasions he managed to achieve both simultaneously. The head organizer for this year’s GMG is close friends with him and invited him early on in the preparation. What I took as a joke earlier, I came to find out was true – Joseph Boyden is also friends with the Tragically Hip and was asked if he could get them to come up to provide the big entertainment for the event; which he did.

The first act was Northern Revolution, a band consisting of four of our high school students and they were absolutely spectacular! Gord Downie came out for their last song, Stairway to Heaven and sang with them.

F.A.'s 'Godfather of Music'

This was followed by another band, an Elder from the community who was introduced as `The Godfather’ of music in Fort Albany, a couple of ladies from Sudbury who have recently recorded their first CD and finally our own Grade 8 teacher who absolutely rocked out. They were all wonderful but I think there may just be a few groupies in the school after last night!

Peetabeck's Grade 8 Teacher

Sudbury Ladies

Obviously this culminated in a splendid concert performed by the Tragically Hip who introduced five new songs (I liked Drip, Drip, Drip but there were also a couple other pretty cool songs, one about canoeing and another about/against machines). Their lead singer was constantly talking to and joking with the crowd but seemed at a loss for words when at least a dozen people started goose calling in answer to one of his cracks. Haha!

I've been trying to upload a video of the band's last song and the crowd going crazy... but it's been two hours now and it's not uploaded so I'm not sure it's ever going to.

Fort Albany, Sunday February 12, 2012

It was back up to around -10 all day so I left Bel out and got a lot done around the house. One of my friend's uncles went hunting yesterday with another man and they actually managed to get two bull moose. It's crazy because I heard of very few people who caught anything at all in the fall. And that was when they went out for one or two weeks with their boats. Anyway, he was sharing the meat with his family so I got the privilege of enjoying the freshest moose meat I've ever had (or am likely to have in a very long time). It was chewy without being tough and had a mildly wild flavour; quite different than the deer my dad used to bring home.

This week is a short one in terms of actual class time. Each year one of the communities along the James Bay coast holds a massive conference for anyone involved in any way with education, called the Great Moon Gathering. Called so for the coldest as well as the last month of winter. For the Cree it is very similar to our New Years, celebrating the past year and welcoming the next. They've created a website if you'd like to read more. I find it really quite nice; www.greatmoongathering.com
Have a wonderful week. I'll try to come on more often :)

Fort Albany, Saturday February 11, 2012

Hockey season has officially begun now that the ice roads are open to all the communitee. The kids seem to have a different tournament every weekend in some place or other. Unfortunately we seem to be the only place without a rink - even Attawapiskat has one, though the real competition sounds like it's Kash. They beat us 10-3 last weekend.
Last evening we had parent-teacher interviews at the school from 3:30pm-7pm. As a great many of mine were at the tournament in Moose Factory with their kids, I only had 3 parents show up. It's funny, but they actually have a draw for the parents as incentive to come to these meeting nights. Last night the first prize was a t.v., second was an ipod, and the third was a sweet pair of moose hide mits with embroidered beading. The woman who won the t.v. had actually won $20,000 at the Attawapiskat bingo a couple weeks ago so I guess she's confirmed lucky.
On the way home I saw a sight to make me smile. It's been pretty warm here for the last couple of weeks really, but the second half of this week dipped down below -30 before the windchill so needless to say, it's become quite slippery again. So I was nearly home when I caught up to a young kid and her grandfather on their own way home. The kid was skating along in the middle of the road as fast as she could and had a great time showing off when she caught sight of me watching. haha. She was pretty good too!





I almost forgot to mention - I spent almost a full two weeks dog sitting for one of the nurses across the road from me. The dog must be about six months and is a mix between black lab and shepherd. She's named her the Cree word for bear, sounding like 'mush-kwa'. She's not trained but manages to be sweet all the same. Bel and her are best of friends (Sparky's still a close second) and go for most walks together now.

Fort Albany, Saturday January 28, 2012

Today at the school a teacher is running a fundraiser for the Grade 8 graduation trip. Quite creatively, it’s an xbox360 NHL 2012 tournament for kids and adults alike so it should be a good time. He’d had it organized for November but due to a student funeral it was postponed indefinitely. A lot of the kids are leaving for Attawapiskat this evening for a Monster Bingo they do every year so numbers might be a lot lower than they’d be otherwise.  They’re trying to raise enough for the whole class and chaperones to get to Toronto and back as well as accomplish all shopping and sightseeing that’s become an annual part of the trip. I’ll be working the registration/money table so I’m effectively the bouncer.

*  *  *

Well the whole xbox tournament didn’t turn out as well as was hoped for. The numbers were really not there but they still managed to raise over $700 so I think it can still be labelled as a success. They had a bake sale/canteen as well so that’s where all the money actually came in.

At the same time a couple ladies from the community were running the monthly Farmers’ Market. They actually buy everything from Toronto and get it shipped up but it’s in great shape and they’re able to make it incredibly inexpensive compared to anything else around here. I even got an avocado for a dollar!

Fort Albany, Friday January 27, 2012

Monday dawned in much the same fashion as Sunday with higher temperatures and even more snow flying. It was incredibly difficult to see more than a few steps in front and for once there was a noticeable change in attendance; anyone walking arrived while most people with vehicles either never showed up or got stuck so many times we assumed they weren’t making an appearance.

None-the-less, as promised after school I walked ‘Across’ with the kids to go skating at one of the home rinks. I had 12 kids at school and 10 came skating plus a couple extra from other grades. The short cut was by far the most trying component of the whole excursion. Some of the snow was almost up to my waist once we got off the road in a couple of spots – as opposed to just my knees. I’ll admit I was a little surprised at there being open water where we crossed one of the river’s small tributaries. The kids use some rocks to get across and hope their toes stay dry. Once through this part of the obstacle course, I attempted to crawl as quickly and as gracefully up the hill as I could. Oh the trials of a teacher! Skating was great fun with only one minor injury and the kids have been asking me all week when I’m coming again. The line between having a bit of a life and being professional is a little more skewed up here.

Tuesday showed more blizzard but by Wednesday it was really just being blown around. So while some of the drifts were a bit out of hand, I don’t think we really got too much more. The kids have been having heaps of fun making trails with the ski-doos.

There are three girls here from an organization called Elephant Thoughts doing an environmental science workshop with the classes. We went in for an hour and half on Wednesday and learned about different types of energy, how we get it, use it, and conserve it. The kids had a lot of fun, especially with the static electricity ball!

We celebrated a couple of birthdays this week so I tried making mini cheesecakes, one batch classic vanilla and the other chocolate. I couldn’t find any Oreo cookie crumbs so I had to make some... I’ve never eaten so many Oreos in one sitting before. They both turned out though and were thoroughly enjoyed. I forgot to make the promised chocolate chip cookies for today until nearly midnight last night so I got to bed a little later than usual but at least the cookies were fresh J