Fort Albany, Saturday March 31, 2012

Apologies for the delay, internet hasn't been worth using for the last couple of days, but - 'Flood Watch' is still on!

There are no recorded changes in the rivers; levels remain the same (too high) and nothing new has broken up. Most of the those around us have frozen back over slightly but there are still huge chunks of ice sticking up everywhere. When the light hits it exactly right a lot of them turn a gorgeous light blue, almost aqua colour.


Word along the grape vine is that we may not see break up until mid April. There's more than one household ready for it. Walking to look at the Causeway and back you can see many people have turned over their boats on their front lawns and are ready for a BIG flood. I wasn't too worried until I saw how many locals were freaked out by this. When in Rome...

There's a fairly consistent open spot in the ice across the smaller causeway from the main island to Anderson's Island, so the band office organized a couple of people to use their boats and ferry people across to get supplies at the Northern store. It's free and I was looking forward to it, but they've only done it once so far. We'll have to wait until next week and see what happens.




Gas prices are up considerably from previous years so they aren't offering the much talked of $40/person helicopter rides. So, unfortunately the only way I'm getting on is if we evacuate. They still have one circling around every 15 minutes or so, monitoring levels around Albany. They're doing a great job.



Via the school web page, teachers were called into school to prepare work packages on Thursday evening for delivery Friday. It was meant to be enough for four days and I expect we'll be called in to do it again next week.
We were just about to do a test in math, so what I gave them so far is simply review. I'm not sure they'd be able to start a new chapter on their own but we may have to try it out...
Oh and we also had our Farmer's Market. We showed up literally two minutes after it began and most of the tables were next to empty; I've never seen the cafeteria so full. I guess not everyone was able to get on the boats.

My friend commissioned one of his younger cousins to drive us via ski-doo across to Northern just yesterday. It was a beautiful and much-needed break from the monotony of early retirement. We went early on in the morning halfway down the dyke road before the ice melted any. Even so there were a couple slush pockets we got splattered in. Later on we heard someone went through and got stuck, but no one hurt and the machine got out too!

 Have a beautiful weekend and enjoy the day everyone :)