So I have a five day weekend, which would normally be very good news, but right now is not. Originally the plan was for this weekend to be the capstone of my practicum, Pascale, Loolie and Matthieu were going to head to their cabin down the coast for a few days and had invited me along. There I was likely to see seals, belugas and maybe even polar bear, and on the way there and back I was likely to see caribou and ptarmigan. Not to mention the breathtaking views. Anyway life has conspired against me and they won't be going, c'est la vie. I looked around for someone who was going out on the land and who wouldn't mind a useless southerner coming along. Again, no luck, especially since the land is quite challenging right now due to the soft snow, it's no place for the inexperienced. So all in all, I wish I had my remaining three teaching days right now so I could go home earlier.
In any case all was not lost, yesterday was hamlet day which was a blast. Half the town was down on the ice and there was games, skidoo races, a draw, bannock and meat and lots of socializing. The skidoo races bear special mention, the first set was the men and the second was the women. As you can see they were pulling empty gas cans behind the sleds with yarn. The idea being that you couldn't just go all out and let your horsepower win, you had to have finesse so that the yarn wouldn't break. All of them men lost their cans at least once and had to get off and retie them, leading to a close finish when Billy came from behind to win while the leader was retying his 5 feet from the finish line. The women were another story, I think only one lost her can and over all they finished must faster. Insert observations on the difference between the sexes here.
As an aside, you wouldn't believe how friendly this town is. As I got there, before I had a chance to say more than "hi" I already had students, elders and people I don't know yelling "hey, Doug, your turn!" for the game I walked up on. I love the people here.
