Talk of the Town

In Ottawa hot topics can include but is no limited to: the Senators hockey team and their players, political scandals at all levels of gov't, and in a few more months the amount of snow that was shovelled.

The conversations everywhere in Fort McPherson for the past week has revolved around the ferry closure.

In actual fact, the McKenzie river ferry was closed two days ago. People here can no longer drive north to Inuvik. In another week the Peel River (at 8 mile) will close so it will be impossible to drive south as well. We will be locked in and the only way out is a $200 flight to Inuvik one way.

A 24 hour notice was issued on Thursday so Truckers in Inuvik wouldn't be stranded for the next 6 weeks. The subject is important because it affects everyone's life. Take for example the cost of food - some product doubles in price and other items close to triple!

Here's the way it works: Everything from paper clips and vehicle parts to food items and furniture is flown to Inuvik by large aircraft and from there delivered to communities like McPherson by smaller aircraft. There are no extra flights to compensate for everything flown in. Instead the airlines reconfigure the space by removing seats and replacing it with cargo .

The exception is larger items like furniture; these are delivered by truck to the river where locals will risk their lives on the semi-frozen river with small boats. They load the boat and push it across the ice; if the ice breaks they jump in the boat! They do get paid quite handsomely for this unique job. Mike Row from "Dirty Jobs" might be interested in this one.

This past Thursday the ferry ride to Tsiigehtchic which is normally 10 minutes was actually closer to an hour because the ferry had to behave like an icebreaker! The captain had the throttle on full steam as we all watched the boat crash into huge chunks of ice. Several times the ferry simply stopped because it couldn't continue forward. In response the Captain (from NB) backed the ferry up about 100 meters or so and then gave it all the engines could muster and charged ahead again to break new ice. He did this several times. I had mixed feelings about this because although I was having a blast and wish I had my camera with me, I kept thinking of the Exxon Valdez fiasco.

It will be early December before the ice is thick enough to drive over. However, I found out I can actually continue to visit Chief Paul Niditchie School on Thursdays without interruption. At the vehicle wait point seen in the posted picture, there's an off-road trail about 20 meters back and off to the right; it's a makeshift path across rough terrain for a half kilometer. This "road" leads to the Arctic Red river and is not as far to cross as the McKenzie river but is still a couple of hundred metres. I'll be able to park the truck at the side of the river and walk across the ice. Apparently an elder in town walked across the ice about 2 weeks ago with a canoe in hand of course - just incase. Sometimes you have to go the extra mile to get a job done but I'll litterally go the extra distance just to get to work.

Substitute Missionaries

The Hanthorns left for a conference about 10 days ago in Whitehorse. It felt lonely without everyone around but we're looking forward to their return tonight or tomorrow.

We certainly had large shoes to fill in their absence. I'm not complaining, just explaining because I thought people would like to know what missionaries do or what a typical week looks like. We actually enjoyed the challenges and task and we've been left with this question: How do they do it? They've done this for the past 18 years! A very dynamic and hard working family who are great embassadors for God.

Here's what we did while they were away:

1- Looked after 3 dogs; two small and one large. The small ones were really adept at locating mud puddles despite frozen ground. I wipped up their muddy tracks several times and Ruth and I even gave one of these little critters a bath. These little characters are highly esteemed by Ruth who kept trying to sneak special doggy treats to them even though we advised her not to. The large dog was easy, but difficult to find the chain link in the dark of the morning to secure him because a chain link kept falling off.

2- We fed someone elses dog in the community who was away in Yellowknife and I really felt good about myself for doing these good deeds until I found out that someone else was feeding as well. No wonder the dog didn't seem hungry:)

3- Someone called and asked if I would take a prayer request regarding a very difficult situation. I said yes, thinking I could do this later but then they said "Please go ahead now over the phone" I did so precariously, mainly because it took me off guard.

4- I installed curtains for someone else who called this week; felt like I was making a difference.

5- We took purchase orders by some local people and passed the message on to Hanthorn's to pick up while they were in Whitehorse. The prices are much better in Whitehorse; many do their shopping there.

6- We answered many other calls for the Hanthorn's as well - very popular family and held in high esteem here!

7- I drove a lady and her mother to "8 mile", which is a place located 8 miles away from Ft. McPherson. It's a ferry crossing that also has a small number of camps on this side of the river. The posted photo shows the 92 year old elder and her daughter at the camp. The elder was going to stay there for the week and I was told there's much less chance of catching a flu bug when out on the land or at a camp. Makes sense.

8- A man dropped by and explained he was terminally ill and wanted to return some money he borrowed. He said he didn't want prayer to Heather but received some anyhow.

9- We enjoyed making fires in the wood stove even though Grace was very concerned about a house fire.







We look forward to their return; Ruth loves their children.

Thursdays

Each Thursday I have the privelege of travelling to Chief Paul Niditchie School in Tsiigehtchic (Gwitchen for Arctic Red River; it was named after a bloody battle many years ago. The community has less than 100 people and is located about 60 km north of Ft. McPherson along the Dempster Highway. Vehicles need to board a ferry to get there. The ferry is scheduled to be pulled from the river on October 25th and it will take approximately 5 - 6 weeks for the ice road to open.

The school itself has 21 students and 3 teachers; an excellent student-teacher ratio.

These pictures are from the last time I travelled there 2 days ago. The top two pictures were taken around 9am at the crack of dawn so the days have severely shortened already. Although it's difficult to see, there's a thin layer of ice on the lakes. During the last visit some 1st nations people (Dog Rib) from Ray Edzo, NT were visiting the school to share their customs and tradition, more specifically drumming.

More Mountains and stuff

Yesterday, I was yanked from the "New teachers session" to attend another meeting more specific to my position near mid-afternoon. I decided to leave my planner which contained lots of important info along with key paperwork thinking I would return. The second meeting took place in a different hotel and ran very late. At 7pm I remembered my planner was left at the first hotel but when I returned it was gone.

I spoke to several people yesterday evening and today; my investigation revealed the incident would have occured during 4 - 5pm and that it was the "clean-up" crew who would have "dealt" with my planner. Late today the hotel manager and I went garbage picking in the dumpster and we only had to rip open 5 garbage bags in front of a small group of onlookers before we found it!

More mountain pictures.

The Mountains

We arrived in Inuvik last night for a 4 day conference and none too soon. Since we arrived in Ft. McPherson we've been working constantly; time is like gold so this break is timely.

Finding a child care solution for Ruth became a challenge and concern as we approached the conference. In the end we were blessed this morning when Heather called Sir Alexander McKenzie School (S.A.M.S.). Heather taught at this school in 2004 and still knew the Kindergarten teacher (sweetheart) and fortunately the secretary patched her through to the K teacher who just happened to already be in the classroom. The teacher whose name I can't remember graciously offered to have Ruth in the class for the entire day! Ruth had lots of fun. School at SAMS is closed from Wed through Friday this week because all of their teachers will also participate in the conference so the child care issue re-emerged.
Another blessing took place at the end of the day as Heather was walking downtown Inuvik(don't blink or you'll miss it). The Pastor's wife, Sherrie from the Inuvik church that we used to attend stopped and spoke to Heather. When she found out about our predicament she made a generous offer to take care of Ruth for the remainder of the week!!

Included, are some beautiful mountain shots from the following areas: Banff, Jasper, Mountains in B.C., Yukon and the NWT. About 45 minutes into the Dempster Highway is Tombstone Mountain, near Eagle Plaines ( 3 hours from Ft. McPherson) are the Seywelyn Mountains and the Richardson Mountains are close to our community in McPherson. The camera battery died so I'll continue with more mountainous pics next time.

Accomodations

It's hard to believe that we're approaching the one month mark in McPherson! The old building you see is actually from the gold rush days and I took the picture at our stop in Dawson City.

Accomodations in the north is usually a precarious situation and ours is no exception. We did not have a place confirmed even on route to McPherson. We found out on a Friday (a few days into the school year) that our "apartment" may be closed and that we would have to wait for a final decision the next Monday. Since there has been thoughts of closing the apartment we were considering, we thought it would be best to find something else. The opportunity to live in the church apartment came the very next day (Saturday) because the missionaries who were going to live in the church made other arrangements. We would need to find temporary housing in the meantime because the church is still under construction.

The night we arrived in McPherson, we stayed at the local hotel and it has about 5 rooms. It was very expensive since we didn't have the option to cook for ourselves. We only stayed at the hotel for a couple of nights. Our Friends, the Hanthorns who have been missionaries for 18 years in this community, we're away in Whitehorse. Lynn Hanthorn's dad, Wayne was in town working on the new church building and he invited us to stay with him at their house until the family returned.

After being at the Hanthorn house for a few days we then moved to a local bed and breakfast and stayed their for two weeks. It too was very pricy and we exhausted to amount of funding allocated for temporary accomodations that our school board covers. We have now been living with the Hanthorn family for about a week and it has been a blast! Lynn is a fabulous cook(Heather if you are reading this, you are an excellent cook too). One morning this past week after Lynn made a tasty pancake breakfast and Paul (Hanthorn) made some great coffee, I mentioned to Heather on the cold and wet walk to school that I don't think we're going to want to leave.

Lynn's dad (Wayne) is a retired engineer who is very handy at building just about anything has built a separate little apartment on the back of the Hanthorn house a few years back so that he has a place to stay when he's visiting. Once Wayne returned to North Bay, ON, Paul invited us to stay with them - a very generous and timely offer since the apartment in the new church building is not yet ready.

Mealtimes are the highlight everyday because the Hanthorn's have 9 kids - it's busy and lots of fun! All the kids are lots of fun, very nice and polite - overall: very well behaved children, thoughtful and so helpful! True contributers to the household - even the teenagers!. Heather and I are trying to find out what the parenting secrets are to their success. So far Paul mentioned that the key is: 1- hard work 2-consistency and 3- begin when they are in the highchair.

Although not having our own accomodations may seem like an inconvenience, it has been a blessing in disguise because we've had an opportunity to get to know many more people as a result of this situation. All that said, we are looking forward to moving into the church apartment in about two weeks.

Many have asked us why are we here and my response has always been: We're here as teachers but the key goal is to support the church and the new church building. Well, there's been no shortage of opportunity to help because although the structure, plumbing and outer shell is finished, there's lots of interior "finishing" type of work required. We did find out from a local person that we are the only teachers to have ever returned! It's nice to be the first at something because I don't usually finish first.

A typical day consists of working at school in the daytime and doing drywalling in the evenings and weekends, which is great and almost therapeutic because I love working with my hands. I'm a little slow but things really speed up when Paul's able to help. The drywall is about 95% done. There's a couple of teachers who have volunteered their time at painting the church already and they said they'd paint the apt too! The appliances are on route from Edmonton as I type this; a man who does some trucking has volunteered to deliver for free! We'll store the appliances in the church until the walls are completed and flooring is in place.

In terms of the pictures: new church building, the cabinets is the inside of the church apartment, the one with the truck is where we're living now (Hanthorn's house)

Last Tuesday several teachers spotted the northern lights that completly filled the sky at about between midnight and 5am! I was sleeping so have yet to see them.

I kept telling Heather and Ruth to view this year as a camping trip; so far that has not been too far from the truth having moved from "campsite" to "campsite".

It snowed for the first time yesterday and hasn't stopped yet. Work on the church apt will slow down this upcomming week because Ruth, Heather and I will leave after school tomorrow for Inuvik. Inuvik is the hub for all the Beaufort-Delta communities. There's an educational conference from Tuesday - Friday. Ruth will stay with some friends we have that attend the Inuvik church. We lived in Inuvik in 2002 - 2004.

Wildlife

I've decided to change gears with the blog from chronological to a more topical approach for now since I started these postings a week or so into our trip north.

We visited the Calgary zoo with Richard - great zoo sponsored by various gas and oil companies. Three pictures are from the zoo, which are obvious while the rest were view from the truck as we went from Calgary through Banff and north through Jasper park. The bison were seen in Northern BC. (video posted)Caribou were only 2 hours drive south of Ft. McPherson along with three silver back bears. The silver back bear are the two top blurry pictures.

An elder in Tsiigehtchic where I work one day per week told me on Thursday that the berries have fallen too quickly and the animals are starving on the land. The Porcupine caribou herd which are typically out late October are already here - times are changing.