Posted on December 9, 2019 under Monday Morning Musings with no comments yet

“Country” food

 

“I can see paradise by the dashboard light.”

Paradise by the Dashboard Light. Meatloaf

I can almost see Christmas in the headlights.

As mentioned before, I don’t sense the usual hype leading up to Christmas. I listen to CBC radio a bit on the weekend but with no other commercial radio stations and with no television, I have escaped the deluge of Christmas ads and Christmas music. The two grocery stores in town don’t play much music of any description. Actually, all of the Christmas music I have experienced so far has been in my classroom with most of it provided by me.

We are busy preparing for the Christmas concert. We have two songs ready to go: Feliz Navidad and John Denver’s “Country Roads”. I happened to play the latter one day and the children latched on to it. They are getting a smattering of Maritime (Atlantic – don’t want my Newfoundland and Labrador readers to feel slighted!)  music of course. I’m teaching them about the capital cities in Canada in geography. I played a video of St. John’s and then taught them “Excursion Around the Bay.” “Oh me, oh my, I heard me old wife cry; oh me, oh my, I think I’m going to die”. They’ve already got the chorus down cold including the fist pump and “hey” at the end of each chorus! I’ve also shown one of the promotional videos for Nova Scotia. I decided to teach them “Farewell to Nova Scotia” instead of “Barrett’s Privateers”!

By the way, I appreciate all of the suggestions that teachers and retired teachers from back home are sending me with regards to curriculum. Thank you.

On my way home to lunch on Thursday, I met this tall woman coming in the other direction. I’m getting used to seeing new faces in Kangiqsujuaq as people “from down south” show up regularly. I overcame my shyness (!) and asked her who she was, where she was from and what brought her to town. “My name is Anna Dunn- Suen, I’m from Spryfield, Nova Scotia and I’m here putting on volleyball clinics for the next week.”

It turns out that Anna is a remarkable young woman. An academic all- Canadian, she played volleyball for the perennial women’s volleyball champions at Dalhousie University in Halifax. She is a professional beach volleyball player, a volleyball coach and a Master’s student at MacMasters. She actually lives and trains in Toronto. She was a member of Canada’s National team and has travelled to many parts of the world. I must admit that the last place on earth that I thought I would meet a professional beach volleyball player was on the frozen tundra of Northern Quebec… and from Spryfield to boot. What a wonderful world we live in.

I invited Anna to the staff Christmas party at the school. You can tell she’s seen some of the world. She fit in very easily with a room full of strangers. We chose to sit with several of my Inuit colleagues and their families. We shared raw, frozen beluga and warm conversation. The potluck table contained all of the usual suspects. I made sweet and sour meatballs and a large pot of mashed potatoes as my contribution.

There was a separate table, if that’s what you want to call it, for “country” food. This is the food that has sustained the Inuit for centuries: beluga, caribou and arctic char. There was also a pot of seal soup on the potluck table. The frozen country food was laid out on a piece of cardboard on the gymnasium floor. The women and children sat and carved off pieces of meat and fish with sharp knives and shared with anyone who wanted some. I tried the beluga and while it didn’t have a lot of flavour, I was told that it is very nutritious and warms the body when consumed during really cold weather.

One of the people at our table was the woman who made my parka. I am her number one fan. It will be a treasured keepsake from my time in the north but most importantly, it keeps me warm on the coldest days.

After supper, we all played some games. It was good to see the staff be able to relax and have some fun.

I am happy to share these experiences with my faithful readers as it might give you to some insights into daily life in the north. If you really want to learn about the history of our indigenous people, might I suggest an excellent book written by a local Inuk woman. “The Right to be Cold” by Sheila Watt- Cloutier is her personal account of growing up in Nunavik, this region of Northern Quebec.

For you “non-Facebook” folks, I put out an appeal last week for children’s glasses. If you have any children’s glasses lying around, would you please drop them off to Jason Burke at Antigonish Optical? Glasses are difficult to come by and very expensive up north. I hope to bring back several pairs when I return in January.

Have a great week. Hope to visit with some of you when I come home for Christmas. My social calendar still has some openings!!!!!

P.S. Thanks to all your shares, I was able to find someone to sublet my apartment in Antigonish. You guys are terrific. Much appreciated.

Posted on December 5, 2019 under Thursday Tidbits with no comments yet

Welcome back, Kotter!

 

“Out of the mouths of babes.”

Matthew 21:16

I grew up in a small Catholic town. Antigonish is the seat of the Diocese of Antigonish which covers a sparsely populated but large geographical area. In its heyday back in the 50s and 60s, the diocese could boast a church in every village, town and city. Of course, this was the post war baby boom era. Churches were well attended for all masses and absolutely jammed to the rafters on special occasions like Christmas and Easter.

Large families literally had their own pews. We needed every square inch of ours when the ten of us showed up together. With the population explosion, there was always a newborn or two at mass and invariably, as if on cue, they would start crying when the priest was delivering his homily. Many adults felt like weeping too. Some of the older guard of priests simply couldn’t tolerate babies crying and would publically banish mother and child.

I attended the funeral of an Inuit elder last week. The small church couldn’t handle the expected crowd so it was moved into a community gymnasium. The ceremony was simple and dignified. The crowd grew and grew and by the time the funeral ended, I feel certain that nearly every one of the 900 residents had made an appearance. Included in these numbers were several very small children and a handful of infants. I was sitting beside a mother with a newborn. It couldn’t have been more than a few days old. Very near to me was another child who might have been three months old. It was only a few days later at supper that it hit me full force. I didn’t hear a single whimper from any of the babies.

What I remembered very clearly is that every single person, man, woman, boy, and girl in a thirty foot radius handled the young ones. They held them to their faces. They cooed, they kissed the babies, and they smiled. The love and affection was palpable and it seems the little ones felt it too. New life and death, the endless cycle were been played out right in front of me. At the end of the funeral service, all of these same people walked by the open coffin of the elder, once again sharing the timeless gift of love.

I have come to the conclusion that I don’t hate the cold. I hate being cold. Back home in Nova Scotia, I always feel cold in winter. My hands are perpetual iceboxes and I find the cold winter winds cut through me like a knife. Now I know why. I don’t think I was ever properly dressed for winter. Of course, when it’s raining one day and -20 the next, it’s hard to know what to wear on any given day. Up here in Northern Quebec it’s cold and it will get colder. For the first time ever, I have the right gear to keep me warm on the most frigid days. The Michelin Man would be proud of me. Two days ago it was -28 and I was playing volleyball with the children…outdoors. I’ll let you know what it feels like to serve a volleyball when it’s -57!

Some of you saw the picture on Facebook of my rack of seal ribs, the before and the after. I was given this meat by a local. It was frozen when I received it. I let it thaw for a few days in the fridge before making a stew. The instructions were straight forward enough. Throw the ribs in a pot of water, bring to a boil, simmer for a few hours and add vegetables. When I removed the ribs from the plastic bag, they were… very bloody. I manoeuvered them into the pot of water but no matter how I angled them, the whole rack wouldn’t fit. The pot was too small. No worries. I removed the ribs, pulled out a cutting board and tried to separate the ribs from the carcass.

The seal seemed to be insulted that I would so irreverently desecrate his body. Blood seemed to pour out of every fibre of his being. My hands were bloodied and my lower arms turned crimson. I was afraid if my roommate showed up that she might faint on the spot thinking that I had committed an atrocity. Well, in the eyes of the seal I certainly had. The dirty deed completed (literally and figuratively), I went to the couch for a much needed rest.

I must admit that the smell of seal cooking might not rank near the top of my list of great kitchen smells. By the time it was cooked, my appetite was compromised. I ate a few ribs. They received my seal of approval.

Have a great weekend.

P.S. In the “discretion is the better part of valour” category. Yesterday, I took a long walk to the wharf in the wee hours of the morning before school. I was carrying a bag of seal rib bones to give to the dog of one of the teachers. As I walked along the road by the bay, two VERY LARGE dogs approached me and they were snarling. At first, I thought it was me they were after but the main course for them (mercifully) was the bones. I hastily removed them from the plastic bag and dropped the contents on the ground. Friends for life. They accompanied me on the rest of the walk. My teaching colleague understood my predicament and I asked her to apologize to Kajuk!

Posted on December 2, 2019 under Monday Morning Musings with 2 comments

Recess duty at school

 

“Who is the teacher and who is the student?”

I posed this very question several weeks ago just before coming to Kangiqsujuaq in Norther Quebec. I can’t tell you with 100% certainty the answer to this question because I haven’t been with the students in my class long enough to know if my teaching has yielded any results.  Besides doing a great deal of scrambling day to day to map out lesson plans, I have focused a lot of energy getting to know the children.

Like any teacher in any classroom, in any part of this country, earning the respect of the students is crucial and time consuming… and energy sapping! The unsettling history of indigenous people in our country in recent times makes it even more difficult for teachers from “down south” to gain the confidence of the students. The turnover rate of teachers is very high in the north. You can almost read their minds. “I wonder how long this guy is going to stay.”

I have to admit that this assignment is considerably more difficult than I imagined. The staff at the school has been very helpful as well as many teachers from back home who have spent time in the north. Nobody has given me more support and insight than Antigonish’s own award winning teacher, Maggie MacDonell. After yet another tough day a week or so ago, I wrote to Maggie, as I tugged at the last remaining hairs on my head. There are precious few remaining! She wrote me a lengthy reply and supplied this pearl of wisdom: “When I got frustrated, I would also remind myself that I am a small dot in the timeline of the North. While the moment seems big at the time and when I put that day on the timeline of all the Inuit experience in schools, it helps me see it in perspective and helps me get through that tough moment.”

Besides getting wisdom and knowledge from fellow educators and friends back home, I have gone to another source for help. Counselling.

From time to time, the regional school board provides schools with additional teaching resources and resource people. Our school has been blessed recently to have a counsellor from Canada’s west coast join us for 10 days to provide professional help to anyone requesting it. She did a presentation at a staff meeting upon her arrival. I was impressed.

I sat and listened with great interest. I could tell that this woman was a real pro so I decided to pay her a visit.

I grew up in a family where being stoic was a badge of honor. “Do what you say you’re going to do and finish what you start” rings in my ears to this day. I came to the realization in the last few weeks that you can’t be strong all the time.

I suffered some losses this fall and have been trying to process them. In the middle of this, I decided on the spur of the moment to return to the classroom after a 40 year hiatus. Everybody has been saying how tough I am to be doing this. Sorry. Wrong. I have actually come to the realization that I am human after all and am weak. I have also realized, much to my relief that admitting vulnerability is a sign of strength and not weakness.

In the past, I dealt with stress in many of the classic ways. Exercise is always a great stress reliever. I did yoga for a few years and learned all about breathing and meditation. Is there anything better than a massage?  A slice of pie or a nice glass of wine will relieve tension temporarily but these are not long term fixes.

I’ve had three counselling sessions so far and it is quite liberating to get things out in the open in front of someone who isn’t judgmental. It feels like peeling back the layers of an onion. Peeling onions can leave you weepy.

I recently saw a post on Facebook about someone back home who is suffering from ALS. He had a long, distinguished work career and gave many years of his life to volunteering. Oh, the cruelty of life.

Perspective.

We are all a work in progress. Students for life.

“You will either step forward into growth or step back into safety. Growth must be chosen again and again; fear must be overcome again and again.” Abraham Maslow

Have a great week.

P.S. After three weeks, I received my personal belongings. The first thing I did was make my bed with my own bedding and then I made 4 dozen cookies. I sampled the cookies for quality control … not as a stress reducer!