Posted on December 15, 2020 under News & Updates with no comments yet

Thanks to Pete MacDonald for following me out in the wilderness to take this photo

 

Yes, that’s me, hunting for a a few turkeys. We need a few more of these birds to help feed people in Kangiqsujuaq. There’s still time to donate to the Christmas Dinner Fund. Here are three ways to donate:

1. The easiest way is to send me an e-transfer at lenpdmacdonald@gmail.com
2. Stop by the Credit Union in Antigonish and tell them you know a turkey in Northern Quebec! The account is in my name (Christmas Dinner Fund)
3. The old fashioned way is to mail me a cheque at Len MacDonald C/O Arsaniq School, C.P. 160, Kangiqsujuaq, Quebec J0M 1Ko

Many thanks!!!

Posted on December 14, 2020 under Monday Morning Musings with no comments yet

I hope Violet is enjoying her time in Wakem Bay.

 

Fasten your seatbelts.

We are hurtling towards Christmas at breakneck speed, a Christmas that will be unlike any other. I want all you old farts like me to wind the clock back 60 years, give or take. Do you remember what the last week of school before Christmas was like? Sure you do. You did very little of anything resembling actual schoolwork. You wondered if your teacher would ever run out of art projects. Your energy and excitement indexes were off the chart thinking about the dizzying array of presents under the tree. Of course, you realized that they weren’t all for you but in an era of very large families due to the baby boom, the sheer volume of presents on the living room floor on Christmas morning was awe inspiring.

In a normal year, this final week at school would be a virtual blizzard of indoor and outdoor activities here in Kangiqsujuaq. The crown jewels would be a community bazaar held in our gym, a Christmas dinner for our students and, of course, the Christmas concert. These have all been scrapped this year. Please nod if you are a music teacher or a retired music teacher. Yes. The Christmas concert is a very big deal for the children and their parents but for a music teacher, or whomever has the privilege (!) of organizing this event, it may be one of the most stressful things you will do in your life. We don’t have the luxury of a music teacher in our school, so a group of teachers is tasked with this activity. I helped out last year. Honestly, I haven’t heard too many teachers complaining about the cancellation of the Christmas concert! We’re not a bunch of Scrooges but most of you will understand this sentiment.

Tomorrow, instead of serving a nice hot turkey dinner, the entire school will trek out to the large inukshuk outside the village for a wiener roast. I’m sure it will be a lot of fun unless the temperature stays around -30 which it has been for the past few days.

We will take the children sledding and skating and I’m sure a few Christmas movies will be shown in our classrooms. We will make the best of it. I can guarantee one thing. The school will begin to pulsate today as we head into the final week of school before Christmas.

I plan to prepare a turkey dinner for my class sometime during the Christmas holidays.

And speaking of Christmas dinners (a nifty segue to my next topic), the fundraiser for the Christmas Dinner in the village is going well. We have raised $2,000 of the $3,000 we need to deliver a Christmas Dinner to families who might not otherwise have one. You can send me an e-transfer at lenpdmacdonald@gmail.com, drop into the Credit Union back home in Antigonish and make a deposit there or you can send me a cheque at Len MacDonald C/O Arsaniq School, C.P.160, Kangiqsujuaq, Quebec, J0M 1K0.

I want to thank everyone who has sent cards, letters and gifts to my students. A special thank you to a couple who sent a large box of gifts including hockey jerseys, knitted products, crafts and Christmas candy. In this box, very carefully wrapped (!) was a bottle of Steinhart strawberry vodka. Normally the mere mention of vodka causes revulsion because of an unpleasant encounter with a large bottle of vodka during my university years. I had heard many reports about this international award- winning spirit but was never brave enough to try it. Because I received it as a gift, I felt duty bound to have a sip. I can tell you one thing for certain. I will not be sharing this with Santa. It is delicious when sipped judiciously. I might leave Santa a can of Labatt’s Blue beer! Thanks so much, D&J for your kindness.

Some of you might remember Flat Stanley. Quite honestly, I don’t. Look it up if you don’t. Last week, I received a delightful letter from one of my granddaughters. She sent me a cut out character named Violet. I was asked to share some adventures with Violet and return her along with a letter and some pictures. This is a version of pen pals and a wonderful project. Speaking of pen pals, my students have been very excited receiving letters from new friends across this country. Thanks to all of you who have embraced this initiative. Violet has been making the rounds. I hope she enjoys her adventures in the north.

I attended my second sewing class yesterday. It is great fun, but I fear it will be spring or summer by the time I finish my pualuks!

Have a great week.

 

Posted on December 10, 2020 under Thursday Tidbits with no comments yet

“Imagine all the people, living life in peace.”

 

Imagine.

Imagine all the people.

Can you believe that it was 40 years ago that John Lennon of Beatles fame was killed? What is even more shocking is that it was almost 60 years ago that The Beatles burst onto the scene. Their first number 1 hit song, I Want to Hold Your Hand, was released in 1963.

As I have mentioned on more than one occasion, I grew up in a musical household. We were exposed to a lot of different music from big band, to classical , the crooners (Perry Como et al) and of course the ever popular war songs. Lots of other stuff too but I don’t remember country and western getting much attention in our house. My parents seemed open to all new music. We would often crowd around the old black and white television on Sunday Night to watch Bonanza but the big treat was to stay up and watch the Ed Sullivan Show. All the up and coming musical acts like Elvis Presley eventually made it onto Sullivan’s stage.

If I’m not mistaken, the Beatles first single release was Love Me Do. The hits came cascading week after week, month after month, and year after year. We all loved The Beatles, even mom and dad. Our family band, The Escorts, covered a handful of Beatles tunes at many dances.

I must say that as time moved along, I didn’t care for some of the Beatles offerings. I guess when you heard all the greatest hits from Day 1, that’s the stuff you remember the most. It would require several pages to list the entire Beatles discography but here are some of my personal favourites: Here Comes The Sun, Eight Days a Week, All My Lovin’, Something, Saw Her Standing There, She Loves You, Twist and Shout, And I Love Her, If I Fell, Yesterday, Michelle. I could go on and on, but I won’t. What was your favourite?

I have saved my two most memorable for the last.

Hey Jude. If I had to pick just one song , not just a Beatles song,  but any song that will remain etched in my memory forever, it is Hey Jude and the reason is quite simple. At almost every dance that I attended as a teenager, Hey Jude was invariably the last waltz. All night long you eyed the girl of your dreams, sitting up in the bleachers, hoping against hope that she would accept your invitation to dance. Now you knew the odds were slim because just about every other pimply faced guy had exactly the same idea. Once in a blue moon you struck gold and got to press a young female body against yours, knowing that this indescribable pleasure would last exactly 7 minutes and 11 seconds. I wonder if this is where the Seven Eleven convenience store got its name?!

It probably wasn’t the same sensation for the girls. Ladies, please feel free to weigh in on this one. A Whiter Shade of Pale would rank as a close second for a last waltz. I will accept other suggestions for the greatest last waltz song of all time.

The other Beatle song is Let It Be. The opening piano chords haunt me to this day but in a good way. When I was in India in 2016-17, I taught English to a group of young girls studying to become nuns. Besides teaching them liturgical music, I also threw in a handful of secular pieces including Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah. For some reason, they became fixated on Let It Be. I think it had something to do with the opening lyrics: “When I find myself in times of trouble, mother Mary comes to me….”. Now I don’t claim to be a music history whiz but I don’t think that The Beatles were referring to the mother of Jesus. The girls, on the other hand thought that the song had religious overtones. I taught them for 30 consecutive days, and they could flawlessly sing every word of the song. On International Women’s day, I had the great honor of standing on a stage in front of 500 women dressed in colorful saris to sing Let it Be with my girls. It was truly one of the great moments of my life.

I had the pleasure of seeing Paul McCartney in Toronto twice. On one occasion, on the day of the concert, I was at the Air Canada Centre to pick up my tickets. It was early in the morning and there was only one other person in the ticket area, none other than Stuart Mclean of Vinyl Café fame. We struck up a conversation and he ended up interviewing me for one of his CBC radio shows, a treasured tape sitting in a box somewhere at home. We ended up becoming friends. Now HE was a storyteller, a Canadian treasure.

Enough nostalgia for one day? I hope you enjoyed this trip down memory lane. I hope you’ll hum a Beatles tune today just for old times’ sake.

Have a great weekend.

P.S. A reminder about my current fundraiser for the Christmas dinner.  If any of you would like to contribute, there are three ways to do this: 1) You can send me an e-transfer at lenpdmacdonald@gmail.com. 2) You can mail me a cheque at Len MacDonald C/O Arsaniq School, C.P. 160, Kangiqsujuaq, Quebec, J0M 1K0 3) If you live in Antigonish, drop into the Bergengren Credit Union. I have an account set up there in my name called Christmas Dinner Fund. Should we happen to exceed our target, any excess funds will go to The Family House which is a safe house in the village for families experiencing challenges.