Posted on December 13, 2021 under Monday Morning Musings with no comments yet

Northern Reflections. Thanks for the memories, Kangiqsujuaq!

 

Posted on December 9, 2021 under Thursday Tidbits with one comment

 

Atsunai

 

“All my bags are packed, I’m ready to go.”

Leaving on a Jet Plane – John Denver

It’s checkout time.

Last May when the plane lifted off the runway in Kangiqsujuaq, I looked down at the village thinking that I would never see the village again. My two- year adventure in the north had come to an end and I looked forward to the next chapter of my life… a quiet, peaceful retirement.

I guess I don’t do “quiet and peaceful” so well.

I had a fantastic summer back in Nova Scotia culminating with the celebration of my 70^th birthday. The highlight was joining my children for an evening of live music at a local pub where they were the headliners. A few days after this, I marked this important passage by walking 77 kilometers around “the Cape”.

I don’t think I’m necessarily a restless individual, but I am either blessed or cursed with my mother’s energy and curiosity. There is no debate here. Having good energy is the blessing of all blessings. As the summer wore on, I could feel boredom creeping in. With travel restrictions very much a reality, I knew that flitting off to Spain to tackle a different Camino was not in the cards. I had stayed in contact with my principal. Besides being work colleagues, we had become good friends, going on many hikes together.

Covid has affected the economy in many ways including the workforce. The north was not immune to these new realities, and it became apparent that there would be staffing issues at the school. I knew that I didn’t want to return to the north as a full-time classroom teacher so we made a deal that would see me split my time between administrative duties and some substitute teaching. I offered to come for four months. My contract would allow me to stay for the whole year, if I so chose. Early in September, I returned and once again as the plane descended, I chuckled to myself. My hiatus from the north had lasted a grand total of three months.

Over our lifetimes, we accumulate a skill set. We use different skills at different times. Rarely do they all coalesce at the same time. This was the case this fall. The pace of work was relentless, and I ended up using every tool in the toolbox. I even did a bit of janitorial work from time to time when something had to be cleaned up in a hurry. Back in the early 70s in Victoria, I worked at a few jobs at the same time. One of them was cleaning a daycare in Vic West. I’m pretty handy with a mop and a pail!

I’m not bragging. It is quite possible that I never worked at full capacity at my previous jobs. I guess if we all held up a mirror, there were times in our life where we didn’t put out 100% effort every single working day. But this job was different. Every minute of the day was full. It is a strange feeling when you are firing on all cylinders physically and mentally. I tip my hat to health care workers. Nurses and CCA’s are among the hardest working people I have ever met.

I enjoyed working at the school this fall but fatigue set in, both physical and mental. Most of us know “when to hold ‘em and when to fold ‘em”. It is a gut feeling. My ample gut (!) told me a few weeks ago that it was time to call it a day.

I’ll be heading back to Nova Scotia at the end of next week carrying many fond memories from my time in the north.

What’s next?

I have had the pleasure (?) of doing four, full two- week quarantines over the past two years during which time, I started writing my book about my northern adventure. I will spend the remainder of the winter back home completing this project. I might also take on a small part time job just to keep me out of mischief. Hopefully some time in 2022, we will be able to travel beyond our borders again.

I am looking forward to spending more time hanging out with my granddaughters.

There are a lot of people in Kangiqsujuaq that I owe a debt of gratitude. I’ll save this for my final post from the north next week.

“Cause I’m leavin’ on a jet plane,

Don’t know when I’ll be back again.”

Have a great weekend.

Posted on December 6, 2021 under Monday Morning Musings with no comments yet

Eat your heart out, Charlie Brown

 

“Oh Christmas tree, oh Christmas tree,

How lovely are your branches,

Oh Christmas tree, of Christmas tree,

How lovely are your branches,

Not only green in summer’s heat,

But also winter’s snow and sleet,

Oh Christmas tree, oh Christmas tree,

 How lovely are your branches.”

O Tannenbaum – Ernst Anschutz

The frenzy to find the perfect Christmas tree in every village, hamlet, town, and city in Canada has begun in earnest.

Well, almost every place.

Surely most of my faithful readers remember a simpler time, when you bundled up and followed your parents into the woods to find a Christmas tree. There were no Christmas tree farms but rather vast tracts of forests where one had unfettered access to thousands of trees. Now these trees weren’t always perfectly shaped and nurtured to the point of perfection. There is no such thing as a perfect Christmas tree. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

When I sat down on the weekend to write this post, I was going to take the easy way out and mail it in. On December 7, 2013, I published a story about the trials and tribulations of taking four small children to find and cut down a Christmas tree. I have republished this story every year since then and I thought about doing the same this year. Here it is in case you’re interested: https://www.week45.com/oh-christmas-tree/ But on one of my walks a few weeks ago, I spotted something very unusual and decided to write a fresh piece.

There are many things that ratchet up the blood pressure at Christmas but securing the right tree and finding the perfect gift would be near the top of most people’s list. Over the years, the “must have” gift for a child could have been a Ken or Barbie doll; an Easy Bake Oven; Care Bears; Transformers or My Little Pony. In my memory one stands out above all: Cabbage Patch Dolls. These arrived on the scene in 1983 and mercifully, our first born was only 8 months old and hadn’t been afflicted with CPD fever. Such was the frenzy to have one of these cuties, that trauma units in hospitals across the world were flooded with battered and bruised parents who were stampeded trying to get into a store having a limited supply of the dolls.

Buying a Christmas tree these days has become somewhat less onerous. It’s almost clinical. You simply go to a Christmas tree vendor parked in a mall parking lot. Choose from 1000 trees. The vendor will wrap it up and tie it to the roof of your vehicle. I’m sure you can even order one online from Amazon.

But what if you live north of the 55^th parallel? Well north, in fact? When flying to the north of Quebec, the last trees you are likely to see are near Kuujuaq, the capital of Nunavik. Kangiqsujuaq is another 435 kilometers further north, not fertile ground for growing balsam fir trees.

Back to my walk of a few weeks ago. A handful of us were doing a Saturday walk. We decided to drive part of the way and park the truck. But before starting the walk, I took a small detour to show the dump to our newest staff member, Charles. We warned him about the perils of walking this road alone in winter. Occasionally, polar bears and wolves scavenge the dump for treats. Pity if you should become their lunch. Just across the road from the entrance to the dump, our heads turned in unison as we spotted a small, real Christmas tree.

I can report with total honesty that none of us had been consuming alcohol or illicit drugs at the time.

This got me to thinking.

Naming your first born is not as difficult as finding the perfect Christmas tree. Oh sure, it’s fine when you can go to a lot and sample 300 trees but what if you only had one from which to choose? This tree could qualify as the most beautiful or most ugly tree and everything in between. Now, in a village of 1000 people, your odds of acquiring this tree would be 1 in 1000. These odds are infinitely better than the 649 but unlike the 649, no one takes it personally when Joe Schmoe from Temiskaming, Ontario wins the big one. However, if you were the only one who had the pleasure of decorating a real tree at Christmas, I think the milk of human kindness would sour very quickly. I’m picturing a bidding war to end all bidding wars. If you think that buying real estate in Toronto in a hot market is competitive, how about standing at the entrance to the dump when it’s -25 vying for this truly unique, one of a kind buying opportunity?

However, having tested my marriage vows on many occasions picking out a Christmas tree, this would be simple. There would be no debate about its height, shape or fullness.

I remember one Christmas after the children had flown the nest, where we went to a convenience store parking lot to get a tree very close to Christmas Day.  (Yes, you locals. It was Brendan’s). Don’t ask me why we waited so late. Maybe we were so traumatized from shopping for trees for 25 years, that it didn’t even occur to us to get a tree.  The vendor had long since left the lot and gone home to his loved ones. Before he left, he posted a small sign indicating that the remaining inventory was free.

There were three trees on the lot… just enough to fight over! I can’t remember if we played rocks, paper, scissors or flipped a coin but we threw the scraggly evergreen, coniferous tree into the trunk of our car. Once decorated, it looked like every other tree we had ever put up.

Oh ,Christmas tree.

Have a great week.

P.S. I know what I want to do when I grow up. I want to be transported back in time and be a writer for Monty Python. Can you imagine how much fun it would have been to have been sitting around a table coming up with the most absurd scripts imaginable? My dream job.