Earth Day

Well, nothing says Earth Day like going ice fishing! We actually had a meeting scheduled for Earth Day (April 22nd), so we celebrated at the school on Friday, April 23rd instead. In the morning, we started out with a game of Earth ball (grades 4-6). I wish I had taken some pics of this as it was pretty funny!! We have a soccer ball that is about 10 times as big as it should be . . . so we played a game with it. After that, we had some recycled Art activities and a movie for the kids. The afternoon was the highlight of the day as we took the bus to "Old Water Lake," not to be confused with "New Water Lake," which is the current water source for Repulse Bay. Holes were drilled for ice fishing (it was about 6 ft of ice- glad I didn't have to drill the holes!!) and a couple of tents were set up for hot chocolate. A nice tobogganing hill was located just off of the lake, which was tons of fun! I made a few trips down the hill and only wiped out a couple of times. It was the perfect weather for our outing. I think it had to have been the warmest day of the year so far. A bunch of us had our jackets off and enjoying the beautiful sunshine! Only two fish were caught in the afternoon (lake trout), but everyone was having fun.


This is a pic on top of the hill looking back down on the lake and the ice fishing.

This is a picture of one of my students kneeling on the ice . . . there were some pretty cool designs!


Now this is the way to fish! Not sure whose chair it was, but it was comfy! I didn't even get a bite! We were jigging with sticks that had fishing line connected and some lures. I believe there was a bit of bait put on some of the hooks.


First fish of the afternoon.

Dogsledding and Ugly fish

I can't believe how quickly time goes by . . . I will be back home in less than 2 months already! I am looking forward to having a couple months off for visiting and enjoying the "south."
We had another blizzard the Saturday before Easter weekend. It was a good one! There were 90 km/hour winds mixed with snow . . .and we couldn't see the house next door. Here is a picture of what it looked like out our window:



A couple of days later I went for a dog sled ride with a fellow teacher. The weather was a lot more co-operative! The dogs are the same ones from a previous post. They have 9 dogs up here. I sat in the kamatik (sled) while Bill managed the dogs. We had a bit of an adventure in the beginning when the dogs took off in the wrong direction! When sled dogs take off (and these ones are only about 9 months old) it is hard to stop them!! We headed straight into town up and down over some hills. If we had of gone another 30 feet, the sled I was in would have been toppled over and I would have been dragged over some rock mounds. Luckily, Bill was able to stop them just in time and I hopped out! His wife followed us with the snowmobile and we were able to tie the dogs up to it and steer them in the right direction. Apparently, the dogs have never done that before, but it was kind of exciting and no harm was done. Once we got back on track, we headed out on the ice and enjoyed a beautiful evening ride. Here are a couple of pics getting set up and one out on the ice:




On Easter Monday, the community had a small fishing event. I received a phone call from another teacher telling me to go check it out. So, I got bundled up and headed out on the ice. There was a good number of locals out there jigging for "ugly fish." They really were pretty ugly!! One of our Inuktitut teachers gave me her jigging contraption to try it out for myself. I spent a good 10 minutes trying to catch one without success. I then walked around to see what everyone else had caught. I'm still not quite sure why they catch these fish as most of the people said that they don't eat them!? Some said that they boil the meat. Personally, I think they are just too ugly to eat! You be the judge:






One of our grade 8 students was out hunting with his grandfather last week and shot a muskox! They were north of here in the Pelly Bay region. The hide and skull were out drying at his grandparents house and they let us take some pictures. It was such a beautiful day, so I took a walk around town and took some more pictures.




Our school's maintenance guy shot 8 caribou last week. These are some of the skins.


These are a couple of views from up on the hill behind our house. Too bad there are no windows from the front of our house!!