The Lodge Again

The second walk to Murray's Lodge and back was much more pleasant this time around. When we walked over the lake there were lots of snowmoblie trails which meant the snow had been packed down nicely. This made things considerably more pleasant; or first walk took about 2.5 hours, while this time it was well under 2! And a lot less pain involved.

Drama!

Monday and Tuesday were meant to be PED days (the Ontario equivalent of a PA Day). Monday we were in school just doing independant work, and Tuesday all of the teachers were meeting at the "complex" (also known as the towns ultra-fancy arena!) at 9am. So we dutifully show up before nine, but there are very few teachers hanging around, which is no big deal, so we sit on a bench to wait. Eventually someone tells us that the meetings are postponed until 10am; so we decide to wait it out rather than walk back home and just come right back again.



Then the principal arrives and tells us that the meetings will be cancelled due to an "incident" in the community. Someone living right across the road from the public school (and the public school is right beside the highschool) was wandering the neighbourhood in the middle of the night very drunk. My knowlege of the situation is very fuzzy, because we weren't really told the full story (since cops can't disclose that sort of thing), but from what I know, a neighbour saw this person and called the cops because the inebriated gentleman apparently owned quite a few guns. Not that gun ownership is such a strange thing here; there are many hunters and as far as I know native people living on the reserve don't have to worry about firearm permits or any such thing. So the police shut down the entire area, residents were evacuated in the middle of the night and the man didn't come out of his house until after 1pm the next day.



So the principal tells us to go home for the day on Tuesday, since all the roads near the school are blocked off by police and the school is of course closed anyhow. Crazy stuff! So we go home, relax and just stay away from the area.



Wednesday the school and several School Board members held a meeting to discuss everything; how everyone was feeling, their concerns and questions etc. There were many upset teachers (many of them probably living in that area that got knocks on their doors at 2am), so the meeting went on for a while. Towards the end it wasn't even really about the incident at all, but just concerns in general about the community and handling students. Being so new, I kind of felt removed from the situation. Yes, it happened in the town in which I now live, but I feel like that sort of thing can happen absolutely anywhere so I'm not going to worry about it too much. Life in general is dangerous and a big chaotic mess, isn't it?

Today (Thursday) I was back in school as per usual. All of the sudden I've gone from 3 students (bliss! heaven!) to 8 (booo! hellish!!) and they're all united in their efforts to make my life difficult, but that's alright.

Murray's Lodge

So Saturday morning we met up with another teacher from the highschool named Galina who would show us how to find our way to Murray's Lodge which is about 10km out of town. We had decided to do the walk over the lake rather than using the road because it is supposed to be a couple kilometres less. But it had snowed the night before and we don't have snowshoes (yet! I really want to get a pair soon...), so we were sinking in with every step! Galina was on cross country skis, so she was soon way ahead of us and we were just following her tracks and snowmobile trails. It was only about -20, so soon I was sweating in my big coat. It's a lot more work walking in snow!! But it was beautiful and we stopped often to take photos along the way.

One really nice thing about Mistissini is that there are these big friendly dogs EVERYWHERE and they'll run up to you to be pet and beg for food. Whenever I walk to work there are just random dogs roaming the streets, following kids around, frolicking. Many of them are outside dogs from the looks of it as well, so these are some tough animals since tonight for example it's supposed to go down to around -40. Anyhow, as we were walking we were joined by a pack of dogs who ran out to us to check out what we were doing.




I have many pictures like this of him waiting for me to catch up! This walk made me realize that I'm very out of shape! But I love the picture because you can get an idea of how big the lake is; and we were only on a tiny little portion of it. We left our house at about 9am and over 7km later arrived at the Lodge in time for lunch. Every Saturday they serve a free meal to whoever cares to show up, consisting of traditional Cree dishes. We ate Ptarmigan (a partridge-like bird), Caribou stew, and bannock. It was all really good! Although I was starving by the time we got there, so I would have been loving whatever they chose to serve! I'm looking forward to trying goose though, my students tell me it's very delicious.



The lodge itself is a pretty simple building. There is a giant stove in the centre of it that was quite a contrast to the temperature outside. There was a bit of a crowd there, along with quite a few teachers from the highschool which was nice. I'm pretty isolated working where I am, so it was nice to get out and talk to people. After lunch we walked back along the road, so in all we walked around 17km, give or take. The walk back was longer but much easier because we were walking along the paved shoulder so the snow was packed down and infinitely easier in the walking department.

Then in the evening we went to a teachers house for a "guitar night" which was fun. I was the only novice there though, so I was just a spectator, but it was still lovely. I need to practice!

School and Such

People keep giving me a sympathetic look whenever I tell them I work at the Centre. I'm working in a facility for young offenders, so yeah, my students aren't the most willing to work or even generally going to listen to a word I say. Regardless, I've really been enjoying it; I know I'm not the greatest teacher since I'm not qualified and so in a way I'm sort of learning along with the students. But every now and then I'll have a lesson where one of the students shows even a tiny bit of interest and it all feels worthwhile. It's all about those tiny moments! My most difficult student right now is The Charmer (no names since these are young offenders...). She draws swastikas on everything, she regularly steps into my path to try to intimidate me, she swears at me, I'll give her a hand-out and she will just slide it right onto the floor and will often act like being alive is just a monumental task. Today one of my other students wanted to learn how to draw faces and I showed them how to split up the face and draw a grid etc. to get proportions and placement correct, and suddenly The Charmer was participating and talking and just being a regular kid! It was awesome.

Other than that, things are just generally good. Still enjoying it here and trying to find things. Some of the buildings in town are very mysterious; they're commercial looking buildings but sometimes there's just no sign out front to tell you what it is! One small problem; there is ONE bank in the entire village and it's Desjardin. I have CIBC and can't make deposits at Desjardins, and the school paid me with a check instead of direct deposit for whatever reason. Tis a small town indeed! The closest CIBC is in Chibougamau which is over an hours drive and I have no mode of transportation. But that's alright; if that's the biggest obstacle here, I can handle it.

The last couple days have been unseasonably warm; today it was above freezing and was even raining as I walked back to work after lunch. But it's supposed to go back down to around -20 again tomorrow in time for our planned walk to Murray's Lodge, which is about 10km outside of town. Apparently many go to the lodge every weekend for traditional Cree craft-making and foods, so we've been wanting to check it out! Hoping to try some goose and beaver meat!

It's Cold Here!

My number one observation thus far.

So, as of the 28th of January I am living in a town small Northern town in Quebec. There is one road into town, which is not as rustic as I was expecting at all, in fact it's paved. Because it's so close to another larger town called Chibougamau, it also has many of the amenities that I was worried about doing without! The grocery store is a little more expensive than one you'd see in a more populated area, but it's pretty reasonable. I'd been expecting things to be five times the price, but it's more like just adding 50 cents onto a loaf of bread.

My job is interesting! I work where young teens come from all over the James Bay area. The Centre is a sort of institution for troubled youth that are awaiting court dates. I teach all the essentials to students who are not overly enthused (to put it nicely...), but the daily resistance to everything educational seems to keep things lively. Some students are only there for a day, and others stay for months at a time depending on the situation.

The town is quite lovely; nice little houses arranged in a sort of suburb in literally the middle of nowhere. The town is surrounded by woods and the large lake. Our first weekend here we went for a long walk on the frozen over lake and checked out a couple of the islands. There is A LOT to explore, apparently there are quite a few little islands on the lake. I discovered new leg muscles as I trudged through the snow on the ice; but survived. Before we came here I bought a new extra-warm coat and snowpants, and by the end of the walk I was sweating, even though it was easily -20 outside. The days have been generally in the -30's area since we've been here, but pretty manageable. You know it's cold when you step outside and your nostril hairs instantly freeze. Pleasant!

Talking to one of the teachers at the highschool, we also found out that there are in fact lots of moose and caribou in the area, which is cool! I hope to see some wildlife soon! When we were driven from the Airport in Chibougamau, our taxi driver was full of interesting facts about the area, but claimed that there were no caribou in the area, which I was sad about! But the teacher claims to have seen them on a hunting trip no more than 10km outside of town. Sweet!