A Tour of Town!

So, over the long weekend we went for a nice walk around the town. First off, the Cop Shop. All of the cruisers are big blinged out SUV's, which I find pretty entertaining. Although from what I hear the police are generally not all that reliable. Although Sunday morning I was at the grocery store and a man collapsed on the road and the police came very quickly (The police station was less than a block from where the man fell, but still!).

This is just an example of some Cree writing. It's so very confusing; everyone speaks it, but very few of the people can actually read and write Cree. There are so many symbols and some of them are just turned on a different angle and mean something else.... confusing!

Axep, the local grocery store. The only grocery store. Most people living here drive the 45 minutes to Chibougamau to do their grocery shopping and also just to get out of town! It has all the necessities though, and when you consider the gas money spent is about the same price as Chibougamau.

The towns "airport" for the moment. This plane can be heard flying in and out of town a few times a day as Goose Break approaches. Many people have left town already to pursue Geese. Not sure when they decide to switch their skis to flotation devices. The ice is still safe to walk on, but there are lots of puddles on top of the snow and ice that look pretty sketchy to me!







Whenever we go out to the lake random dogs will come up to us wanting food and attention. This friendly guy is a little freaky looking though.

Goose decoys! On the section of the lake that turns into a river that never freezes (not sure how it works, but the water is VERY deep) there are a few goose decoys set up next to blinds for when the actual LIVE geese arrive.

It was a beautiful day for a walk, I must say. The water is dark, but looks nice and clean and I'm looking forward to going swimming! It just needs to stop snowing first, which is what's happening outside right now. This coming weekend is when Goose Break officially begins, and I'm sure very few people will be showing up for work. Not sure what we'll be doing; probably just relaxing and exploring. It would be interesting to go on a goose hunt somewhere, but we shall see.

Northern Update!

I've been very lazy in the last little while! Forgive my negligence; I wish I had a decent excuse, but I've got nothing!

Things are starting to warm up (although it's been snowing in the last couple of days), but there's still plenty of snow left. The roads are slowly melting to reveal pavement (lots of potholes!) and gravel and all of the snow is becoming dirty looking, as it does in the spring time. The lake is still walkable though, so on this past Sunday afternoon after going to the teepee we went for a walk on one of the MANY islands around the town, but got a few nice views of the town. This first picture's just some more teepee goodness. Someone brought some bacon to cook over the fire; pure genius!

If you look past the town and into the distance (in the above photo), that is the section of the lake that we would walk on to go to Murray's Lodge, so we're on the opposite side of town.

This one's just from a slightly different angle, but you can see better the section of the lake that apparently never quite freezes over. Must be some sort of spring that keeps the water circulating? Geologist I most certainly am not! We were walking around in the burned out section of the trees again and trying to figure out how long ago the fire was. There are some short trees and brush growing, but it seems to be a really rocky area, so it's hard to say how long it's been.

School's going as well as can be expected. The last few days I've been feeling like the students and I have reached some sort of understanding, but already I know from experience that the moment I start to feel comfortable I'll get a couple new students and have to start all over again!! Today we watched "The Outsiders" (classic Patrick Swayze!) to celebrate getting through the book together in class, which was-- to put it nicely-- a battle. I think I heard every complaint and lie under the sun while slogging through this book. My students are never willing to do homework because they're "too busy" but then five minutes later they'll tell me how terribly boring Reception Centre is, and how they have nothing to do. Hmmmmm...

At this point I also need to figure out what I'll be doing with myself... stay here and teach if they offer it? Try and find a job somewhere back in Ontario? I'll think about it another time... It hurts my head!