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!