What is there to do in North?!

Ever since moving here and not working, I get asked the question, “What do you do?”  Let me start by saying there is no movie theatre here, no walmart, no restaurants or coffee shops in fact there aren’t any shops at all.  We have 2 grocery stores.  One of them, the Co-op carries a little bit of everything including a 10” compound miter saw,  fur, a ski-doo, a fishing boat and broccoli etc.  The other carries a little bit of all your household goods.  i.e. food, tools, shower curtain rods etc.  Needless to say shopping is not one of things on my list of daily duties up here.  So we get back to the question at hand…what do I do with myself?  I’m actually very busy, and not just because I have a16 month old whose idea of sitting down is climbing up onto a chair (or any surface) and seeing if I’ll catch him as he walks off the edge.  I usually do, although he has gotten by me on occasion.  (Since writing this a couple of months ago, Reed has figured out how to climb up and off of things on his own).  Now I'm busy chasing him around and making sure everything is out of his reach, I think he's going to be a giant, everyday he can reach just a little bit further on the book shelf or table.  

So in the North, you become very fast friends with the other non-Inuit people in the North.  Don’t get me wrong we’ve become friends with some Inuit people too but we spend most of our time with the other teachers.  And luckily even though I’m not teaching this year some of the high school teachers here have adopted me as one of them.  So I have no prep work and I don't have to deal with a classroom full of kids, but I get to participate in the activities put on at the schools.  Like indoor soccer, Thursday nights from 7 until 8:30.  There is also Ultimate Frisbee on Sunday afternoons .   There is Badminton on Wednesdays  although so far I’ve opted out.  Now it’s not all fun and games up here there is also some serious television watching.  There is a group of girls who get together (including me) to watch Prison Break on Friday nights.  (we were a bigger group a while ago but have lost 2 friends to other adventures in warmer climates of the world).  Now this is a production, there is always lot’s of good food.  It’s potluck style supper and this is not your run of the mill casserole potluck.  It’s coordinated (to an extent).  We’ve had some delicious meals fallowed by 3 or more episodes of Prison Break.   A while back we were also getting together on Sunday nights for a show called Occupation Double (this is a quebec show, that’s a cross between the Bachelor, Big Brother and the Amazing Race)  It’s not my usual TV fare but it was fun and of course another reason to make food and get together.  I know what your thinking…What do Tyler and Reed do while you’re out potlucking all the time and watching TV?  Well Reeds goes to bed at 6:30 so he’s asleep and Tyler works all day and is very tired so he too is usually napping or planning for the next school day, or working out.  There is a gym in town but Tyler has turned our spare room into his own personal gym.

And now that that’s all figured out you’re thinking…but Michelle, that’s only a few evenings a week, what else do you do?

 Sometimes there are other potlucks, either on Saturday nights or Sundays for brunch, it just depends on the week.  We’ve gone sledding on the mountains around us (as a reference the mountains are bigger than Brookvale Ski park (RIP) and smaller than the Rockies. 

Reed and I sliding down the hill.

Noémie and I walking up for some sliding, you can't see him but Reed is in the amautik on my back. 

We’ve gone skating on the frozen river.  

 A bunch of kids pulling Noémie in our sled.

The family skating away....well I skated, Reed walked and sat in the sled, Tyler fallowed Reed and pulled him in the sled when the local kids weren't pulling him around.

We play outside in the snow etc.

 Also, I knit, I knit facecloths I gave for Christmas presents and headbands and cowls.  And I‘ve started knitting a sweater and other cowls, necklaces and bracelets and scarves…oooh and socks. 

Here are some pics of things I've made since arriving in the North.

I have all the necessary tools for crocheting and have started some basic projects. 

I cook, I make bread from scratch on occasion (although it usually doesn’t turn out).  But I did learn to make baguettes that were pretty tasty.  I make soup, lots of soup.  It turns out homemade tomato soup is easy and delicious and so is mushroom soup, sweet potato, leek, squash, it's all good!  I make quiche (with from scratch pie crust.  Turns out pie crust is very easy to make...I always thought it was one of those things that was very difficult).

 And bake muffins, and puree vegetables to sneak into Reeds smoothies and other foods. 

I bake (these were delicious!  Peanut butter chocolate oatmeal bars!)

There are still some things that I would like to do but just haven’t had the time.  I have a small loom here I’d like to break out and start working with.  I’d like to make mittens (some of the teachers here have made them).  They're made out of leather and fur and they are SO warm.  I’d like to go to the sewing center and see what all the women there are working on, get some lessons and some inspiration.  I’d like to clean up my computer, organize my photo's and write more blog posts, email more frequently with people, but I just don’t seem to have the time. 

Well there’s always next year!

Travelling with a Toddler

So remember back when I said I loved Air Inuit?  It's still true, I still love them, for a brief moment First Air took the number one spot in my heart but I'm back to Air Inuit and here's why.  

Recently it was March break.  We decided to head to Calgary for a week.  It turns out it takes A LONG time to get to Calgary from here and one week really isn't long enough to do everything and see everyone we would like.  We did get to see a lot of people and we accomplished most of what we wanted.  

Anyway to get to Calgary there are two flight options, you can go the way we arrived here in September and the way we went home for Christmas.  Which is with Air Inuit through many communities, the biggest one called Purvirnituq (POV for short), this is traveling the Hudson Bay side since you are basically fallowing the Hudson bay south until you can get a flight to Montreal.  Then there is the other coast, fallowing the Ungava coast south until you reach Kuujjuaq, where you can get a flight to Montreal.  Depending on what community you live it is shorter to go one way over the other, unless you live in Salluit (which we do) because we are smack dab in the middle.  No matter which coast we choose we have the same number of stops along the way.  The benefit of taking the Ungava coast is you leave earlier in the morning and therefore arrive in Montreal earlier in the evening (in theory).  Arriving earlier in the Montreal doesn’t actually matter if you are heading to PEI as there is only one option from Montreal and you can’t make the connection so you are always going to stay the night there.  There are many flights to Calgary from Montreal and therefore arriving earlier in the day via the Ungava coast actually gets us to Montreal in time to catch the connection (again in theory).

For this reason we decided to ask to take the Ungava coast south for March break.  We were not the only teachers who had connections to make and therefore wanted the earlier flight and this is where the two airlines come in.  From Salluit Air Inuit flies either to Montreal via Hudson bay coast or to Kuujjuaq (via Ungava) where you can then connect with First Air for Montreal. 

On the way to Calgary we were relatively on time, we made all of our connections and we arrived in Calgary only an hour later than expected (and that was on Air Canada, not one of our northern air lines).  It only took 7 take offs and landings, three different airlines and 20 hours of travel.  I should note here that Reed was a trouper!  He is a great traveler and did better than can be expected from a 16 month old with such a long day of travelling.

On the trip to Calgary is when I decided First Air is better than Air Inuit.  You see both airlines still feed you a meal but First air gives you free wine with your meal and a specialty coffee for dessert (on top of your dessert of course).  While Reed ate from my lunch tray and sat quietly and watched Mickey Mouse Clubhouse on my Ipad, (a necessity for anyone travelling with a toddler), Tyler and I enjoyed our lunch with our glass of wine.  He even got a refill!  They were totally my new favs!  I would also take a moment to comment on the difference between taking a child on these two airlines vs Air Canada.  Night and Day!  Nobody cares on the two Northern airlines that Reed is walking up and down the isles after sitting in his seat for an extended period of time, no one gives us dirty looks when he cries (for 5 minutes) while Tyler tries to put him down for a nap.  The people in front and behind us on first air and Air Inuit make faces at him when he’s crying to make him smile.  Some people on Air Canada do that for us but there are just as many who roll there eyes at us, give us dirty looks and make huge sighs when they realize they are sitting beside or close to a kid.  I have some 4 letter words to say to those people but I’ll keep those to myself for now and just say that I bet my son has clocked more flights than the average Canadian in his 16months of life (even more if you consider when I was pregnant) and he is better behaved on a plane than some adults I’ve witnessed in my life.  Anyway back to the story!

On the way back to Salluit from Calgary was a much more eventful trip then the way south.  We left Calgary and made it to Montreal for the night as planned.  The next day, in the Montreal airport we met up with the other teachers from our village, they were all heading up the Hudson bay coast and we were heading up the Ungava coast, not sure why we were the only ones on this flight but I’m sure glad we did not end up in the predicament of the other teachers. 

They boarded their flight first, we said our “see ya’s at the end of the day’s” ,and then while we were waiting for the our flight we said our “what the heck are you guys doing back?”  The run way in their first stop wasn’t fit for landing so they had to wait.  We should have realized this was the first sign of disaster.  Anyway we ended up leaving before them and we arrived in sunny Kuujjuaq on time.  That was the end of our trip with First Air it was now time to check in with Air Inuit and continue our journey.  There were 5 or 6 stops before Salluit and according to the pilot there was a 50% chance we would land in Salluit at the end of the day, otherwise we would go to POV or back to Kuujjuaq.  Now if you’ve read my very first blog post you know we only had a 10% chance of landing in Salluit on my first flight adventure north so 50% seemed like we would definitely land, so off we went.  In the town right before Salluit we learned we were heading….. back Kuujjuaq. 

There was the possibility of going to Puvirnutuq which is where all the other teachers were stuck and I have to admit the idea of at least being stranded with friends was appealing but we were heading back to Kuujjuaq solo.  And this is why I love Air Inuit again (although to be fair, the gate agents for Air Inuit and First Air in Kuujjuaq are the same 4 people)  Anyway we arrive back in Kuujjuaq and we’re talking to the agent, she says we will be flying out at 8am direct to Salluit in the morning.  At this point there are about 4 people going to Salluit and we are three of them but they’re going to fly us anyway.  I ask if there is a cab (I know there is in Kuujjuaq, thank goodness) and explain we will be going to the hotel.  The agent says to me, “I’ll just drive you, the cab doesn’t always answer the phone and probably won’t tonight, do you have a room booked at the hotel?”  No, or course we don’t.  Ok she decides to call for us, the lady at the hotel is only there for 15 more minutes.  The gate agents asks her stay we will be there soon!  And she drives us to the hotel.  Then she says she'll be back at 7:15am to pick us up.  Oh and by the way we have 3 suitcases and a stroller, but at the gate agents advice we transfer all we need to one suitcase and leave the other two behind with the stroller.  (I mean what other airline would let you do that?!)

The next morning at 7:15 we are ready to go! The agent arrives at the hotel and says, “You can come with me now, but we aren’t leaving at 8 anymore, or you can stay here and I’ll call you when we’re leaving.” Well we’ll stay here thank you, I mean at least the hotel has a tv with cartoons and internet for us bigger kids who need entertaining.

Back at the hotel I come to find out that the other teachers are at the Airport in POV and their flight for Salluit is cancelled and not going until the next day.  Court is also coming to town in POV so the hotel is totally booked up, which means the teachers have to be farmed out to other teachers in town.  I’m glad I’m not in POV.  It’s one thing to have to stay at someone’s house suddenly, it’s a little different when you also have to bring your 16 month old.  Where would he sleep?  Would they have a playpen/crib?  Would he be up at all hours of the night thus not letting anyone else sleep?  And here is the worst part of their stranded story, they were all at the airport and did not leave the airport until the end of the school day when someone could come and get them and bring them to other teachers houses.   For those who don't know, airports in the north are just big rooms with a bathroom in one corner and a desk for the gate agents.  There is no food to buy, there are metal seats, no cushions, there is nothing at all to do.  No I’m happy at the hotel in Kuujjuaq that has a restaurant.  I know what you're thinking....a restaurant!!! We were that excited too! (no other town up here has a restaurant).

Another thing about travelling with a toddler is having enough supplies.  I had enough diapers to get us to Salluit and if we had to stay over somewhere, but now it looked like we would be staying over for a second night….we did not have enough diapers for that.  So Tyler ventured out into the cold and wind to find the grocery store to buy diapers.  $13 for 12 diapers and that’s probably a little cheaper than Salluit, crazy, which is why I don’t buy my diapers in the north, more about that another day.

After he got back with diapers and other supplies, I called the airport and the flight was leaving at 2:00pm, the agent was on his way to pick us up (it was 1:15pm). We made it to Salluit at 4:30pm, we only had 1 stop on the way, the other 3 (or 4) where too stormy to land.  I know how much that sucks for the people of those villages but man I was glad!  It’s hard repeatedly doing take-offs and landings with a toddler and it’s hard for someone like me who gets motion sick.  The more take offs and landings there are the more nauseous I feel.  (some of you may be thinking…didn’t you use to work as a flight attendant, yes, I did and if we had 5 flights in a day by the end I was nauseous.)

Anyway we arrived one day late, the rest of the teachers arrived two days late.  Our thoughts and feelings about our experiences differ pretty greatly.

Just as a side note does anyone know Mark Gallant from PEI who works at the Kuujjuaq airport?  When I showed the guy the airport my ID he said “Hey there’s a guy that works here from PEI, his name is Gallant, Mark Gallant, do you know him?”  I didn’t bother explaining that Gallant is probably the most common name in PEI aside from Macdonald, and there are likely many Mark Gallants on PEI although I can’t say I know any of them off the top of my head.  But this does support my theory that you can find someone from PEI no matter where you go, I now know there are at least 2 in Kuujjuaq, Mark and a teacher named Courtney (Macdonald of course lol).

It's cold....It's Canada!

I’ve been working on a blog post for about 2 weeks now.  It’s not this one.  The post I have been (slowly) working on includes pictures and the thing about me and pictures is…I’m lazy about them.  I’m lazy about taking them and even more lazy about collecting them from my various devices and doing something with them.  So my post is on hold until I can locate all the pictures I’m looking for and the cords needed to get them all on my computer.  (it’s really only one cord but I sound so high tech using plural cords).  I digress, THIS post is about the temperature.

In the past couple of days I have noticed MANY people have updated their facebook status to reflect the cold in their respective cities.  I have also done this on occasion myself and it got me thinking about temperature. 

-30 is cold, no matter where you are if the temperature is -30 it’s cold outside, that goes for -25, -42 etc.  What is really amazing is how quickly we can become use to that cold.  Once upon a time if the temp said -30 I would have said, “It would be better just to stay in today, no need to get out in the cold.”  Now I find myself seeing the -30 forecast and thinking, "This is an acceptable forecast to go outside." 

Today while it is -42 in Ottawa, -30 in Charlottetown, feels like -22 in Calgary, it’s -24 here in Salluit.  After lunch I thought we better get outside, it’s been at least 2 days since we’ve been out of this house.  So I put Reed in his snowsuit and full head warmer thing knit by his grandma.  I dressed in my snow pants, bogs (boots) (which by the way are pretty much the only footwear I have needed while here in the arctic.  They are super warm!) and of course the amautik so Reed could ride in the back while I carry a few groceries we ‘need’.  We were heading to both grocery stores in town, just to see what they had. Between grocery stores I realized….I was sweating.  I had to take my mittens off, and I started to regret my choice for wearing snow pants.   It may have been a better choice to put on my wind breaking splash pants, I’m glad I skipped the scarf. 

Anyway all this to say that how I use to think of -24 or even -42 for that matter has totally changed.  The difference I have noticed between –cold here versus –cold somewhere else in Canada, is style.  It is completely fashionable here to be totally bundled up, snow pants, hat, mittens, huge jacket that makes you look like a walking shapeless huge mass of down and polyester.  Your fitted, burberry-esque  ‘winter’ coat is not gonna cut it.  It’s cold, but it’s Canada, dress warmly and get outside!

It's All in the Name

So the title for our blog is “Adventures in Teaching (and babysitting)”.  I chose this because originally Tyler was going to contribute entries about teaching, he has since decided not to.  Mostly I think because it is far too easy for him to write all of the negative things that happen and then the blog becomes a space for complaining.  And of course I don’t write about adventures in teaching because as most of you know I am still at home with Reed.  There have been opportunities for me to work however the waiting list for daycare is a yearlong wait and there is just no one to take Reed.  And so the “Adventure in Babysitting” was more of an homage to the 1987 film staring Elizabeth Shue of the same name.  But it was a bit of lie because I really don’t consider staying home with my own child babysitting plus none of my posts have been about babysitting (or baby rearing) at all.  Well that might change.

It turns out the title may have been a little prophetic.  There is a teacher here who has a foster child.  He is 2 years old and after her mom leaves to go back to her own life, the 2 year old needs a babysitter (he of course is on the waiting list for daycare, he has been for a while now). Which as I’m sure you have all guessed is where I come in.  Starting December 8^th I will be babysitting and thus having “Adventures in Babysitting”. Some maybe even worth writing about.  I have to say I’m a little torn about the prospect.  On the one hand, Reed and William get along very well and it will be great for Reed to have someone closer to his own age to socialize with.  William is a very well behaved little boy so it will be a good way to make a little extra cash.  However, I really enjoy just having Reed and I at home.  Reed is napping twice a day, which means that in the AM I get to nap too.  And then in the PM I get to nap a second time or clean up or read a book or do some knitting or get something started for supper.  Take today for instance, with Reed in bed this afternoon I was able to finish the laundry, put a chicken in the oven…with stuffing.  Peel and cut the potatoes, carrots, parsnips and beets and do the dishes.  Before Reed went for a nap I was able to bundle him up and take him in the sled to the store/post office.  I collected our packages (thank you Judi and Dan) and had room in the sled for baby and boxes (I should note that yes we have snow, lot’s of it and pulling a sled is the easiest way to travel with baby and bags/boxes).  Having a second child with me will make getting out and running errands (well errand there isn’t that much to do here) that much more time consuming and complicated.  I’m sure it will actually be fine…but I’m going to miss that morning nap!

The Move

I know…it’s been a long time.  I was going to write yesterday but I couldn’t.  I mean I physically could have but I had nothing nice to say.  You see, yesterday the Red Septic Light of Death came on.  This is not your run of the mill yellow warning you will soon be running out of septic space (no that light came on Saturday) this was the red light, STOP! do not let another drop of water go down the drains.  And to ensure that no water goes down the drains the water is automatically shut off until the sewage is pumped.  So you think well that sucks and I’m sure some of you think oh well you’ll just have to wait a day or two to shower.  Except, because the yellow warning light was on we hadn’t showered in a couple of days.  I know someone suggested showering at the school to save water, except neither school in town have showers, the gym doesn’t have showers and although there is a pool in town and I suspect they will have showers, it’s not open yet.  It was suppose to open September 22^nd, I think they’re saying next week…we’ll see.  (We take a lot of sponge baths here, readying ourselves for one day when we might be bed ridden and it be the only way to clean).  Anyway we ended up going to someone else’s house for showers, a perfectly acceptable thing to do in Salluit, we also took some of her tap water so we could do some dishes.  We have drinking water on hand here but we didn’t want to waste it on dishwashing.  Anyway the septic truck came this morning ( I could have kissed those guys for showing up to work today, not everyone does all the time).  So I’m in a much better frame of mind to be writing today.  Today I can talk about all the great things about Salluit and our new (to us) house.  And I believe I’ve promised some pictures of said house. 

So we moved from our apartment to a house across town.  We liked the apartment because we liked our building members and it was very close to school (30 ish steps) and we lived on the top floor so we had a good view looking over the town towards the mountains.  But the apartment had some drawbacks.  It was small, Reeds room was right beside…well everything.  When he went to bed you had to be somewhat quiet.   (He’s a pretty good sleeper, and we just aren’t that quiet of people), but the doors didn’t block much sound and so it was almost like you were right in his room.  Also we lived upstairs so it was quite the sight watching me try to take a baby, a stroller and groceries up the stairs.  Plus the halls in the building were narrow so if I had the stroller out, no one was getting by us.  But it was home (for a while) and we were pretty comfortable there.

Here is what it looked like

This first picture is our kitchen Reed was playing with the drawers beside the oven and fell, I took this picture about 1/2 after he fell over.  He was quite happy to lay there and "chat".  He did finally roll over, get up and walk away.  He just needed a break from all that playing.  As you can see, the kitchen was not that wide (not even two Reeds).

 Here is the living room.  We actually changed the furniture around so it made more sense, especially when the tv arrived.  This was before all of our stuff arrived and it seems to be the only picture  I have of the living room.

 While taking the picture above and the picture below I was standing in the same place just pivoting to get both shots.

Now let me tell you why I love the house.  It’s two stories, you might think this would be a negative thing since toddlers like to climb (and fall down) stairs. We have a baby gate, in fact I brought a baby gate and I just bought a baby gate from Costco.ca, I love free shipping (but more about that another day).  So the stairs aren’t really a problem.  When it’s Reeds bedtime, he can sleep soundly upstairs, while we watch tv, listen to music, cook, dance, talk whatever we are going to do until bed time.  I’ll admit we don’t usually do a whole lot of dancing…maybe we should start. 

Tyler and Reed making towers with blocks.  (This picture is mid move, hence the chaos).

This is the living room and our little thug.  The dinning room and kitchen are on the other side of those stairs, I don't have a picture at this time.

 I am taking this picture from the dinning room table, if you could see past the stairs you would be looking at the living room.  This is Reed and his little friend Liam.  Under the stairs is Reed's favourite place to play.

I was worried we would lose the view.  But from the upstairs of this house we have a better view, we can see the bay from our upstairs and the mountains that surround it, which are actually pretty nice right now all covered with snow.  We also see ugly parts of town from our upstairs but it’s amazing how quickly you can train your eyes not to see that part.  And it’s pretty amazing what a little snow can cover up.  (A future post will be pictures of the town).

When you come in our house there is a porch, a place to take off your snow covered boots, to hang your huge winter jacket, to store a stroller and big bulky winter gear.  I have also found this room useful if Reed is napping when we get back from a walk.  This room is separated from the rest of the house by a door so it’s quiet and dark in there with the lights off, perfect for napping.

Our new house is a little bit further from school than the apartment was it’s about a 5 to 7 minute walk but we are much closer to the stores.  By stores I mean the two stores in town, the Co-op and the Northern.  Both stores have a little bit of everything.  You can even buy a 10” compound miter saw at the Co-op (I know because Tyler wants to buy it, we’re not going to).  They have everything but it’s expensive.  The Northern houses the post office.  When we moved here the woman who went back south, left us her P.O. Box as well as her house.  There haven’t been P.O.boxes available in town for about 7 ish years now, so we’re pretty lucky to have made friends with her before she left.  She also left us 20 or so pounds of frozen bananas (maybe more, there are a lot of bananas here), so I make banana oatmeal chocolate chip muffins regularly. And she left us two sleds.  She used them for carting groceries.  I will use them for that and for carting a baby around town.

I will (someday) write a blog entry about food and groceries but for now let’s stick to the house. 

Speaking of food, the kitchen is much bigger here and there is plenty more storage in the entire house.  The furniture is in better shape and is much nicer here and we have a huge kitchen table, we could actually have someone over for dinner sometime.

The house is on a corner right on the outskirts of what is called “downtown” Salluit, I kid you not.  Downtown Salluit is known to be loud and boisterous at night, particularly after payday.  We are in a louder part of town than the apartment, but it could be worse, we could live right “downtown”.  Besides it’s getting colder so soon the partiers and kids will have to move inside.  I suspect it will quiet down as the temperature drops.

Oh and it’s a 3 bedroom instead of 2.  Which means we have a workout room/office/sewing room/weaving room/spare room. 

This one is Reed's room.

The spare room.

And I don't have a picture of our room at the moment but here is our huge walk in closet.  (Sorry it's sideways but if I don't publish this entry now, I may never.)  It's even bigger than that, there is more closet behind the door.

So if you’re in the area, I can give you a bed.  I can’t guarantee a shower, but I can give you a place to sleep with a great view.

A Thanksgiving to Remember!

We had a great thanksgiving.  Potluck dinner at one of the teacher’s houses.  There were 3 chickens, stuffing, scalloped potatoes, squash, salad, roasted onions, butternut squash soup, meat balls and delicious cheese cake, there was pumpkin pie too, but I’m not a fan, although I hear it was fantastic.  We had a great time!  There were kids for Reed to play with and the house was all on one floor so he was able to roam relatively free.  The wheels fell off when we made it home.

When we arrived we saw our sewage light was on, in the North we have a septic holding tank and the septic truck comes around and empties it, they’re suppose to come everyday.  That is the contract they have with the school board.  They don’t.  When the septic light comes on your septic tank is almost full, at this point we still have water but you have to be careful because if it gets too full your water shuts off.  Which is good, because that way it can’t overflow.  Anyway, like I said we still had water so things could be worse….oh and they got worse.

As Tyler was trying to figure out who to call to inform them that we needed our septic pumped we had a flurry of activity.  I was trying to feed a cranky and tired baby.  Tyler was tracking down numbers and calling wrong numbers and answering calls we were getting. In the midst of the commotion we got a call asking if we would be willing to take in two little girls for the night.  They needed a place to sleep.  We didn’t ask what the situation was, at the end of the day the “why” is not so important.  Anyway we said we couldn’t really take them that night, we don’t have beds for them since Reed’s room only has a crib.  I mean we would have moved his crib in our room and they could have had his room but they would have been on the floor.  And we had no septic.  It just didn’t make sense that night, but Tyler said to the woman, "Don’t loose our number or anything but we just can’t do it tonight."  And that’s basically how we ended up on the emergency fostering list.

As the evening went on we realized it was getting colder and colder in our apartment.  Yep you guessed it the furnace broke.  We are in an apartment so our furnace is in a utility room with a locked door, so we couldn’t even go see if there was something we could do ourselves.  So Tyler got back to the phones.  

Side note here :  During off hours, the only way to get a septic truck to your house is to call the radio and they announce it and you hope the truck drivers are listening and are willing to go to your house.  In our case, they were not.   This was all going down Sunday evening, it is Monday evening as I write and we still have a full septic but I’ll get back to that later.

Tyler calls the principal and the Director to explain about our no heat problem.  The exchange went something like this.

Tyler “Hi, it’s Tyler so we have no heat, the furnace is broken”

Principal “Well we don’t have any maintenance guys right now [one quite, one was fired]  so you’ll have to call the Director”

Tyler “Hi, It’s Tyler, so we have no heat, the furnace is broken.”

Director “Hi Tyler, we have no maintenance guys right now.”

Tyler “Yes, I know but we have no heat.”

Director “Well, we have no maintenance guys, I don’t know what to do.”

Tyler “Ok, but we have a baby here and no HEAT!   We need to do something”

Director “You will have to call the other director, he might know.”

The other director eventually came and fixed the furnace.  He doesn’t seem to really

know much about furnaces but what he knows works and we get heat….At this point any guilt about not taking the two girls is totally gone since it was a bit of a gong show here. 

I should say that during all of this, one of the other people who lives in our building (and had heat and a working septic) offered us a place to sleep if we needed it and offered us supper, I went down and ate (it was a girls potluck/tv night at her house, I didn’t take anything.  Everyone understood). Tyler opted to staye home and eat leftovers, talk to the director when he arrived, and stay with Reed.  Meanwhile Reed was in bed sleeping in a long sleeve onesie, fleece pj’s, a fleece sleep sack and a blanket over him.  He had no idea anything was going on and was happy and cozy in bed, until the heat came on and I had to start unlayering him. (I may have been a little over cautious getting him dressed for bed).

So it was at least a memorable first Thanksgiving in the north.  And we learned a few valuable lessons.  Like always keep extra water on hand (we have lots’).  And now we know what great neighbors we have. 

Tomorrow is Tuesday.  We called the radio again today, no septic truck came.  We’re not even sure we have a working truck in town.  As of last week 2 of the 3 septic trucks were broken and I’m pretty sure no one worked today.  Which means by tomorrow there will be many more people than us needing the septic truck.  I hope it comes tomorrow because we would all love to have a shower, wash the dishes, flush the toilet.  But I won’t get my hopes up….I’ve learned that lesson too.  Things happen on their own time here.

Mussels and Clams

So….I’ve been realizing this blogging thing is a little more difficult than I first anticipated.  Not because it’s hard to write about what I’ve been up to, mostly because I’m having a hard time actually sitting down and typing it out.  So here is finally installment 2 of Adventures in teaching (and babysitting). 

I went mussel picking, clam digging and berry picking.  Now I totally realize the irony here. I left PEI, home of what are probably the most famous mussels around, and a place where clams can be dug (albeit illegally) while your spending the day at the beach as long as the tide is out.).  So I went with a teacher friend of Tyler’s.  She is Inuit and her and her family were taking a canoe to an island where they are building a summer cabin and then on to her late mothers favourite berry picking spot and their favourite clam digging shore.

It was pretty great! I have pictures to speak for me so I don’t actually have to write a huge long blog like the last one.  But I will say, it was cold.  At one point I was wearing, cotton socks, wool socks, and wool booties in rubber boots, I had jeans and snowpants on along with a t-shirt a fleece sweater, a down filled winter jacket, a rain coat over that and a huge rain proof pancho on the way home (to help keep the wind from freezing me), a hat and mittens. On the way home my teeth were still chattering, but it was fun and I’m glad I got to go.  Without further ado here are the photos.

Here we are heading out to sea, or at least out of the bay.

 This is the beginning of the cabin (in the backround) and the tent where they stay while working on the cabin.  There were really high winds earlier in the week so we were there to clean up a bit and take some camping gear back to town since it will soon be too cold to camp out there.

This is where we docked the boat for berry picking.

This is what I climbed up to get to the berry picking spot.

And this is what I climbed down.  At this point I feel I should explain that Reed was safely back in town being babysat by the teachers sister.  I also should mention after climbing all the way up there, the geese had eaten all the berries and we left pretty much empty handed.

That in the distance is rain coming towards us, by the time it got to us it was snow but we were heading back anyway so we didn't get snowed on much.

This is where we were clam digging and you can't see them but there are mussels everywhere just lying in the shallow water.

Same place different angle.

This is the teacher's niece and the fish she caught.  These fish do get eaten but when I asked the teacher if her niece was going keep it an eat it she said "no, it's just a toy now." When she was done playing with she let him go.

Same fish.

And here are the clams, I really didn't dig that many, mostly because I don't like clams, so I was really just digging them for Tyler and they are hard work to dig so enough for a taste was plenty.

 Here is Tyler pulling them apart, they are different from the clams in PEI and you can't just boil them you have to pull off this skin like stuff first.

They also don't have 'tongues' as we call them in PEI they have a different protrusion, the Inuit call them penises.  (in inutittut of course but I can't remember what that word it right now.)

And here they are just before we boiled them.  I should mention that here in Northern Quebec, they don't cook them, they just eat 'em raw.  Since I don't like clams in the first place I couldn't muster the stomach to try them raw.  Maybe next time :(

It was a fun filled day, and I didn't even get motion sick.