Due North

I read over the entry that I’d been working on sporadically since I’ve left and decided that it needed to much work to post as a blog – so here is a paraphrased version of the highlights.

To start off with Geoff wins mega-amazing best brother points for being a superhero - including getting up early, being patient and sending me of on my journey with a very delicious piece of cake – the likes of which I won’t see for a while. Everything went smoothly en-route and the numerous ups and downs didn’t bother my ears nearly as much as I expected. I had a couple of those gasping moments when I suddenly I realized I’d forgotten something – but for the most part I didn’t let it get to me. I did fail to unplug and pack my alarm clock, but in the end that worked out for the best as it gave me a reason to tackle the bus system in Winnipeg and find a replacement – which I like better than the one I left behind. The overhead baggage compartments on the smaller planes really are small though. After a night of packing and unpacking and hopping on and off the bathroom scale, I ended up about about 8 lbs over and Calm Air does seem to include your carry-on in their total – so, actually it was 28 lbs meaning that I just managed to squeeze under the limit.

The weather once we got north of Winnipeg was amazing and I could see the ground the entire way prompting me to take tonnes of relatively awful pictures from the plane window. The coast is really wet – even the land part seems more than half water. We actually were ahead of schedule and kept our stops en route fairly short. It was 29 C in Churchill – hotter than I’ve really seen it at home even lately and fairly warm when we got here. The first night we mostly got settled and chatted and tried to figure out if we had enough kitchen stuff to limp along until our stuff gets here – I think we’ll manage give or take a can opener –depending if I packed one in the bags I haven’t gotten yet. I tried writing a bit the first night, but mostly I couldn’t keep my eyes open.

The next day we all woke up early. I spent a good chunk of the morning walking around town and taking a bunch of photos (probably most of the ones included in this blog). I’m absolutely in love with the fireweed here. In general – everything is amazingly beautiful. I spent the rest of the day in my classroom hunting down curriculum documents and textbooks for my class and doing all that thinking stuff, list making and planning. Apparently, my roommates and I have brought the rainy season here from Ontario – as the sky opened up shortly after lunch and it poured for nearly 3 hours (only 8.4 in the end). Today I finally braved the store to get food (i.e. I ran out of the meagre bits I’d packed in my bag and was craving something healthy enough to make shopping a priority. I was actually pleasantly surprised that the prices were not that different from Kashechewan and that the store actually had a surprising amount of selection. I enjoyed my omelette for brunch too. Much better than what I’d been eating. I gather that the barge will arrive when it gets here – no sooner and no later and hopefully before the lake freezes. Hopefully, we’ll get organized to figure out the food mail thing soon – but in the meantime eating is good. Speaking of which – I think I should go organize myself some dinner.

So I haven't quite got the knack of transferring my photos over to this computer - so you only get one for now. Soon though - and I really will have to take my camera with me more - although the next few days are going to be super busy. Thanks for everyones best wishes - its good to know that I have such good friends believing in me... I promise - lots of stories and picutures at Christmas.