Sunday, May 31, 2009

Return of the SIksik


The siksiks have been popping up around town in the last week... so along with the snow and the temperatures approaching zero - they are sure signs of spring coming.
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Thursday, May 14, 2009

Last Northern Lights


I won't be seeing the northern lights up here for a while, probably not until next fall. However, maybe by then the solar cycle will hopefully have geared up a bit, although, currently we do actually have sunspots and the solar flux is at a high this year of 74.

In the meantime, we still haven't broken 0 C this year..... weatherman says maybe this Sunday... but so far all previous promises have been broken.
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Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Off to the Races


I was lucky to catch some of the outdoor games that were part of Hamlet days.... It was amazing to watch and one of the nicest days weather wise so far.... the next week is still supposed to be colder than normal, but maybe the week we'll brak zero.
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Caribou Skin Drag


Someone asked for an explanation of the Caribou Skin Drag - well here it is....

It is a skidoo race, but you have to be careful. You have an empty 5 galleon can on a caribou skin and if it falls off you have to stop and go get it and put it back on. The first person to the mark and back wins.
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Monday, May 11, 2009

snow bunting

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Echoing Toughts


I know.. same picture as before, but I like the cropped version much better.

Its been an introspective kind of day. I don't know whether to blame the late night viewing of The Shawshank Redemption, The cheesy Hillary Duff flick or several hours of listening to the Vitamin String Quartet. Perhaps it is the pretty close to all the time lightness that has through my internal clock for a complete loop.

Some of the thoughts, if not most, have been standard self examination of goals, choices, beliefs, philosophies and some the simple joy of listening to a violin's rendition of Depeche Mode's "Enjoy the Silence" I feel like I've been told that one day I'll grow up and be 100% sure of who I am and what I want... yet watching those same questions play across the lives of my high school students I feel sometimes I aught to warn them that in reality, most people never answer those questions definitively. Perhaps for spans of time, you will feel certain of the answer - but every day of your life leaves its tracks on your soul changing you again and again... so how can the question "Who am I?" not come back to haunt you eventually. Thus far, my road has been a convoluted and winding one - and perhaps one question I might ask is of the egg and chicken variety. Is my failure to answer the question of who I am due to the winding road or is it the cause of it?

I think, when I was writing this post in my head while staring out the window at the horizon, that I had a lot more to add - that there were a few topics I wanted to explore in writing, but then I read a few articles in the Toronto Star and found some new things to blog about....

The government of Canada wasn't doing what they wanted fast enough, so 2000 of the Tamil people of Toronto walked onto the Gardiner (on Mother's day) and stopped traffic. Now, I gather from what I've read, that there are 2 sides to the story about what is going on in Sri Lanka and the truth is, as always, war is not pretty and I think this is a fairly nasty one with both sides having plenty of blood on their hands. I have no intention in taking sides with either group nor do I have any problem with a group lobbying the government through proper channels for attention to an international crisis. I think it is terrible that innocent people are dying and that even if they are surviving that their lives, communities and economies have been destroyed and I do sypathize with their family members here who are feeling powerless to help their familys back home. I just don't like their choice of tactics.

My concern is that this type of "negotiating" should not be tolerated in Canada. This is a lot like a bank robber or kidnapper making demands with a gun head to the victims head. Most concessions achieved from a party who negotiated under duress are carried out without enthusiasm. I don't know that this will buy them the willing ear of the federal government nor even the sympathy of the common Canadian or journalist. Very few people feel inclined to cooperate when demands are made of them in this fashion, in fact, given that the we have the police and army resources to easily remove the protesters from area - the only reason they are still there is because the governments are stalling until they come up with a politically palatable way to deal with the situation - and so the protesters have accomplished little other than to sour public opinion against them and annoy the very people they want help from. For all I know, the government is leaving them where they are on purpose to ensure public opinion is soured against them. After this demonstration, even if the government had been interested in doing something about the situation in Sri Lanka, they now will have to weigh their actions against public opinion and they probably do not dare to look as if they are giving into these kinds of demands. The protesters would have been far better off to get public opinion behind them in a positive way.

Sigh. Why can't people just get along?

And it is now nearly dark and I've rambled on longer than I planned. The sun is still without sunspots and it feels weird that it is May and yet still winter, but rarely night. I do have a nice little stockpile of pictures... so hopefully I'll kick the trend of intermittant blogging in Nunavut, at least a bit.
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Wednesday, May 06, 2009

Reflections on my Life


I went outside and spent a bit of time watching our local Hamlet Day competitions - in particular barrel racing and caribou skin drag - both being Skidoo or "machine" events. It was actually fairly warm and the wind fairly calm. So, now I can't use lack of pictures.

The northern lights were out for the last time that I'll likely see them at all up here. Unfortunately, even at midnight, the sky was too bright to see them well. In about 2 weeks there will be no such thing as civil twilight... which is to say that it'll be mostly light all of the time.
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