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.

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.

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.

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.

snow bunting

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.

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.

Blog-Appology

Its clear that I've forgotten that I own a blog for the last several weeks. Its clear that I'm hurting for new photos (thus the picture of a decomissioned power plant) and content (thus the filler made up of my poetry from Gr. 9). I will try to do better - although, no garentees.

The days have started to fly by - not for lack of hours of daylight, but there is a lot of stuff on the go for sure. So... I do have stuff I need to finish up this evening - so here is a few quick updates.

Weather Predictions - the first predicted temperature above zero for BL is set for this coming Wednesday - which probably means the actual temperature is going to be -30 with winds of 50-70 kmh - but still.. there is some reason to hope.

Powerless - I really really meant to write a post about our mandatory rotating "earth hours" this week past, but whatever witty thoughts I had to share and insights are long buried under all the day to day things that go through my brain and I don't have the enthusiasm I need about the topic to do it justice. I'll just say that it was a good experience and I learned that I'm more addicted to checking my email than I thought, but perfectly content to use the lack of power as an excuse to live off cold cereal and rice-cakes with cream cheese. I did miss my radio though (when I use the word radio... please interpret it as itunes). But I did try to make up for the lack of music by pulling out ye olde guitar - only to discover that I'm badly in need of extensive practice before I play in front of anyone.

Music I'm Anticipating - Both Dala and NLX have new albums coming out in the next few months and I'm looking forward to both albums and maybe even seeing one or both of them perform. The new DM album has provided some good workout tunes too!

Cooking - I've been busy cooking away - I made apple crisp, chicken vegetable soup, salad, my mom's chicken and peaches recipe and tomorrow night I think I'm going to try and tackle spaghetti sauce as I'm down to the last 2 servings of stew.

And thats is all for now folks....

Jennith

Eyeballs

Eyeballs hanging from the ceiling
Those who watch, but have no feeling
Do not care that we are dying,
Eyeballs with no tears for crying

Foolish, thoughtless, mindless beings
Do not understand their seeings
Just hang there from the ceiling, staring
With not hearts nor minds for caring

There is a set of eyes inside
Eyes unopened, eyes untried
Eyes to which cannot be lied
Filled with tears left long uncried

Through the darkenss, beyond the blind
Can inner sight save all mankind
Stop the hatred with one mind
Look deep inside what can you find

Close your eyelids, cease to stare
You will not see the truth out there
All the wisdom that you need
Is inside, but must be freed

A vision seeking inner peace
Balancing tension with release
Wishing war and waste would cease
In a world thats full of greed and grease

Centered breathing, shifting views
Tuning out the grinding news
Hear the whispers of your soul
Save the world by first being whole

Slowly carefully, find the strength
To bear this burden for great length
Let your walls fade into dust
Until their thoughts, upon you thrust

Thoughtwaves baying in your head
Guilty, hateful, worried, dread
If each of us knew all unsaid
The future would a new path tread

Here is a bit of what at least started as a grade 9 poetry assignment for English. I found it written on a battered writing folder from highschool covered in pictures of my friends and full of dog-eared pages of guitar music - mostly campfire songs. All my friends have so much hair.. well, actually I think Em has the same hair cut and Jason may have gotten shaggier looking since grade 11 - but all said - it makes me smile. I haven't written any poetry in a long while - unless you count the odd random bit of verse or a handful of haiku poems on this blog.

For those of you who are baffled by what the poem could possibly be about. Keep in mind that at this point in my life I'd read Heinlein's "Stranger in a Strange Land" a few too many times and that we all thought that the idea of telepathy was cool - I also liked drawing pictures of eyes - being one of a few things I could do and have them come out as a recognizable objects... Actually I should also note that the discontinuity of the poem has to do with the fact that it was written at several different times - I only handed in the first two verses and I'm not sure they had to do with telepathy at all... but honest, I can explain... I was in Grade 9!!!

A Picture of Deep Summer

Lazily hunting
Bee drinks nectar from asters
Under a warm sun

Kaylee, Gaurdian of the Garden, Working hard

Here is my squirrel and rabbit patrol hard at work... uh... sleeping in the late afternoon sun.

Clearly suffering from Gardening Withdrawal

Something about this shot just made me need to share it - Happy Easter Everyone.

And I'll have to make time tomorrow to take pictures of Spring in the North. It was so warm (-10 C) today that I went out with out snow pants, in my insulated rubber boots and my southern winter jacket - and I didn't even wear mitts... at least for the 10 minutes that I was outside....

But... all these garden pictures are making miss the smell of dirt and cedar mulch and my daily routine of checking each plant for bugs, squirrel problems and aparently.. my daily garden photography and my furry gardening partner - Kaylee who did the all important job of chasing wayward rabbits and squirrels away from my favourite plants.

Before Shot

This is what the woodland garden looked much earlier in the season and it looked a lot like a heap of leaves before that....

I wonder how it'll look this summer.

Wildflowers waking up

Woodland plants and bulbs are popping up down south. The trillium picture was probably taken just shy of 1 year ago. Maybe the last week of April or the first week of May. I assume that means that my woodland garden is also starting to wake up... and the gardener is me is wondering if my trilliums survived. What will come up first - will the violets and bricknell's geranium take over. Will the Jacob's ladder come back... will I have to go at the strawberries with a chainsaw. How did the lily of the valley do? Did the squirrels eat all the crocusses and daffodils? Tulips?? Will the Lupine recover from the torments of earwigs and slugs? When will the columbine flower? Will it survive without me to nuture it??

I've instructured the current caretakers to provide photographic proof of its survival when they get a chance... I hope that I can whip it into shape (i.e. mulch it and tidy the edges of the beds) quickly. I don't think there will be much need to plant this year. Mostly this year will be clipping and tying back - weeding and fertalizing.

LOL.. look for pictures from me in June or July

Letting Go of the Old

I finished all my Nunavut permenent resident type paperwork today. It feels weird. I never thought I felt anything for my home province except a slight sense of embarassment to be coming from a place that many people in NB thought was annoying for thinking itself the center of the universe... I even came from the part of the province that people in other parts of the province thought was a bit self important. (This isn't percisely true - I'm absolutely in love with the landscape in my home province and I don't actually find Ontarians to be as snotty as people think, but I just didn't think I was attached emotionally to the idea of being one of the folks from the center of the universe) But I've always had a trillium on my drivers licence and as much as I really like Nunavut, I'm feeling just a twinge of sadness to let my trilliums go - I'm sure it'll pass, but as much as I've waited this long merely to avoid the paperwork - it feels like a big step. I guess its making a very symbolic commitment - not that I had any doubts about coming back, but I feel changed like I've had to put both feet on the same side of the fence.

Its not a real change - my plans are the same - I'm just going through the "letting go phase" and I think I'll quickly find that the ID you have in your wallet does not have any impact on what parts of the country you hold dear.

Cedar Waxwings

LOL - I love these birds. I can watch them for hours.

Inukshuk on the horizon

I've been terrible at writing lately. I don't even have Waywayup's excuse of spring fever. I guess I just haven't been on this 'puter much and I haven't taken too many pictures.

Yesterday I could have kicked myself. I walked to the airport across the lake at sunset and it was beautiful and my Camera was not with me. No promises for posts or pictures this week. I'm resurrecting my thesis for Easter and I'm going to try and finish my draft even it if makes me crazy. My plans are for being completely antisocial. Today is tie-up loose ends day.

The photo was taken in Rankin en route to the regional science fair. I'm very drawn to the idea of Inuksuit - there is something very appealing about them. Hopefully, this spring and next fall I'll be able to get out more and see some more traditional ones.

But first... I have a thesis to finish.... and my bonus is if I finish it this week I get to have a summer vacation and if I don't I get to spend another summer inside with my computer wishing that I was hiking, gardening, camping, visiting friends, driving 2 lane undivided highway in northern Ontario or even maybe dirtroading it up the Dempster - looking forward to the experience of changing a tire in a trackless wilderness under the midnight sun.... as suggested as a highlight by Up Here magazine.....

See... lots of motivation.

Happy Birthday to you
Happy Birthday to you
Happy Birthday dear Nunavut
Happy Birthday to you

Here is the GIANT cake that was shared with the folk of the Hamlet. It was great to have everyone together to celebrate. I'm not sure if the kids thought it was as cool as the older people to celebrate the 10 year anniversary of Canada's newest territory. But I remember back to that age.. I guess I wasn't that keyed up about the 200 year anniversary of Ontario either... Regardless, I think they had a good time and enjoyed the event and the icing on the cake was awesome too.

I arrived in Repulse Bay on April 1st 2000 and got to see the 1 year anniversary too.... They didn't have a cake that required 6 adults to move though - although they did have the Governor general and some crazy Australian's. I'm just honoured to be part of this celebration and to have the chance to live here. Its a cool (and sometimes cold) place filled with an awful lot of very inspiring and good-hearted folk.