Makkovik or Bust

I know this blog posting is coming pretty late in the game.  I've been back in Halifax for two weeks now, but I think that delaying the post was a sort of clinging to the traveller's lifestyle - if I don't blog it, it isn't over, maybe?  But, here I am, back at home, back in my regular routine, back at my regular job, undeniably, the trip is over.  Now that I have the photos of Makkovik (our bags didn't make it onto the plane from Goose Bay to Halifax - typical), the post must go on.

I woke up in Postville, feeling refreshed from my own cooking and a good night's sleep after the Hopedale sickness, ready to head on over to our last stop - Makkovik.  Well, guess who greeted us in the hallway of the warehouse/hotel/convenience store - Ben!  The diesel worker who had comforted my on the plane when I was feeling rather projectile.  Mara, Cody, Candy, Ben, and I loaded up all our shit - many hands made light work - and we headed off to the airport, Mara and Cody with Candy and Ben towing our crap in a kumatik and me on the back of his sled.

Ben's Skidoo

The flight to Makkovik is only fifteen minutes from Postville, so the trip seemed like it would be simple enough.  Oh no, this had to be the day when the plane was completely packed.  I mean tail and nose storage units bursting with bags, mail, dry goods, and everything in between, seats full, and that's all the room there is in a Twin Otter.  We played tetris with our workshop bins, the wheelchair, and our luggage for about 15 minutes on the runway, passing various combinations of luggage to the co-pilot, who we could all tell was getting tired of having us on her flights three times a week; she couldn't have been sweeter about it though.  Her thick Quebecoise accent simultaneously cursed our baggage and warmly encouraged our exploration of the region.  Eventually, with the wheelchair upside down, balancing on a box of produce with Mara's duffle and my backpack wedged on either side, and two bags of mail left behind on the Postville runway to make room for our mangled bins, we were off.

Upon arrival in Makkovik, we were not greeted by any skidoo-ing hotel owners ready to tow us into town.  We figured they were running late or our plane had been early - it's common place for planes to run hours ahead or behind schedule on the Nunatsiavut milk-run.  The pilots just get the airport staff to inform all passengers via telephone that they either need to hustle their butts down to the runway or chill out for an extra hour or two.  After hanging out in the "airport" (a standard 4 x 4 metre shed with a bathroom and some baggage scales in it) for a little while, with no sign of transport, we asked the woman working there if she knew whether anyone was heading down to get us.  She phoned up to the hotel owners, who had no idea we were coming, but agreed to come get us anyway.  Up rolls Lori, a beautiful forty something Inuit woman, on skidoo with no hat, goggles, or neck warmer on - badass.  "Well, it's a good thing those boys left yesterday, or you'd all be bunking up at my house tonight."  Apparently the hotel had been full merely yesterday, surveyors and diesel workers are the most common hotel goers in Nunatsiavut winter.  Lori didn't miss a beat, even though we were apparently surprise guests.  She immediately asked us what we wanted for breakfast, showed us to our rooms, told us to get comfy and started getting our delicious meals together.  Homemade bread with homemade partridge and cloud berry jams, eggs, bacon, tea, mmmmmm.  The food at the Adlavik Inn was fantastic!  While we were eating, in came Lori's husband, Randy, a man who looks youthful and well weathered by the elements all at once.  He's pretty quiet, but you can tell he likes to pull pranks on his wife, and is much more comfortable outside in -50 degree weather than in the warm Inn.  "Randy!  You shithead!" Lori screamed from the office.  "That's my cue to leave," Randy responded, with a wide grin on his face and his hat already on, half-way out the door.  "Quit changin my facebook status!", but Randy was already outside on his skidoo.  I like Lori and Randy a lot.  Lori told us all about their cabins, Randy's fishing boat, the hunting and fishing trips that he runs for wealthy "southerners" during the summer months, their kids, their life in Makkovik, and how she has to twist Randy's arm to go down to the Dominican with her - she loves, while he detests the heat.

Mara on the back of Lori's Skidoo

Mara and Cody in the kumatik

Makkovik

We did all of our workshops in the school that afternoon, giving us a free last day in Makkovik.  The teachers in Makkovik were awesome!  We had met Mr. Rideout, the grade 7, 8, 9 science teacher on a flight earlier in the week, and now Cody was teaching his class about DNA extraction.  Mara found two teachers who are really into sewing and one offered to custom make her a pair of slippers.  And I, of course, struck up a conversation on birthing rights and my desire to be a midwife in the north with a teacher, originally from Windsor NS, which perked a bunch of female teachers' ears right up.

Makkovik is gorgeous.  It sits right on the ocean, no barrier between the town and the harsh North Atlantic, and I think that's how the Makkovians like it.  There are a lot more trees in Makkovik than in some of the other communities we visited, I guess because of it's relatively southern location.  The people were friendly and really love their town.  It was bitter cold while we were there; we only narrowly missed school closures and cancellations of our workshops due to weather - the elementary grades are cancelled at -45 degrees and the high school classes are cancelled at -50 degrees, it was -43 when we did our workshops.  Our second day in town was -50 degrees, but it didn't stop us from hopping on Randy's skidoo and taking a tour of the town, meeting the local sled dogs, skidding across the sea ice, and meandering through the small forested areas.  We hung out at Randy and Lori's and had a hot chocolate after the chilly ride, met their dogs, talked about the uranium mine plans in Postville, the Nunatsiavut government, and wildlife.  Before long, it was time to head down to the airport.  Damn.  I really liked Makkovik, and was definitely game to stay longer.  I was secretly hoping for the high winds to ground our plane and force us to stay one or two more nights.  But alas, the Twin Otters aren't afraid of the cold or the winds, and on we pressed to Goose Bay, coming full circle on our tour de Nunatsiavut.

Frozen Dock.

Sunny = Cold

Sled Pups

Timid Guy

Frozen Atlantic

Trees!

I loved north western Labrador.  Yes, the food was different and hard to digest at times, it was cold, and if you're not into hunting, fishing, going to the cabin, crafting, or entertaining yourself at home, there isn't much for you to do, but I like that life.  It'll be interesting to see how the lifestyle changes and adapts in Nunatsiavut in the next twenty-five years with the changing climate, increasing interest in natural resources that will open up as a result, and the increasing traffic that all of this will bring to the area.  I hope it doesn't change too much, I like it just the way it is.                                          

Hopedale to Postville

It was really windy the day we flew into Hopedale. Mara was clinging to the seat in front of her, while the man in the next seat was kind enough to offer up some reassuring words: "That's normal" and, "These planes do that all the time" were his responses to major jerking back and forth and steep drops that we all felt deep in our stomachs. No worries, the Twin Otters we've been cabbing around in were designed specifically to be able to land just about anywhere. With lots of open mountain tops surrounding us, I wasn't too worried...most of the time. We touched down safely and helped the co-pilot cast our ever more tiresome load onto the runway. Already I could see differences from Nain in this not so far off community.  Hopedale has roads - real gravel roads, that people were driving trucks on. With hardly any snowfall this year, skidoos are only free to roam on the ice, unless they want to risk damage to the undercarriage and skis. I commented on this to the guy who picked us up and carted us to the hotel.  He raised his eyebrows and solemnly said, "Yup, not much snow this year, unfortunately. Weird, isn't it?".  I imagine so.   In Halifax we're quick to bitch about 5cm falling on the sacred grounds of Spring Garden Rd.  God forbid we should get a "blizzard" that unleashes 10-15cm on us.  Close the schools!  Cry for pity!  Curse the winter, and wish for spring, right?   It's not like we live on the North Atlantic, us poor snowed in fools. Imagine wanting the fluffy white stuff.   Imagine relying on it to get from town to town without flying, or to get out hunting.   It's tough to live off the land when the land is changing so dramatically all around you.  "It's gonna be a tough winter for a lot of folks up here" one woman quipped at us. With no snow or sea ice comes no seal hunting, with warmer temperatures comes less incentive for the caribou to migrate along their traditional routes, which pass by these settlements. Less hunting means people have to buy their food at the Northern Store, which sells the least healthy foods you can think of at exorbitant prices. Hmm, seal meat or Kraft Dinner? Are you so sure you fully understand and are opposed to the "cruel slaughter" of pinnipeds now, Pamela Anderson?

Hopedale.

Hopedale was cold. In Nain we were sheltered in a valley set back from the open North Atlantic. Hopedale is right on the ocean, thrashing Arctic winds in your face everywhere you walk.  A thirty minute stroll around the town to take pictures and buy tape at the general store left all three of us frozen to the bone and happy not to leave the comfort of our hotel rooms for the rest of the day. Hopedale is damn cold.

It would have been nice to see more of the town, but all three of us came down with either food poisoning or a stomach flu that ran rampantly through our systems. The last 10 hours spent in Hopedale were not pretty ones. There was a lot of napping, and then we had to catch our flight. Luckily Mara held the group together since her sicky times ran their courses the night before, but Cody and I were in bad shape.  We dragged our gear to the plane and I rolled into the first seat I saw at the very back of the plane.  The fifteen minute ride to Makkovik couldn't have felt longer, and I almost made it, but just as we swept in for a landing, BLAH!  "Are you OK?" asked Ben, the diesel plant worker sitting beside me, "I'm feeling pretty sick," I weakly replied immediately before expelling all of the contents of my stomach, upper intestines, and I'm convinced even more, into the barfy bag from the seat pocket in front of me.  Ben, who I had just met that day, was nice enough to pat my back - diesel plant workers are more sensitive than I thought.  One stop over to let a few people off in Makkovik and me out to drop off my barf bag, fifteen more minutes of flight landed us in Postville, and I was feeling shockingly better: sweet relief.

Moravian Church.

Wood Pile.

Hopedale School Coordinator of Hospitality.

A woman named Candy picked us up in Postville. She had one skidoo with a sled behind it - a hilarious prospect for all of the crap we're towing around, but we made it work. Four of us, including Candy, got on the skidoo and we strapped my trusty backpack to the wheelchair which was wedged between the bins, and nothing fell off!

Postville at Dusk.

Something in the universe heard our gastro-intestinal woes, because we were blessed with a fully equipped kitchen in our hotel suite (read: pseudo flat in a weird, multi-purpose warehouse).  HALLELUJAH! More napping and oatmeal made us all feel better. We cooked rice, which was a very welcomed change after a week of restaurant meals that almost all fell into the category of "meat + your choice of (insert food) deep fried or mashed potatoes".

Now, I know that I'm spoiled, what with living in a city that has a well supported farmer's market that's open four days a week, where I can buy beautiful locally grown produce, pasture raised meats (now that I'm an occasional carnivore), and delicious breads, but I've grown accustomed to it, and I will not apologize for that. This is a privilege that I hope never to have to give up...unless I move to the Arctic, in which case I'll be paying premium dollar to ship Hutten Family Farm CSA boxes up every second week - Amen.  I'll figure out how to work it into my environmental footprint somehow.  

Postville was a nice little town.  Again I wish I'd been feeling up to seeing more of it, especially now that I've found out there's a proposal for a uranium mine circulating the community.  Most of these north-west shore towns are very anti development, but I fear that the prospect of jobs and money in a land proving ever more difficult to live off of will sway the popular vote.  Not to mention the propaganda the mining company, Aurora Energy, is spreading e.g. "Living next to a uranium mine is no more dangerous than standing in front of your microwave."  Call me a crazy, leftist, privileged environmentalist, but something tells me that standing in front of your microwave all day, every day for as long as the mine is active wouldn't be all that great for you, and something also tells me that the effects of a uranium mine on a remote northern, traditional Inuit lifestyle-based community are far more complicated than this simple analogy.  Fucking bastards.  

Heed the sign.

Once I was feeling less barfy, I did manage to get out and snap a few shots of the town. It made me sad to think that this is the second to last stop of our outreach trip. Makkovik is next, then a night back in Goose before heading home to Halifax. These last few days will truly have to be savoured...like the last few precious weekends in February when kale is still available at the market. Did I miss it while I've been here?

Nain is Badass

Thursday morning we hopped on the milk-run up to Nain, Nunatsiavut.  Our two and three-quarter hours flight was absolutely beautiful.  Without the wind that we had on our way into Rigolet (slash the Jungle Jim's "food" that was sitting in my belly that morning from our disgusting dinner the night before), the flight was a lot easier to relax into.  We stopped in all of the towns on the way up, getting a view of what was to come in all of our other stops along the trip - Postville, Hopedale, Makkovik.  The landscape is stark and intimidating, even from the air.  There were less and less trees as we pushed north, and more and more sea-ice - thank god.  Apparently the northern towns, Nain included, only saw sea-ice form three weeks ago after two weeks of bitter cold (-48 degrees before the windchill every day).  The lack of "solid ground" on the ocean made hunting and transportation dangerous or impossible, and life in general, for both the Inuit and Settlers who inhabit the land, worrisome I imagine.  This is where we see the effects that climate change is having on our planet more clearly.  If you have a skeptic aunt, friend, teacher who has been fooled by the information white-washing that the oil corporations are flooding the media with, send them north.  Tell them to talk to these people.  They will be skeptics no more.

Looking out, under the wing, at the sea ice, mountains, and open ocean bellow.

We touched down in Nain, onto the shortest runway in the Arctic - I thought we were heading right into the bay - and were picked up by a man on a ski-doo with a hilarious make-shift sled behind it.  Picture a caroling sled circa 1851, with no railings or ledges to hold onto.  I hopped on the backseat of the snow mobile, leaving Cody and Mara to fend for themselves and our pile of workshop luggage, which includes a wheelchair and three Rubbermaid bins of chemistry glassware, DNA visual aids, stains, occupational therapy tools, playing cards, goggles, playdough, countless rolls of tape, and hundreds of other materials  - whatever, those are the rules of "shot-not" - the strongest claim of non-responsibility I know of.

First impressions of Nain: dogs barking everywhere, puppies yelping and excitedly jumping at passers-by, the distant and nearby rumbles of snow-mobiles on every road, path, and square inch of snow-covered ground.  The mountains, jutting suddenly out of the sea all around you.  The sea, a frozen highway utilized by pedestrians, skaters, ski-dooers, and everyone in between.  The smell of pine rising from the houses of those lucky enough to have gotten out "wooding" recently, mixed with diesel.  Nain is beautiful.

Our hotel was modest, but had a restaurant right in it, with the best cooking we've experienced yet, all home-made by Nancy, who was kind enough to ask us what we wanted for dinner, "Pork chops or Arctic Char?" - no brainer.  Stuffed and baked or pan-fried?  Stuffed, duh.  God, it's good to be out of Goose Bay, and god I love char!

Ali, the old director of SuperNOVA, happened to catch my Nain related facebook status, and happens to have a friend doing research in Nain (sometimes I think I must have a horseshoe stuck up my ass/realize how small the world really is).  Rodd went to Dal for his Undergrad in biology, did his Masters at the University of Manitoba, and wound up doing research for Trent University up here.  He has pretty much the coolest job ever.  He interviews hunters and is looking at recent changes in the environment, animal populations, etc (did I get that right, Rodd?!).  It's always nice to have someone who knows the place to show you around (he took us on a walk through town to the dump, which was awesome - for real), have you over for dinner, introduce you to cool people (he and his roommate, Megan, cooked us a delicious meal), and let you know that you missed the best display of the aurora borealis so far this year.  Yah, you read that correctly.  Blurg.  He did try to get a hold of us, but alas, our lights were out/iPad was off.  I had read on the Auroral activity tracking website I've been obsessing over (Space Weather) that Friday night was due for some 'moderate' activity, which is pretty decent on the scale, so Cody and I headed out around 11:30pm to check things out.  We saw a faint Aurora glow, hung out for a while and headed inside for warmth.  Dammit.  Apparently a couple hours earlier and a couple hours later, the effects of a solar storm were seen lighting up the northern sky with beautiful dancing and pulsing green Aurora.  Rodd got some amazing shots, which you can check out on his website (Rodd Laing Photography - Arctic).  I was full of remorse and self-loathing for not staying out later, but such is life, right?  I do have another week.  Come on solar storm #2!!!!

Looking at Mount Sophie.

Ice Land.

The Original Church.

View from the Dump.

Rodd, Cody, and Mara on the ice.

Dynamic Ice Flow.

I also met a beautiful woman, Jolene, at the craft shop who I ended up buying some amazing slippers from.  Originally from Nain, she moved to northern Quebec (like north of Nain, Quebec), and recently to Montreal with her husband and two kids, Dawson and Massey.  She was back visiting for her cousin's wedding/scoping out the available real estate  - unsurprisingly, she's not a huge fan of city life and wants to come back home to raise her babes.  She was kind enough to cart Mara and I back to her place to check out her handiwork.  She makes beautiful slippers and boots from leather, sealskin, and fur.  I opted for a pair of white leather babies with turquoise, green, and red bead work, sheep's wool liners and rabbit fur cuffs - oh ya.  We hung out for a while and played with the kiddies, while checking out her Mum's unbelievable art collection that included caribou and soapstone carvings, a whale vertebrae with a woman's face carved into it, walrus and muskoxen skulls, beautifully woven baskets, and countless other jems.  Their house was warm and the kids were full of energy.  Life is so similar, even in wildly different settings.

Seal for Lunch.

Everyone got a piece...

Nain is great; I was definitely sad to leave.  It's so expensive to get there, I don't know if I'll ever have the chance to get back on my own dollar, but alas, more outreach calls and on to Hopedale we meander.

So far I think we're proving the Labrador bias to be wrong.  I love the Big Land.     

The Nain Fridge.  Put your perishables on the window sill and close the curtains to keep cold.

 

Goose Bay, NL to Rigolet, Nunatsiavut

Sorry, Goose Bay, but you don't have a lot going on...at least not for a threesome with no car.

We arrived in Goose Bay late in the afternoon on Monday, got to the hotel, and being as excited as the three of us were, immediately went for a walk. We went to the Mariner's Galley, which our cab driver from the airport had told us was the best food in town. All three of us got the caribou burger (if our overly bundled bodies hadn't given us away as "southerners", this definitely did). I'm pretty sure it could have been President's Choice hamburgers that we ate, served with home fries and gravy. Don't get me wrong, it was tasty after a day of travelling north, but it had a distinct pre-packaged, frozen air about it. Undeterred, we asked for directions to the nearest grocery store, so we could get some breakfast, lunch, and snack grub to avoid the (dreaded by me especially) per diem restaurant dining, which is the only downfall of work travel. Our waitress started giving us driving directions right away. "We're walking," I swear we spat it in unison, at which point our waitress paused, I can only assume to grapple with the idea of walking to and from the grocery store in Labrador winter. Luckily a fellow diner overheard the conversation and offered us a ride. Score!  He turned out to be an RCMP officer named Raymond - thanks Raymond! From Ottawa, he's been working in Goose (as he called it) for a few months. He even picked us up when he saw us pathetically walking, single file, along side the snowy road home. Double score!

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Walkin in a winter wonderland...

Mara in the snow.

 We had a day off on Tuesday, but there really wasn't much to do. We went for a walk along some snow mobile paths in the woods behind our hotel, wandered up to the Subway, over to the CBC radio building - no one was there - to the Bargain! Bargain! Bargain! Mart, and then, with nothing left to explore and our cheeks frozen, back to the confinement of our hotel room. Blurg. Goose Bay is definitely not a pedestrian friendly city, but I can't say I blame them. Luckily Mara, Cody, and I realized we all have a strong love for Home Movies (you know the cartoon that used to be on adult swim - the kids make movies and act like adults), so we pulled the mirror off the wall, set up the LCD projector we brought for workshop displays of microscopic organisms, and settled in for a mini marathon.

Our chariot awaits.

Bright and early on Wednesday morning, we headed to the airport to find out there were high wind (like really high wind) warnings in effect for Rigolet, the community we were scheduled to visit. No big deal, they made us say that we'd been sufficiently warned about the weather conditions, slapped a disclaimer agreement sticker on our tickets, and we shuffled onto the plane anyway. High winds were not deterring us from getting the hell out of Goose and into the north. A Twin Otter, flown, in an open cockpit, by two pilots - one of whom loaded our bags - shakily got us to Rigolet. At the airport we were met by two snow mobiles: one with a sled behind it for luggage, one with a sled behind it for us. It was the coldest day yet this winter season (-39 before the wind chill) so we layered on sweaters, snow pants, balaclavas, ski goggles, toques, and more and more layers of all of that. Snow mobiles are the shit! Except for the exhaust, which is wildly potent up here. I don't know if it's the clean air, the cold, or the number of sleds, but the fumes from everything are so much more noticeable.

Cody gettin his sled on.

The school was beautiful - smart boards and computers in every classroom, a science lab decked out with microscopes, a full computer lab with the added bonus of a weighted-key keyboard and an engraving machine, a view overlooking the rushing river, and teachers who genuinely seem to love their jobs and Rigolet. With only forty-five students in the whole school, we met all of them, and they were great - lots of questions, tons of stories, rolling laughter...and some science.

After the workshops we took a walk through the town. I can't describe how gorgeous it is. Rigolet is an Inuit community with a population of 310.  It's situated at the mouth of Lake Melville and has no road access. Apparently there are snow mobile trails that lead all the way to Goose Bay, but because of the abnormally warm winter Labrador has had, the ice isn't as thick as it usually is and it's mighty dangerous to travel it right now.  The town was so quiet. The only noise was snow mobiles whipping by us and water rushing down the river as the tide went out. We were surrounded by mountains in the town, across the river, beside and behind us. I don't know how to describe the location with any word other than big. Small area, not many people, but big land, huge land.

Sea Ice Explorations.

Pressure mounds.

Rigolet.

Looking out on Lake Melville.

Interesting Rigolet fact: Rigolet is the community that John Wyndham had in mind when he wrote The Crysalids and based it in 'Rigo'.