At That Very Moment: This is the North

This past week I've really felt like I'm embracing the North. There have been a few community events held that we have taken part in (or at least tried), I've gone for another walk on the Arctic Ocean, we went snowmobiling, and I hung my sealskin on the wall to stretch it - after a bit of drama.

N wanted to use the seal as a cape....and the dogs

wanted to eat it.

Thursday night sewing started up again. I had thought it started next week, but turns out I wasn't the only person itching to get out of the house. It was fun and a bit comical. I have had my sealskin since we came back from vacation and knew "all I had to do was stretch it". Since I had never stretched a seal skin before I knew it was likely best if I just waited for some help. Thursday night was perfect. So over to the school I trotted, sealskin and beads in tow. A teacher friend of mine and I asked one of the local ladies what we had to do to stretch it and she said " just get it wet it staple it to the wall". Easy enough, and since another friend of ours had stretched theirs a few weeks ago and said he had used a bucket to get it wet, we figured we'd be smart and soak in the sink and staple it to the wall. This didn't sound like it was going to be too bad after all.

We had the sink filled with warm water, place the skin in it, I made sure it was totally wet and I went to find somebody to make sure us "newbies" had this right.

I found somebody and said "so it's soaking in the sink, all we have to do next is hang it on the wall, right?".

Before she even said a word, I knew by the look in her eye's that we had this ALL wrong. She said something to the extent of "You did what, your soaking it?" and she started moving very quickly, as did the other woman in the room who had to come see what us new folk had got ourselves into. It was just like the accident on the highway, you can't help but look. Only this time I was in the accident.....did they all really have to look? (insert blushing face here)

In case any of you find yourself in this situation in the future - please note, you DO NOT submerge the skin in the water. You use a bucket (as our friend had used) or just running water and your hands to pat water onto the skin side, NOT FUR SIDE. Just enough to dampen the skin, then stretch it onto the wall.

My friend and I patted the skin off, both sides, and placed layer upon layer of paper towel on top of the hide. On top of that we put Grade 10 math textbooks (by far my favourite use of Math textbooks to date) to help soak up any extra water. Then we went back into the other room to face the wrath of experience.

Stapling it to the wall

These ladies have much more class than I have. I don't think I'd be able to help myself but to say a few jokes at our expense. They didn't. They offered help. Help that we certainly wouldn't have know otherwise. So another tidbit for you - to soften the hide you can use flour, Palmolive dish soap and water or baking soda and cornmeal. After about half an hour of so of discussing remedies for our faux pas, the lady who I had initially shocked said everything should be fine, I'll just have to work it a little more when I take it down.

I didn't get anything else done at sewing night. That was enough. But I do have a plan. I'm going to make N some sealskin mitts (to match his mothers : ) ) and a matching pair of Mukluks. It should be fun.

On our way from play school

Check out that moon

fyi - it's around 3 pm here

Friday was the start of playschool. Off we trekked in really chilly weather. On the way we came across Tucker. Tucker is the only dog in town that I'm not a fan of. He freaked me out at the swings this summer and some kids chased him off and Friday he must of remembered me because I saw him up ahead of me playing with another dog and then he headed over. I told him to get going but he didn't. He just kept following me with his hair standing up on his back. I could see a person walking towards me so that made me feel a little better. I also saw this person bend down to pick up a rock. Tucker took off and once the lady and I met she said, "just watching out for you". Thank You very nice lady. She didn't throw the rock by the way.

N was excited to see his friends. It was fun but we did have to leave a bit early. Circle time and a 2 yr old that missed nap time for the 1st time in few months, are not such a great match. Regardless of how it ended, it was fun. It was only fitting that the wheel fell of the stroller on the way home too. It seems to be happening more these days, but at -30 whatever, I only get the sucker on as good as I can in 2.0 seconds and continue my march home.

The sunrise.....without the sun.

So beautiful.

fyi - this is around 11:00 (ish)

Saturday I went for an awesome walk. We headed out towards the sandy shore (out by the dump, but sandy shore sounds much nicer). It was chilly (-26 ish) but there wasn't any wind so it was lovely. These pictures were all taken between 1:30 and 3:30. It's getting lighter everyday - the streetlight don't even all come on anymore. Oh yeah, the sewing ladies said the sun will be back around Jan. 21 or 22. I'll keep you posted....

Sledding without a sled = going head over heels, but fun

On the Arctic Ocean

You love my hat don't you......I know you want one.

Don't laugh, it's warm!

Sunday was the King and Queen night at the school. It was suppose to start at 6:30 but when we left at 8:30 it hadn't started yet. I'm not exactly sure what happens for the King and Queen but I do know that the way they are chosen is quite unique. Everyone eats a cupcake and 2 of the cupcakes have marbles in them. Whoever gets the marble is King and Queen. Somebody asked if there was going to be drum dancing and the response was "it depends if the King and Queen want drum dancing". So I guess essentially they really are King and Queen for the night. While we were waiting for the festivities to begin I was chatting with a lady who was telling me about her big trip next week. She's heading out with a few other people on snowmobiles to go Polar Bear hunting. She says it's prime season. She said she's going 100 kms or so, out by Cape Parry and she expected it would take about 3 or 4 hours to get there. I asked what she plans on doing with the bear. She's keeping the hide and they bring the rest to town and give to the Elders. I don't know what they do with it. I know nobody in town (or very few) eats Grizzly so I'm not sure about Polar Bears.

And today we went snow mobiling.

There's the moon

I don't like snow mobiling.

-it was cold
-I smell like exhaust
-it was cold
-my feet froze
-it was cold

R & N having a heart to heart

You catch my drift. I guess I enjoyed the first 15 minutes. After that I would have been happy to be done. We ended up staying out for about an hour. There was pretty scenery. It is after all a full moon and it looked neat being on the Ocean looking up to the hills that we normally quad on, but did I mention it was cold, really stinking cold.