Bienvenue dans le Nord

(the sun rising over the skidoo trail which is my path to work every morning. No picture can quite get it, but the skies here are really quite awsome)

Christmas is upon us as well as a great many other things that must be done before we head off to Burnaby in a few weeks. I jammed with Gerald Coté the other day, and man oh man was that every fun! We just played music for two hours straight after dinner and it felt so good to make music with someone after a few months of withdrawal. Tomorrow we are going to go see his studio, hopefully we'll get to play around a bit. Now that it's the last week of work we seem to be having a lot of people for dinner. A lot of the white population leaves here for the winter holidays so it will be the last we see of many people.





(my bandaged and thimbled hands after finnishing my sealskin mittins which not only are a godsend in this cold weather, but they sure make me feel cool around town lol)

Tonight we went to the last sewing class of the year with Janie Head. I was done my mitts but I muttered around with trying different things like beading, it was nice just to see some different people. The best part, I'd say, was the walk home. It was about 9:30 in the evening and the wind and snow were incredible. There were points were I couldn't see just because the wind was too strong to open my eyes. I have gotten used to the dogs here, and one white lab guided us home through the snow. It walked about fifteen feet infront and kept looking back to see that we were there. It went right up the front steps to our door until we were safely inside. Some dogs you get to know in the neighbourhood here. There's one shaggy mop which looks like a miniture yak that often follows on walks. The other day I almost hit a dog driving, it was walking/sliding on the icy road with part of a caribou leg in it's jaws. The leg was almost as long as the dog itself.

(two of about four dogs that were fighting on a road near our house. That's the moon rising behind the trailer on my way home from work a few days ago)

The caribou season has started but I have only heard stories. The caribou don't usually come this close to the coast. I hope to see some soon. Chris at work invited me to go hunting with him, I hope everything works out and I get to tag along. Along with the stories of hunting come the storries of the James Bay highway at this time of year. It's very icy and littered with caribou who don't budge for vehicles and often jump out unexpectedly. I have heard of a caribou just running straight over the hood and roof of a car and hopping of the back when the vehicle didn't stop in time.
Today Rachel and I presented our budget and research for the Snoezelen room which is hoped to be built at the MSDC. It was a success so far and the head of Social Services here approved it, so I hope everything will carry through alright. For those of you who don't know, a Snoezelen room is a room in which people with any range of disabilities can use to explore through self-stimulation. There are toys and gadgets with different textures, there are a wide range of lights such as fiber-optics and bubble tubes, etc. It is simply a relaxing room for people to stimulate themselves. Our job was to come up with a budget for the necessary items but with the least expensive products. Snoezelen is making a fortune by selling items with their name on it for huge amounts of money when the principle of the room is basic and the products necessary don't really have to be that expensive.

(the stop sign at the end of Chris's street in syllabics. The Cree word for stop is pronounced chipchee)

Well I should probably pull myself away from this computer, even though I'm starting to enjoy this a little bit. Here's a link to Gerald Coté's website for the school. It's just a beginning but it might give you a bit of a look at what he's trying to do.

http://pecct.org

I also recommend that you listen to Jorane. She's a french singer who does extremely neat stuff with cello and crazy sounds. I think you'd like it Mom. Youtube isn't working for us right now so I can't give you the link, but check out Bobby McFerrin and Jorane live at the Montreal Jazz Festival. I still can't pronounce Merry Christmas in Cree so I'll give you seasons greatings in English.
Ta for now everyone and enjoy the winter weather.