Christmas in Chisasibi and Greetings from BC

(sunset on James Bay Christmas Eve)

Well here it is, the day before we leave. I still remember the first day arriving here and now in a flash it's almost over. It's really quite sad to leave this place that has become home, and to head to a city where no one recognizes you. There will be more good times to come though. The Christmas holidays here have been absolutely amazing. Our Christmas day was the warmest Christmas I could have hoped for away from home, despite the cold temperatures. When I opened my little parcel from Paisley, it was like all of home exploded out of it. Everything that meant something, and could be put into a few cubic inches of space was in there. On Christmas day I went for a walk by La Grande. The ice had broken because the water level dropped again. It was creaking and groaning out towards James Bay.
The whole of Christmas week was full of all sorts of community games and activities. We've been to dinners, dances, and games. Charles and I played a couple songs in a music show a few days after Christmas. This was a huge amount of fun. I was afraid I would be nervous and things would not go as planned, (as it always seems to happen when I try to make music in front of people). Instead everything just seemed to flow. People seemed to like it, and after I played a Bob Robb tune someone called out for an encore and so I gave them a song I'd written here about Chisasibi.
Music flows like water through this town. It seems as though everyone plays. We went to a dance the other night. There were two guitarists, a fiddler and a bass player. Throughout the night they continually switched instruments like they were trading hockey cards. The dances are insane. I sat out on a dance and watched the others in the group trying to scramble along with the changing movement. I then looked beside me at the row of other people sitting on the side watching. I just saw a line of upper bodies rocking back-and-forth out of sync in there chairs laughing. It's quite a site to witness someone with dreadlocks being swept around the dance floor to James Bay fiddling. We went to a banquet a couple nights ago were we had turkey, caribou, ham, beaver, arctic char, and too much more. After trying to begin digesting so much meat, more games began. One of the games involved sitting across from an opponent, each person with part of a rabbit jaw-bone in their hand. The object was to hook the front teeth of each jaw and try to break off the other persons rabbit tooth. I was eliminated quite quickly.
The new yearseve we spent here was also quite a spectacle. We went for a walk into town because there was suposed to be an event at the banquet hall. We were on the skidoo trail when 12:00 roled around. It was like a warzone popping out of no where. Fireworks on all sides, and the sound of gunfire. Alot of people just fire their guns in the air. Their were cartridges on the ground and the smell of gunpowder in the air.





(muttering around outside in the snow)






Well I began writing this blog in Chisasibi, and now I'm in Burnaby and far removed from the experience up north so unfortunately I'll let you fill in the blanks. Things are rather foggy here, not figuratively, it's just difficult to see. I'm slowly getting into the groove of life in a city. The mornings have been beautiful here. I get up with the sun rise, and hop on the sky train which plunges into the fog as it goes closer to the Fraser river and the view of the mountains goes away. I'm working at the Burnaby Hospice Society Thrift Store. Unfortunately, almost any non-profit group doing social service has to have a thrift store to survive.
Anyhow, there is much to talk about but not much time. I'll try to update more as I go, but things seem to be alot busier here. Take care everyone, and all the best.










(Anna saying hello to her western trees in Stanley Park)