When I went away to Igloolik for a couple of days, I had to get a 'dog sitter' for Bailey. I could have taken him with me, but given that even I didn't know where I was staying, I didn't think he'd look too kindly upon too much change. So, I went to the family I had adopted him from and asked them to look after him (for a small fee, of course). They agreed and even offered to through in a hair cut. I said "Sure!" and even told them to just do the cut in the way they normally did (he is around 12 or something). So, I left him in those caring hands and went about my business. I missed him but not as much as normal, knowing he was with his old family and probably loving it.

So here is a photo I took this past summer of Bailey. He was slightly puffier a couple of weeks ago, but this is generally how he looked.

Old Bailey:


Then. I picked him up after his baby sitting adventures. And this is what I got:

New Bailey:


I didn't even recognise him. I kept looking over the smiling children and jumping little dog, wondering...where's Bailey? Then I realised that the skinny, jumping little dog WAS Bailey. I was speechless.

Poor guy. I mean, here we are in -36 (with the windchill) weather and he gets stripped of all his insulation. It definitely limits the time he spends outside. Although, truth be told, he didn't spend that much time out there to begin with (thank god).
But, I just wanted to update quickly before heading home for a veggie dinner and Bailey, to watch Frasier reruns and go to bed early.

Aloha,
G.

Labels: Bailey, dog, Nunavut, travelling, weather, winter

I keep getting hit in the head by lines from different songs I'm listening to. They stick in my head, I use them for titles of blog entries, or for memory joggers in my day planner. People are going to think I'm seriously demented. If my stuff were to be examined by CSI, they'd never figure out who offed me...too much cross contamination of evidence.

Work is gonzo. Interesting developments that keep me intrigued, listening at the door for more information. Suddenly, I'm more interested in what's going on than I am in what I'll be making for dinner. And we all know food consumes me. Most days. It looks like I could be bouncing between two communities for work related issues, which will a.) increase the amount of air miles I collect and b.) change up scenery for my brain. So it might not be such a bad thing.

My parka arrived the other day. It's called the Resolute parka. It's by Canada Goose and a maroon colour. It's actually quite nice. And warm. I never thought they made coats so warm. I can tell that I will be toasty all winter, even in the -50 weather that's expected in December/January.

an old photo from a couple of years ago.

I got a few things in the mail yesterday. Mail day for me is always fun. I like getting stuff, even if it's pretty useless. A Chapters card came in, the Hawksley Workman album I won on Facebook, and a book by an author I thought I would try out (so far, it's pretty darn good).

Hawksley's new album is called Los Manlicious. I'm only on the 5th song and it's awesome. Reminiscent of (last night) We Were the Delicious Wolves. So snarky, nutty, cabaret-ish. It's really great. I can tell this will be an album I will listen to a lot. Very loud. It sound kind of European, if that makes any sense. It's really great to get excited about music again.

I did take a couple of new pictures lately. The problem is getting them uploaded to Flickr since I don't have an internet connection at home (well, I do if I take the modem home with me) and most nights I just leave it at work since it's easier. But I'll probably start taking it home more often just to stay caught up on the photo front.

I'm looking forward to my Christmas vacation. I've bought the ticket, planned where I will be and I can't wait for a month and a half to go by so I can be in Ontario and near my nutty family. I also can't wait to see my new nephew who is currently being hot-housed in my sister's belly (at least for another month or so) until he's ready to join us.

Anyhow, time to get back to work. God knows I'll be kept busy over the next little while.

Labels: Arctic, Arctic Circle, family, flying, Gish, hawksley, hawksley workman, holidays, job, music, music opinion, nephews, Nunavut, photographs, vacation, weather, winter, work

I've been surfing sites for easy dinner recipes and alternatively, Flickr for inspiration and other things. Then I stumbled over some sort of application site that generated all of the tags I've used for my photos at Flickr. It was interesting to see them. More interesting was the fact that several of the words were very large, and others very small to denote how often I use them.

As for the recipe action, I've decided that enough is enough and I can't go through the rest of my time in the Arctic by eating stuff like Instant Noodles. So I decided to look at what ingredients are available to me in this little town and see what I could possibly make out of them.

I found a few recipes for Ziti, which I totally have on the brain but no actual Ziti noodles so that will have to wait until I can order them. Last night's dinner consisted of chicken, cream of mushroom soup and sour cream over egg noodles. Sounds kinda gross all typed out like that, but it was really good. And even though I had to stand there at the stove, actually cooking (and kind of bored by staring at the cupboards), I was happy that I got to eat something I had actually made.

I also made some fried bread (called scone by us Indians...and remember, only other Indians are allowed to call themselves Indians) which I brought to work with me, this morning. I know the Inuit make their own form of Bannock (scone/fried bread) but I figured mine might be different.

My cooking fried bread is usually a 50-50 thing. It can go either way. I might add too much flour, or too much water, or forget the baking powder, who knows. But sometimes it works. Last night was one of those nights. Well, I thought it was pretty good.

No real cooking tonight. Just reheating leftovers, and making this mexican layer dip thing for the weekend (a non-cook dish that I used to make all the time). Also, my old roommate and I are going to mass produce perogies this weekend. She knows how to make them, I'm just along for the ride (for help and company). Seems like a good alternative to my usual laying around-doing nothing sort of Saturday afternoon.

My idea is to start cooking a bunch of stuff on the weekends that I can reheat during the week. Healthier stuff than the Instant Noodles, and real meals so my mom can stop worrying that I'm existing on rice, etc whilst living up here. Emboldened by my moderate success of dinner last night, I think I can actually make myself learn how to do things correctly and (hopefully patiently) in the kitchen.

As for Flickr, I'm trying to make my photography better and want to be inspired by *something*, anything, so I've been looking for assignment groups to join. The idea is that if I have an assignment or homework to complete, that I will be inspired to take more pictures. For instance, I haven't uploaded anything to Flickr in almost 3 weeks. I used to do it daily. I want to do it that way, again.

The weather is calling for a huge winter storm for Hall Beach starting tonight and lasting all through the day tomorrow. Apparently, 10 to 15 cm of snow and Winds gusting at times to 70 or 80 km/h which will create near-zero visibilities in blowing snow. I mostly copied that from the weather page *grin*. We already have snow on the ground here. We had a nasty winter storm last Sunday which made my entire house move with every wind gust. It doesn't really bother me. As long as I can stay inside.

Still with me?

Labels: Arctic, Arctic Circle, cooking, food, photographs, photography, weather

soldiers fill the hotels on the weekend...
It's snowing here again, today. It's the wispy, unsure kind of snow. It doesn't know whether it's coming or going. It falls in small waves, the wind buffetting the fragile flakes around like New Years confetti. I've been watching it through one of my office windows, while I attend to things at work. The appearance of snow tells my brain that I ought to be putting up christmas lights, and shopping for and wrapping presents. But my logical sense (which has been known to be faulty) kicks in and reminds me that it's only the middle of September.

Still, though. I've been thinking about starting to plan for the holidays. Not the buying and wrapping of presents, but booking airfare and the time off to go home. When I first got here, I said I wouldn't go home for Christmas. But now that I'm here, I think; why the fuck not? So, seat sales, and credit limits have been floating around in my head for the past week or so.

A couple of weeks ago, a friend and I had driven out past the village limits to take a look at the whale that had been caught in early August (while I was away on vacation). There wasn't much left to see, except for a few rib bones and the jaw bone. The jaw was angled on the ground so that it pointed towards the sky, the knuckle bigger than a basketball, completely picked clean of any flesh.

What was left of the whale, looked like industrial waste. What had once been shiny black skin stretched over a 44 foot Bowhead whale was now in tatters. It shrunk back over the blubber that was a surprising shade of orange, reminding me of insulation one puts in their attics. the bones that were left behind were scattered around, some parts of the vertebrae and others appearing to be rib bones which looked smaller than one would imagine.

I took some photos and noticed several hills of gravel marked with posts, all lined up in a row that went down the beach. I was told that is where the majority of the whale meat has been buried in order to ferment. The locals will dig it up at Christmas time. Fermented meat is apparently a delicacy in these parts.

When someone mentioned the annual whale hunt to me, pictures of the shiny black tail fin flipped up out of the water came to mind. Along with images of the body, beached on it's side. Complete. Whole. I was disappointed that I had missed this annual event, but am confident that I will be here next year for the hunt.

I just can't get the idea of the black tail fin, wet and shiny from the water, out of my mind. Like a hand, waving good bye.


Jacksonville Skyline - Whiskeytown

Labels: 'North', Arctic, Arctic Circle, snow, traditional hunting, weather, whale, whales

I have this little disturbing headache that has been rumbling around in my head for the past couple of days.

We have been fogged in for 4 days. FOUR. At first, I thought the fog was nice and insulating and pretty to look at when I went into the kitchen to grab a drink. Now, I just think it's creepy and stifling and for some reason I just wish it would go away. I don't know why, it's not as though fog has a whammy of some kind that can come and GET me. But bugging me, it is.

Thank God I have all 4 seasons of Rescue Me to comfort my poor little starved for 'something' brain. I think the brain is starved for take-out food. Anyway, I am totally hooked on Rescue Me. I have all of the seasons of The Office and I am just not digging it. For whatever reason. But Denis Leary and his long bandy arms and legs, and foul mouth...I grab my cigarette pack and Lite beer and I'm there. It's just good. In a bad kind of way.

Jack drove me around the other day, I grabbed some pictures of the huge communication satellites they have here. There are 6 of them, altogether. One set is so huge it's impressive how much steel it took to build it. And now they are just sitting there, blots on the landscape. It's said the locals are so used to having them there, they now use them as landmarks.
But here's a shot of one of them up close...


So, as you might have guessed I haven't been doing very much with my time other than the now standard dvd watching. I'm planning on a 2 week trip home next week but the logistics of getting from one place to another (without a car) is wearing on my head, so hopefully I get that straightened out. All of this could have been avoided if I just had an ordinary credit card like everyone else. Which I will likely never have because I am bad with money.

If you want to see more of my photos, there are tons at http://www.flickr.com/photos/i_am_gish/

The battery on my ancient 1983 Suburban burnt out so it's being recharged right now at the town garage (which is saying a lot, heh...town garage). So, truck being broken, I had to walk to work. Walking here is ok, it's about 10 minutes. I can handle that. But because of the fog, everything is wet, which means what was once dust is now muck. And I don't have any rubber boots. But who cares, thank goodness I have a washer and dryer in the house.

I also tried fishing the other day, from the ocean's edge. I didn't catch anything (thank god, because then I would have had to kill it) but I found it was very relaxing just casting the line out and reeling it back in.

After all the bitching about the fog, the thought of walking along the edge of the ocean in a heavy sweater and condensation dripping from my hair sounds so....nice.

Gotta run.

Labels: 'North', Denis Leary, fog, Rescue Me, weather