Monthly Archives: March 2012

It’s all about Perspective!

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Map on the floor at the airport in Yellowknife, NWT--can you figure out where Pangnirtung is?

I’ve been home about a week, and just needed some time to recharge.  Travel is awesome, but also can be extremely tiring. I will catch you up from photos from the end of my trip with my Gjoa Haven, Nunavut…and I have a heap of photos to catch up on the March Photo-a-Day-Challenge!

It’s hard to believe that March is almost done, time seems to be moving so fast but at the same time it seems to be moving along super slowly.  But I suppose that’s just the way life is.

I must admit I’m getting a wee bit tired of winter…a lot of my friends had this hit them in February.  But I suppose I like to always do things in my own timing…and it’s hit me at the end of March!  But good news the forecast is looking good for the next few days.

If you ever want to see what the weather is like up here…check out Environment Canada’s Weather Office

…I must admit seeing Facebook updates in the last few weeks about ‘spring’ has hit in southern Canada has hit me a bit hard.  But then there’s where you have to put life into perspective…SPRING has arrived in the north as well.  Here in Pangnirtung, our days are getting longer (sunrise today was at 5:47am and sunset was at 7:08pm)…it is warming up (no more temperatures that are in the -30Cs or below-might have just jinxed myself there!).  YES, we still have snow (probably will for at least another 2months or so)…but it’s nice that it’s warm enough now to get outside and do stuff in that snow.

March Photo A Day Challenge: Days 12-18

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Day 12: Fork

Day 13: A Sign

 

Day 14: Clouds

Day 15: Car

Day 16: Sunglasses

Day 17: Green

Day 18: A Corner of Your Home

(well I’m travelling…so here’s a corner of one of the many hotel rooms I’ve stayed in!)

It’s been really fun doing this challenge while travelling! Hope you enjoyed the photos… if you’d like to see Days 1-5, Days 6-11 click on the respective links!

Dene Hand Games…

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Today Daisy and I drove to Behchoko to see the finals of the Dene Hand Games.

“The Hand Games were played years ago as a form of gambling among friends and different groups. Often the games were played to gamble for bullets, furs, dogs, toboggans, or stick matches. Today, however, the Hand Game is played in cultural centres, community carnivals and other events all over the Dene country as a friendly competition fostering community pride. The Hand Game is based on a simple concept of hiding and guessing of objects using elaborate hand signals and gestures to both find the object and hide the object.” www.denegames.ca

I wasn’t really sure what I was going to experience…I really wished this morning I had done some googling to find out more about rules to the games.  But Daisy was able to tell me the basic rules…and then by watching I was able to learn a bit more.  Then when I got back to Yellowknife, I found this awesome video from Alex and Luke on their visit to the Hand Games last year!

Take some time to watch it… because it really captures the games with the amazing drumming the way photos just can’t!  Alex and Luke also explain the basic rules to the games in their video.

So here are some of my photos from the day… it was PACKED!  Daisy and I stood for almost 3 hours before we got places to sit… it was such an awesome experience, I feel so honoured to be able to have had this experience.

In the top photo you can see a game taking place… and the bottom one–setting up for the next match, the mats where players and drummers kneel!

Here are some shots of the players hiding their tokens! 

There are tons of spectators… from the young to the old!  Everyone was keen to see which teams would advance to the finals!

The drumming was amazing…it was hard to stand still…makes your body want to move! The little drummer in the photos…kept going up and getting a spare drum to play on, sometimes having it taken from him.  Usually this was when a player that had their token guessed wanted to drum to encourage the remaining players! But the little drummer would wait until he could get his hands on another drum!

It was so amazing to see different generations playing this game…how the teams were mixed, and the passion and excitement was so powerful! 

Just because I always like a little bit of B&W…here’s a few for you to see… 

It was such an awesome day…thanks again Daisy for taking me!  It’s an experience I will never forget…

Here are a few road signs from our trip back to Yellowknife… it was about an hour’s drive.  

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

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I arrived back in Yellowknife in time to celebrate St. Paddy’s Day with my friend Daisy.  Thank you mum for sending the boa and tattoos!  My tattoo said “I’m Irish” (well I have the last name that qualifies…) and I gave Daisy a tattoo that said “Irish 4 the Day!”

It was fun to catch up with Daisy and James before heading out to the Gold Range…as Daisy calls it the “Strange” Range!  It was a fun night… first time dancing to a live country band! (not so much on the irish music).

Kugluktuk: Night and Day

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At the end of last week I was in Kugluktuk, Nunavut for a few days…  I was able to reconnect with Tara, an old friend from Pang who lived there in 2009 too! Tara was one of the people that flew to Iqaluit with me to help celebrate my 30th Birthday-ah good memories! We spent Friday night creating really good food…catching up, and talking about computers, editing photos, cameras and taking photos and random settings! It was a great evening…

Tara is a foodie…in 2009 she had a group of people over to have Korean Food--it was delish!  Turkey dinner at Christmas was also wonderful.  

Tonight was no different…we had a thin crust pizza with brie, parmesan, asparagus and mushrooms..I suggested we added on chilli peppers… it was so good!

Then we also had a fabulous Greek Salad.. mmmm feta and olives!  (yes, so much CHEESE… but so good…but SO MUCH CHEESE!) The second photo is of dessert… it was something Tara heard about on CBC radio. Apples cored then add nutella to core…wrap in pastry.. and bake.  OH so good…  I helped do the coring and filling with nutella part, Tara wrapped them up before the end of the night… 

Around 11:30 I was getting ready to head back to the hotel…when Tara looked out and saw that the light were out! So we got all bundled up–headed to the hotel to grab my tripod…and then back out to shoot the lights!  It was so cold, but at first I didn’t really notice… I managed to get about 2 awesome shots before my camera batteries ran out!

We took this last photo… before we headed inside.  I got back to the hotel at 1am–and we had been out shooting photos since just after midnight! I looked online and grabbed a screen shot of the current weather…no wonder I was cold…shocking!

Saturday morning I talked Tara into going back outside for a ‘quick’ walk… it was still cold low -30s with a colder wind chill factor!  But we did manage to walk around and take some photos of Kugluktuk in the daylight! You can see Tara’s photos HERE! I stayed at the Coppermine Inn a really nice homey place to stay… and AMAZING food!

These bundled up cuties were waiting for their dad to come back from inside the store…(yep–there was an adult that was driving on that sled!) If you look closely at the dog…even they get ‘frosty’ fur/hair!  

All covered in frost… But fun reflections in our sun glasses! Thanks Tara for the wonderful visit… and heading outside to take photos with me–even in the cold temps!

I had a great couple of days in Kugluktuk.  The people are so friendly…I met and had so many people, and had so many great converations..thanks for the wonderful visit.

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