Barry and Victoria Head North

Big excitement today - two boys found a live bat on the beach - presumably it came up in a container in the Barge (which has left town). Within an hour it seemed like everyone in town had heard about, it had been given a new home at the school, and it had been posted on the Polarnet website.

Today was also Radio Bingo day at CFBI. That means a very busy afternoon in the lobby of the Co-op selling Bingo cards and Nevada tickets, then two very busy and tense hours at the radio station calling numbers and answering phones. This is one time when you don't want to make mistake! Bingo is serious business! And trust me, this is when Board members like Gary Clark are invaluable!

I'm really happy with how the radio station is sounding - we got their transmitter power up where it should be, and calibrated (by ear!) the mixing console. I think that the station is sounding really good right now. Plus Board member Grant Corey has been turning out station IDs in the new Production studio. Those seem to be very well received by people we talk to and give things a nice professional edge.

Friday -- hard to believe we've been here almost a week. When I first got here I thought the week would go really slowly and that I would have a lot of time on my hands in the evening. Not the case at all. It has flown by, and the evening hours have been spent either working or going for long walks. We have been told that this has been the nicest September in a lot of years.

Tonight we went for a walk down by the bay, as we have many times this week. I talked to a man named Dale who was fishing from the dock and singing. The combination of the waves and his voice was just perfect at that particular moment.

Today Victoria also recorded the generating station - probably the single most important building in Cambridge Bay. Everything - power, water, lights, video games - relies on this diesel sucking beast, so it was important to capture it.

It is starting to feel like the week is winding down. Most of our work (at least the formal part) is behind us. Just some reports to write, a bit more tech work in the production studio. Still waiting for a shipment of cables from Edmonton. We have been told they're in Yellowknife but couldn't come up on yesterday's plane because it didn't get here. I guess when the plane has a problem, there's not another one to substitute so it just doesn't fly. Today's flight came in but the lettuce was a higher priority than our cables. Hopefully tomorrow so we can finish up the studio.

Today was payday and fundraising day in Cambridge Bay. Lots of places to spend money -- a bake sale at the high school, Girl Guide cookies in the bank and McDonald's hamburgers at the elementary school. Seems they fly up a whole bunch of Big Macs from Yellowknife and sell them. Knew I was too optimistic to believe that there was somewhere on earth that the junk food empires haven't found. There is also a KFC and a Pizza Hut at the Northern Store -- a three piece KFC meal is over $10.

I think I may be running out of steam tonight. I feel like I've used up all my good thoughts but that's probably because it's Friday night and I'm tired of thinking. I'll have fresh energy in the morning. On Sunday Grant (one of the radio station board members) has lined up some ATVs so we can go out of town and explore the land. Everybody up here says we have to do that before we leave. How many chances will we get to see a musk ox back in Hamilton?

G'night.

Must say - after a year of high speed DSL at home, it's really obvious that every kid in Cambridge Bay is on the Internet tonight! Polarnet is really great - nice guys too! - but that pipe feels awful crowded tonight!

Saturday

Today was spent on wrapping up as many technical details as possible at the radio stations - continuing to calibrate equipment as best we can, labeling what needs labels, and printing and posting instructions and signs so that people will have an easier time of it. It's kind of cool to be working with gear and realize that we actually know this stuff pretty well.

I wound up this evening doing a an hour or so of radio, partly to check out the equipment, but mostly just because I don't often get the chance to just play at radio. So I dug through CFBI's so far small library, and played all kinds of good tunes - Marvin Gaye, Ramones, Joe Walsh... mostly sort of seventies through nineties because that's what they have.

I was tempted by the hip hop and R&B, but I just don't know that tracks well enough to know what's "Broadcastable" here. Still, it was fun. Radio in a town this small is different - it's cool to be somewhere where you walk in, turn on the transmitter, play music for a while, then turn the transmitter back off.

The other big highlight for the day was finally figuring out where the air raid siren is located. And then taking a picture from the Mayor's office. It went off just as we were walking home at 10 PM, letting all of the kids at the he high school dance know that it's curfew.

Well, the week is winding down. Not an awful lot more to write about today, but it was an interesting day nonetheless. Mostly just wrapping things up.

I spent part of the afternoon with Anthony and Ashley, two young musicians in town. I told them I would record a few of their songs so they can play them on their radio station. I also talked to them on tape for a while and then had tea and bannock with their mother, Eva. It was a nice afternoon and Anthony also introduced me to three Inuit bands -- The Arviat Band, the Uvagut Band and Katuutiit. Ashley and Anthony sand a song for me by Katuutiit which was really wonderful.

The other notable thing that happened today -- I actually paid six whole dollars for strawberries. I think it was because the day was so grey and the strawberries were so red and cheery. But six bucks. Can't believe I did that. When I got home, I ran a hot bath and ate them in the bathtub. How decadent, even if I didn't have bubble bath and champagne to go with them.

Pshaw.... strawberries are already three or four bucks down south so that wasn't so bad! I finally broke down and bought a toque today - sixteen bucks, although it was very nice Polaris toque.

All in all I think that life in Cambridge Bay is pretty good. People work hard, but not too hard, and when work is done they just plain enjoy life. Whether they're out on the land, or going to local dances, or visiting friends or family, or playing bingo, they know how to balance things.

The other thing that I like is the sense of optimism. People seem to think that life is OK, and enjoy what they have more than in some other places. Maybe that's why so few young people feel the need to leave Cambridge Bay. This is the first small town that I've seen where most kids don't plan to go to the Big City.

Yup. this is one of my favorite places.

Sunday ~ On the Land
Our heartfelt thanks to Grant Corey for taking us out on the land...

This afternoon CFBI Board Member Grant Corey took us out on the land. As we donned our warm clothes and checked out our ATVs I don't think we realized what we were heading into. At first Victoria wanted to double with me on one machine, but once around the block convinced her that she that this was yet another small, noisy, fast vehicle that she would enjoy.
This is the road out of town, just past the airport. This is really the wide open spaces, although you can't go too far without seeing some kind of human presence here. It seems that everyone in Cambridge Bay finds it too busy and noisy, and you see people all over the place on ATVs, in pick ups, and at the "camps" that they have set out on the land.
The preferred place for camps seems to be near the edge of the sea. Yes, we're talking about the Arctic Ocean. Small cabins and shelters - many of them very old buildings that were somehow brought from town when they ceased to be used there - are scattered up and down the coast in every direction around Cambridge Bay. One such building is in fact the old town jail.
Of course, once you're on the land you need a hobby. This guy has built three holes of his golf course so far...
One of the preferred places to drive is on the seemingly endless beaches. They go on for miles and miles. If you look carefully you can see Victoria and Grant up ahead. Grant showed us a nice bit of northern hospitality. He volunteered (whenever he wasn't afraid he'd lose us) to ride in the back of the pack. The phrase "Eat My Dust" is really appropo here. But not in the picture right next to this -- this was beautiful white sand. Never thought I'd see the equivalent of a fine sand beach this far north.
High atop this hill, just outside Cambridge Bay, are three stone cairns. They are a monument to three Japanese students who died while kayaking in the waters below.
The plaque is original, but periodically new items appear - a poem in Japanese, flowers, other offerings.
At this point we set off across the tundra. Probably the most impressive thing about the tundra is how bumpy it is - it's like one long field of vegetative potholes, and really is tough and slow to travel. I have tried to think of a way to describe the feel of this primitive and spongy mass of lichens and mosses, but have to say that the only way to appreciate it is to see it for yourself. VF - It is not at all flat. There are small ridges and bumps all over. At one point we headed up one of the highest hills in the area. It was a rough go -- every time I saw another furrow in the land coming up I thought about how much it was going to hurt. I could feel every muscle in my body but it was a good kind of hurting because I knew I was doing something special that I wouldn't often get the chance to do.
We wound up on top of one of the highest points in the area, home to this aluminum marker. A few days ago Josh Gladstone, one of Victoria's freelancers while she was at CBC, told us: " Make sure you do something while you're up there: "Stand on top of the highest point of land - somewhere a little ways away from the town - and spin around! It feels completely amazing to watch the horizon turn with you....Just something I remember doing the first time I was up there." That is in fact just what I did. Once we're home I'll show you the pictures.
As is the tradition, we also added our names to the frame of the marker, inscribed with a sharp rock.
Grant, always thoughtful, pulled out a thermos of hot, sweet tea, Even though he had bundled us up in many layers of warm clothes, this was treat like no other. Victoria recorded the tea.... Except that it was mostly wind. Cold day ..
All week long people had been telling us that the musk ox were near town, Grant, who is also eagle eyed, spotted some in a far valley. We drove over and found a herd of some thirty animals.
I caught this mother and offspring in a ridge some 200 yards away. When they saw me they immediately turned and fled. What I didn't expect was to see these amazing lumbering creatures galloping away like horses, flying uphill and down, and over the horizon.
Here are Victoria and Grant watching a trio of peregrine falcons wheel and turn over our heads.
Just behind them is a river to the sea. When the sun came out it looked like a stream of molten silver...
At the edge of the sea - what more can I say. The sea here is multicoloured, and the colours change as you watch. From where we were you look over the Northwest Passage and can see the mainland far away on the horizon.
And of course, we came upon a truly wonderful inukshuk just as we were heading home. What a fitting conclusion to a really splendid week. Being out on the land gives one a larger sense of the spirits at work in this land. The texture of the land, the sunlight on the water, the sense of caution that is necessary to stay alive out here all helps me understand a bit more about the people who live here and what causes this place to be what it is. What it all comes down to, I think, is that this place will be what it is. Other places on earth can be tamed and made to bend to our will, but this is not one of them. We are not in charge up here, and to ignore this fact is a dangerous thing. But approached with the right attitude, we can carve out a place for ourselves in the middle of the rock, water and wind.
We don't have a picture, but an hour later we arrived back at Grant's house, tired, cold, dusty, and amazed. As we climbed of off the ATVs, we looked up and an enormous rainbow came into view. A few years ago in Kentucky we met a woman named Katie Dollarhide. Katie taught me to look at the world around me with wonder and joy. She knew that her corner of the mountains up Kingdome Come Creek was one of God's perfect places. There was nowhere in the world that she would rather be, and every day she gave thanks that she and her family lived there. Well Katie - I've spent a week watching the people who live here in this corner of the Arctic. They share your love of the place that they live. To some it looks cold, barren, and forbidding, but the people who live here know that it is also amazing, unique, and beautiful. I guess that we are all truly blessed.