Survival & Guitars

Me holding a guitar. Drawn by one of my guitar students.

Going back to the beginning of the month, the people of Arctic Bay had a little scare: two teens were missing out on the land.  They had gone hunting with their father some fifty kilometres north of Arctic Bay.  The brothers were following their father on skidoo when they became separated on the ice.  Later, the father's skidoo broke down, prompting him to activate his GPS locator.  He was rescued on the morning of Tuesday, March 5th. 

            

The brothers continued towards the southeast, hoping to reach land but their skidoo ran out of gas.  With no GPS locator, radio, or sat phone, the brothers now had to rely on the knowledge and skills they learned from local Elders.  They abandoned their skidoo and walked along the ice.  They made sure not to follow the northern winds but to walk across them in the hope of reaching land.  Forced to overnight on the land, the brothers found a large mound of snow & ice, and slept on the side that was against the wind.  They huddled together to stay warm.  The brothers eventually made it to land and found a cabin with a radio inside.  They were picked up by rescuers later in the day, who had gone out three times looking for the brothers.

            

This whole ordeal was in the spotlight, from beginning to end.  One of the brothers, Jeremy, happened to be one of my students.  The school was kept informed through announcements.  Everyone breathed a collective sigh of relief when the announcement came that the two teens were found.  A day or two later, Jeremy was given the opportunity to talk about his experience in Iga's Inuktitut language class.  Even though I couldn't exactly understand what was being said, I got a simple understanding of what happened through body language.  From the look on his face, he was glad to be alive.  The story made the CBC news.  The father and two brothers recovered their skidoos several days later.

As an assignment, Iga's students wrote about the experience and posted it in the high school hallway for everyone to see.

            

Fast forward to the middle of the month, my English students have begun to review the key literary elements with examples from literature and in depth writing activities.  I'm thinking the completion of these worksheets will replace a written test.  The only downside is that the worksheets contain a lot of big words that need to be explained.  We're slowly working through them.

            

Skinned Polar Bear.

In Socials Studies, my students studied the 1970 Coppermine Conference, possibly the most important meeting in Inuit (land claims) history.  Since the late 1800s, the Inuit of Canada's North were subjected to a harsh policy of assimilation by the federal government and Christian missionaries and had little control over their lands & lives.  By the late 1960s, it became clear to them that the only way to ensure the survival and preservation of the Inuit language and culture was to become involved in the political process.  Inspired by the African-American Civil Rights Movement in the United States, young Inuit activists began meeting in communities and established two organizations: ITC (now Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami) and the Inuit Eskimo Association (IEA).

            

In 1970, the IEA sponsored a conference in Coppermine (now Kugluktuk), NWT, where delegates from 20 northern communities came together to voice their concerns about problems in the communities and how to take back control of their lives.  My students reviewed a transcript from one of the meetings and the problems discussed were: substandard housing, strict hunting regulations, land being developed without Inuit input, and Aboriginal rights.

 

Arctic Bay rock sign.

A follow up meeting was held in Toronto in February 1971 where the issues raised in Coppermine were stressed and reiterated.  It was interesting to see how the Inuit organized themselves and began making so much 'noise' that the federal government had no choice but to start listening.  It would have been nice to learn about this when I was in high school.  Following the Coppermine lessons, my students will look at Inuit land claims.

            

On Friday, March 15, my guitarists had another tabs test.  They had a choice of playing Johnny Cash or Eminem melodies.  They did very well.  Before the end of the period, we brought our guitars to Jill's Grade 4 class to do a sound demonstration.  Her students are studying sound and she had asked me if my guitarists and I could show how sounds are made on the guitar.  I happily agreed.  One of the activities Jill had prepared for her students was to build guitars out of small boxes, rubber bands, and popsicle sticks.

            

Jill's students are quite an energetic bunch but when I started the demonstration, they quieted down really quickly.  Was I like that when I was in Grade 4?  I started by explaining the parts of the guitar and how the strings are organized.  After plucking a few notes for them to hear the differences in pitch, I played several tunes for them (Mission Impossible, Smoke On The Water, & the James Bond Theme).  I then let my students come up one at a time and play a song or two that they wanted to share.  The Grade 4s really enjoyed it.  They now had an idea of what their guitars needed to sound like.

            

Speaking of guitars, my students have started an afterschool guitar club of sorts at the beginning of March.  For an hour after school, I let the high school students come in and jam on the guitars.  I just make sure they know not horse around with them and pluck on the strings too hard.       

            

Despite the town of Arctic Bay being surrounded by high hills and cliffs, it is prone to adverse weather.  There is fog now and then but a blizzard can also strike.  One blizzard happened on March 20 in the afternoon.  Cadets was cancelled that evening and the wind almost knocked me over when I was walking home.  It reminded me of the blizzards in Iqaluit.

            

And finally, I prepared a dinner meal for myself on March 25 with the Arctic Char I bought.  It was quite an eye opening experience; I wasn't expecting so much blood when I was cleaning it.  I made sure to thaw it out for 3 days before getting to work.  Looking at the dead fish before me, I whispered, "Mamianaq, (Sorry)," before slitting it open with my butcher knife.  (I have been told that Inuit hunters would shout this word before killing a seal(s) with their harpoon(s)).  I felt like a butcher . . . and a surgeon. 

            

After cutting off a few slices, I cooked them on an open frying pan for a few minutes.  I also had rice on the side.  The meal was delicious but there was a lot of cleaning up to do.  I placed the rest of the fish in Ziploc bags and put them back in the fridge.  I would be eating char for the next several days.