Early December

The sea ice has been solid since late November.  Skidoo tracks stretch from one end of town to the other. The sea ice in front of the Northern Store & breakwater is completely covered with tracks.  Dog team owners have also started moving their teams onto the ice, installing wooden pegs, chains, and pens to keep the females separated from the males. 

            

The sun is now a distant memory.  It will not return until early February.  The community still receives some sunlight at lunch time but the actual sun never appears.  The duration of sunlight diminishes with every passing day.  It will drop to an hour by the end of December.  Arctic Bay doesn’t experience 24-hour darkness.

            

December is the last month of the high school fall semester.  Final exams are “right around the corner” – Dec 11, 14, & 15 to be exact – prompting the high school teachers to focus on reviewing all the required materials with their students.

            

In Grade 10 Social Studies, we finished the remaining activities in the Residential Schools module.  The activities focused on compensation to former students from the federal government and various churches, reconciliation, and moving forward.  The remaining regular classes were spent reviewing the entire module.  The students wrote their final exam on Friday, December 11.

            

My Grade 11 Social Studies students finished the semester by examining two historical case studies where genocide was used.  They studied the Ukrainian Genocide of 1932-33, known as the Holodomor, and the Rwandan Genocide of 1994.  Although I am a Canadian-born citizen, my ethnic background is Ukrainian.  Members of my (late) extended family lived, suffered, and perished during the man-made famine.  I decided to share some of my Ukrainian history with my students because they have periodically asked me about my Ukrainian heritage and language.  Yes, I’ll admit it’s odd to begin with a “dark episode”, but we were on the topic of genocide, and not many people know what happened in that part of the world.

            

In addition to the content found in the new textbooks on the Rwandan Genocide, my students & I watched the Canadian film Shake Hands with the Devil, based on the book with the same name.  The memoir was written by Canadian General Romeo Dallaire who was sent to the country to lead the United Nations peacekeeping mission.  In short, he wasn’t given enough money, equipment, and support, and was unable to stop the genocide from happening.  The film was a good adaptation of the book.  (Two other good movies about the genocide are: Hotel Rwanda, and Une Dimanche a Kigali).

            

My drummers spent the remaining two weeks of regular classes getting ready for the Christmas concert.  I made a wise decision to simplify the repertoire.  We spent most of our time practicing down in the Home Ec room because we could play our drums and not annoy any classes.  My drummers no longer complained about having to move all the drums & equipment back & forth.  This assured me there wouldn’t be any problems with moving everything to the community hall for the concert.  Their last performance test of the semester was to play one of the concert pieces.  They all did alright.    

            

Grade 4 classroom window . . . at night.

Christmas decorations were hung all around the school on December 7^th.  The hallways were covered with posters, ribbons, and lights.  A heavily decorated Christmas tree was erected at the elementary school corner.  Next to the tree was a makeshift fireplace that had stockings with the names of Inuujaq School staff.  And four Santa dolls moved into the staff room.  “It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas,” I remarked to a staff member.

            

A trio of Santas.

This year I lead the Christmas Concert Committee.  We held our first meeting at the beginning of the month and drew up a schedule for the last week of school.  We were responsible for organizing the dress rehearsal, Christmas concert, and morning carolling with the elders.  All these events would occur at the community hall.  In the following days, classes prepared & submitted decorations to be used at the community hall, and teachers informed us what acts their students would be performing.  We needed this information for the concert programs.

            

The staff of Inuujaq School held its annual Christmas pot luck dinner on Friday, December 11^th.  The dinner was held in the high school science room.  The tables were arranged into four long rows and decorated with table cloths & candles.  The walls were decorated with lights and purple curtains.  The Christmas tree from the elementary school corner was brought into the room.

            

Everyone brought food to the pot luck.  My contribution was three bags of cooked shrimp & dip.  The food was placed at the back of the science room.  When everyone was present (staff & invited guests), the food was blessed by an elder.  Then everyone grabbed their plates and formed a self-serving line.  The elders received their food first.

             

The dinner concluded with the participants of the Secret Santa activity guessing who was giving them gifts for the past week.  Each participant had three chances to correctly guess their Secret Santa.  If they were unsuccessful, the real person would stand up and confess to everyone that it was them.  That person would then present their final gift.