Out For A Walk

Since coming to Arctic Bay I had always wanted to explore the surrounding area.  However, time and transportation kept getting in the way.  There was work to be done and I didn't have a snowmobile to get around.  Finally, after two months, the long Easter weekend gave me a chance to go out for a walk.  On the morning of March 30, I decided to walk over to Victor Bay, directly behind the town.  Many locals have fishing & hunting cabins there.  I dressed warmly and armed myself with a camera, binoculars, and a compass.  The Arctic sun shined brightly as I stepped out of my home.  There wasn't a cloud in the sky.      

            

What's over that hill?

A winding dirt road grants vehicular access to Victor Bay.  I followed this road, imagining the Arctic landscape I was going to see for the first time.  About halfway up the road, I stopped and faced the town.  The view was great.  There wasn't any activity in town, prompting me to assume that everyone was sleeping in.  The road peaks at the top of a small hill.  Crossing the peak, I walked past a long wooden qamutik.  In the distance, there were snow covered ridges.

            

I continued walking along the road, the tough snow crunching beneath my boots.  When I stopped several minutes later to take a photo of frozen plants, my ears were overwhelmed by the sounds of silence.  Complete.  Deafening.  Silence.  It was everywhere.  I had to snap my fingers several times to convince myself that I still had my hearing.  I also checked my ears to make sure I wasn't wearing earplugs. The silence added to the reality that I was in the far north where human activity is restricted to very small pockets.  For someone who grew up a city boy, (where there is always a sound of some kind), I found the silence to be relaxing.  And as a musician, the silence was 'music to my ears.'  (In music, silence is just as important as sound).  I like the sound of silence. 

            

I continued my walk, the silence being replaced with the sounds of crunching snow.  Several minutes later, my foot crunching was drowned out by a skidoo approaching from behind.  The Inuk driver raced passed me, dragging a small qamutik.  It was a safe bet that he was heading to his cabin.  As he passed me, I stopped walking, wanting to know how long it would take for the sounds of his roaring skidoo to disappear.  It took less than a minute.                        

            

A young hunter walks home empty-handed.

Victor Bay slowly came into view with every step I took.  In the far distance, I could see the frozen bay, an iceberg, and many mountaintops.  Walking in the opposite direction was a young Inuk hunter (between 9 - 12 years old) with a rifle slung on his back.  His hands were empty; he hadn't shot anything.  We exchanged greetings as we passed.  He was all smiles.  I guess he was staying positive and feeling certain that he would catch an animal on his next trip out on the land.  I envied him; I never got to fire a rifle when I was a kid.

            

When Victor Bay came into full view, I stopped to take several pictures.  Naturally, the silence returned.  The only sounds I heard were the clicks of my digital camera.  What I immediately noticed about the bay area was its similar layout to Arctic Bay.  One could build an entire replica of the town facing to the north.  At the moment, there are around six cabins in Victor Bay.  I spotted the snowmobile that passed me by earlier, parked next to a large wooden cabin.  

            

Out in the frozen bay stood a tall pinnacle shaped iceberg.  To the left of it stood a more tabular shaped iceberg.  I photographed both.  Looking through my binoculars, it looked like each iceberg had to be at least five stories tall.  I estimated that it would take me around an hour to get to them on foot.  However, doing such a thing is risky due to dangerous wildlife (polar bears).  Best to get there by skidoo.

            

I moved off the dirt road, walking eastward, creating my own path through the untouched snow.  I snapped a few more pictures of Victor Bay before heading back towards Arctic Bay.  I followed Arctic Hare tracks so that I wouldn't get stuck in deep snow.  If the snow is good enough for the local wildlife to walk on, then it's good enough for me. 

            

Industrial Area, aka 'Gas Station'.

The jagged hills that split the two bays are populated by many small inukshuks.  I emerged on top of a hill located somewhere close to the centre of town.  I was able to see the entire town and frozen bay.  I moved over to a taller hill to my right to get a clearer view.  Instead of an inukshuk, the summit is marked by a tall wooden post surrounded by rocks.  (There were two small inukshuks sitting on the right edge of the hill).  From here, I snapped pictures of the town, airport, industrial area, and the bay.  I also observed these places through my binoculars.  By this time, there was activity happening in town.  The silence had been replaced with the sounds of trucks, skidoos, and barking dogs.  There was also a cold wind, prompting me to pull up the hoodie on my Canada Goose parka.

            

Arctic Bay Airport

After enjoying the breathtaking views for some time, I slowly began my descent to the dirt road I used to get to Victor Bay.  I took my time, making sure I didn't slip and fall.  I wanted to take more pictures but the battery on my camera was drained.  When I arrived at my place, I transferred all the pictures I took to my laptop, and charged my camera.  While my camera was recharging, I prepared Arctic char for lunch.

            

The lone qamutik I passed by earlier.

Overall, I enjoyed my walk to Victor Bay and the surrounding area.  The excursion took about 3 & a half hours.  If I had more time (and possibly a skidoo), I could have explored more.  But that will have to wait for next time.  I'm not sure when that will be or where it will take place.  Perhaps the summit of King George V Mountain?   

    

Easter Fun

The four-day Easter Weekend (March 29 - April 1) was the next big event after the conclusion of the science fair.  Many would spend the long weekend with family and friends.  I didn't have any big plans for the Easter weekend.  I would just take it easy and enjoy the time off.  When I was teaching in Iqaluit, school was dismissed for an entire week.  This enabled teachers & students to do some out-of-town travelling.

            

Just before school was dismissed for the long weekend, Easter themed activities were organized for March 28.  After afternoon recess, all students were instructed to assemble in their spirit teams outside.  My spirit team was Team Rabbit.  Light snow fell to the ground as Iga Muckpa, an Inuit teacher in charge of Spirit Team activities, addressed everyone with a bullhorn.  The first activity was an Easter Egg Hunt.  Hundreds of colourful eggs made out of cardboard paper were hidden on the other side of the school and the challenge was for teams to collect the most.  When Iga said 'Go!' everyone ran to the other side of the school and snatched as many eggs as they could.  Unfortunately, real chocolate eggs couldn't be used because they would have been eaten by ravens.

            

The hunt lasted around five minutes.  Everyone reassembled in front of the gym where Iga counted how many eggs each team collected.  Team Rabbit collected 40 eggs but another team somehow managed to collect 56 eggs and win the challenge!  They were given candy for their achievement.

            

Students get ready for the
egg-n-spoon race.

The activities continued out on the frozen ice in the bay.  Stepping out on the ice for the first time felt somewhat surreal because the distances between natural and man-made landmarks were amplified.  When you look out towards the distant mountains, you really get a sense that you're in the middle of nowhere.  I even felt like I was on the planet Hoth in Star Wars.  As well, everything is much further than it appears.  As for the thickness of the ice . . . it was still thick enough to hold up trucks. 

            

Once everyone had made it to the designated area, all spirit teams lined up to partake in an egg-and-metal-spoon relay race.  Students had to try their best not to drop their white eggs because finding them on the snow covered ice would be difficult.  There was a lot of cheering throughout the race, as students raced back and forth with an egg on a metal spoon.  Of course, there were plenty of moments when eggs had to be retrieved from the snow.  I stayed off to the side and took pictures and short HD videos.  Team Rabbit came close to winning the race.

            

Snow continued to fall as the spirit teams got ready for the next relay race, a combination of running and hopping.  Preschoolers and kindergarteners had to run to a pylon and back while holding a balloon.  Everyone else had to do it while hopping with the balloon between their legs.  The loud motivational cheering was still there but this time there was some laughter sprinkled in.  At the end of the relay race, candy was distributed and consumed.  Several teachers and students stayed behind to clean up while everyone else headed back to school to collect their belongings.  I wished all my students a happy Easter and that I would see them on Tuesday. 

            

Overall, the activities were a nice way for the school to celebrate Easter and to let everyone have a break from the routines of classroom learning.      

Science Fair - Part 2

The science fair festivities continued the following week with an after school laser tag event in the school's gym on March 26.  From what I heard, participants got quite a workout running around obstacles and zapping their friends with laser guns.  Compared to paintball, laser tag is much less dangerous and painful.  When you get 'shot', your vest just vibrates for a few seconds.  When you get shot playing paintball . . . ouch!

            

The next pair of workshops for high school students took place on the morning of March 27.  Just like on March 22, the English and Math classes attended the workshops as a group.  The morning began in the school's gym, looking at the science of force & motion.  Marni from Elephant Thoughts led the workshop.

            

Teacher & students having fun with
small spinning tops.

She started by talking about the importance of gravity, how its immense force keeps us tied to the Earth.  She also talked about Sir Isaac Newton, an English physicist and mathematician, who formulated the Theory of Gravity.  Of course, it wouldn't be a lesson on Newton if it didn't include the famous 'Apple Incident'.  According to legend, Newton's Theory of Gravity was inspired by an apple falling from a tree.  The more comical version is that the apple fell on Newton's head.  And then there is the argument that the event never took place.  Whichever one is true is anyone's guess at this point.

            

The first gravity demonstration Marni presented to students was Galileo's Beads.  A long piece of string runs through all the beads, creating one long chain.  She simply tugged on one end, letting a few beads fall out of the cup.  Surprisingly, this motion created a chain reaction, causing the entire chain of beads to fall out in a fast but steady stream.  To see if distance plays a part in determining the speed of descent, Marni had a 'beads race' with a student volunteer.  Naturally, Donathan was the first to volunteer.  The only difference was that Marni stood on a chair.  In the end, all of Marni's beads fell to the floor first.  "The higher an object, the faster it falls," she explained, "because there is more gravity pushing it down . . . [The beads] have more time to speed up."

            

For the next demonstration, Marni dropped a ping pong ball to show that it would bounce back roughly halfway.  Adding more force, she threw it down, causing the ball to bounce back higher.  Taking it to the extreme, she placed the ball on a small rubber disk and lightly touched it.  The disk instantly inverted and launched the ping pong ball all the way up to the ceiling.  The students were surprised that the ball flew so high.  Ping pong balls and rubber discs were then handed out to the students and they played around for several minutes.  I caught some of the action on film.

            

The students needed to be careful for the next experiment because the items used were heavy.   In pairs, one student held a piece of paper while the other whacked it with two steel balls by bringing them together.  When the balls collide, the temperature between them increases to the point where it can burn through the paper and give off the smell of smoke & fire.  This works even when the paper is folded several times.

            

Jeremy, Marni, and Donathan get
ready to release an owl.

The fourth activity dealt with the center of balance.  Each student had to construct a paper owl sitting on a small wooden wheel.  Wooden weights on long sticks were attached on both sides using a glue gun.  In short, the students built owl trapeze artists.  Students then scrambled up to the gym's mezzanine to place them on a fishing line that led down to the gym floor.  Many owls completed the full descent while some fell off halfway.

            

The last and probably most exciting activity of the Forces & Motion workshop was the Body Zorb.  A large plastic ball filled with air, the Body Zorb surrounds a person's upper body, allowing them to run around and fall without being injured.  They can also tuck their legs in and let their friends roll them around.  The students had a lot of fun with the three Body Zorbs until the morning recess bell sounded.

            

Stevie introduces Light & Sound.

Looking through rainbow glasses.

After recess, the students in my group moved to the Home Economics room for the Light & Sound workshop.  Stevie, the other instructor from Elephant Thoughts, led the workshop.  She started by talking about light, its properties and extremely fast speed.  To show that visible light includes all colours of the visible spectrum, she spun a rainbow painted wheel on a stick.  Since the wheel was spinning really fast, the rainbow colours combined to produce white.  To see the reverse effect, Stevie handed out rainbow glasses for everyone to try.  When looking through the lenses, one can see rainbow lines coming from all white light emitting sources.

            

Stevie had also brought a black light to show students which objects display florescence, "the emission of light by a substance that has absorbed light or other electromagnetic radiation."  I forget the name of the liquid but it glowed a bright green under the black light.  The black light also affected the white t-shirts of several students, causing them to glow prominently.  

            

With the lights turned back on, Stevie instructed everyone to take a seat at a nearby row of tables.  Everyone was giving a piece of string and small collection of colour changing beads.  We made wrist bands.  The beads only change colour and remain that way when exposed to black light or the sun.  The change takes less than a minute.  The beads will change back to a clear white colour when they are no longer exposed to black light or the sun. 

            

The last activity dealt with sound and called on eight students to sit in a semicircle.  Stevie gave each student a sound tube, representing a musical note.  Being musically trained, I immediately noticed the tubes were organized into the C Major Scale (C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C).  Stevie had brought several easy songs for the students to play like 'Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star' and 'Old McDonald'.  When Stevie mentioned that she wasn't that good at conducting, I raised my hand and asked if I could take over?  She accepted my request without hesitation. 

            

I look over the music before conducting.
Picture taken by Paulette, the Art teacher.

Deviating from Stevie's prepared music, I showed students that it was possible to play many songs with just one scale.  I was able to get students to play 'Joy to the World', 'Jaws', 'Seven Nation Army', 'Top Gun', 'Hot Cross Buns', and 'Chop Sticks'.  When I ran out of songs, I reverted back to Stevie's prepared music.  From where I was standing, it looked like the students had a good time.                       

            

At the end of the science fair students and teachers were asked to fill out and submit review sheets so that Elephant Thoughts knew what worked well and what needed to be improved.  I'm not sure how everyone else felt but I know I was impressed by the variety of the workshops.  And I also got to dissect owl pellets!  I also added that I hoped Elephant Thoughts would come back in the near future.  Overall, I think the science fair was a success, exposing  young Inuit minds to the wonderful world of science. 

End of Science Fair mini-series.

Science Fair - Part 1

In 2002, a group of teachers, principals, and other professional educators came together and created the Elephant Thoughts Global Development Initiatives.  As a Canadian registered charity, Elephant Thoughts "promote[s] high standards of education worldwide despite economic or geographic barriers."  They do this in a variety of ways, such as: supporting schools, building schools in the developing world, and sharing resources with NGOs working in the same field.  Today, Elephant Thoughts (ET) works in more than 75 Inuit & First Nations communities across Canada, and in India, Nepal, Tanzania, and Nicaragua.

            

One of the many educational programs that ET brings to First Nations & Inuit communities are Science Workshops.  These can be done as class field trips, after school activities, or science fair.  For the last two weeks of March, ET hosted a science fair for the students of Inuujaq School.  Members of the public were allowed to attend after school hours.  The visit was the last part of a science fair tour of several Nunavut communities.

            

A sponsor covered the transportation costs for the two instructors and their equipment.  The instructors were Stevie and Marni.  To make sure the science fair ran smoothly, a schedule was put together.

           

Stevie welcomes students.

The first workshops I attended were with my English and Social Studies classes on the morning on March 22.  For the first half, the high school English and Math classes went down to the Home Economics room (aka Home Ec) where Stevie gave a presentation on electricity.  The high school Inuktitut language classes were upstairs in the library with Marni.  Stevie welcomed the students and instructed them to set aside any electronic devices so that they wouldn't get fried during the demonstrations.  I made sure to keep a close watch on my digital camera.

            

Stevie began her workshop by talking about Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison.  Nikola Tesla, a Serbian-American inventor & electrical engineer, is known for pioneering the modern alternating current electrical supply system.  Thomas Edison was an American inventor and businessman, mostly known for inventing the light bulb, phonograph, and motion picture camera.  Stevie then moved on to static electricity, something that the teachers & students of Inuujaq School are all too familiar with.  After explaining how it works, she brought out a plasma globe and got several nervous students to touch it with their fingers and later, their noses.  I participated as well.

            

Donathan gets ready for an electrical current to be sent through him to the light bulb.

What followed were demonstrations of running electrical currents through human bodies.  Donathan, a guitar student of mine, was the first to volunteer.  In his right hand he held a fluorescent light bulb and in his left hand he held an electrical apparatus.  Before turning on the apparatus, Stevie stressed to Donathan to not let go, otherwise he would get a near fatal shock.  Slowly turning on the apparatus, the electricity flowed through his body and lit the fluorescent bulb.  Donathan described the sensation as being tickled.  The demonstration was repeated with a line of three students.  Everyone watched in awe as the light bulb again flickered to life.

            

When everyone took their seats, Stevie used the electronic apparatus to test the conductivity of various objects.  Wooden objects and a sheet of paper didn't conduct any sparks but the metal objects did.  What the students found intriguing was when Stevie placed a thin piece of paper on top of a metal plate and showed the electricity from the apparatus travelling through the paper to the plate. 

            

Setting the electrical apparatus aside, Stevie rolled up the small carpet on the floor to reveal a small grid made out of black electrical tape.  The 'Guess the Circuit Path' game called on participants to move from one x to the other in a chosen path.  You can move forward, back, and sideways; not diagonally.  The game is basically trial-and-error because you're guessing with every step you take.

            

Stevie and students examine a laser pack and gun.

The highlight and final activity of the workshop was when Stevie brought out the 8 laser guns and vests.  While she got them programmed for laser tag, several students and I turned the Home Ec room into a play area with obstacles.  Turning the lights off, two teams of four zapped each other with the laser guns for five minutes.  I participated in the first game, giving students a chance to shoot a teacher and not get in trouble for it.  For the second round, I stood off to the side and filmed it with my camera.  Playing laser tag brought back childhood memories of going to Laser Quest with my friends.

            

Marni introduces herself.

Mexican jumping bean.

The science fair continued after morning recess with the high school classes switching places.  Marni's workshop in the library focused on the biology of certain animals, insects, and plants.  Marni started her workshop by showing students Mexican jumping beans, seed pods that are inhabited by the larvae of a small moth.  The larvae eat the inside of the bean and can stay inside for months until it transforms into a moth.  The beans 'jump' when they're in a heated area because the larvae inside are trying to move into a cooler area.  The beans she brought were sitting in the sunlight and sure enough, they periodically moved all on their own.

            

Students dissecting owl pellets.

Marni then turned the students attention to the many different eating habits of animals, particularly the owl.  Since owls are birds, they don't have teeth.  They have to swallow their food whole.  An owl's diet typically consists of insects, mice, rats, and hares.  The owl regurgitates the parts that its body can't digest.  Up until that point, I didn't know that owls had to regurgitate the indigestible parts of their prey; I always thought it came out the back like with seagulls.  Learning that fact made me think whether it was wise for Western cultures to associate the owl with wisdom.  Anyway, I'm just glad the human digestive system doesn't work like that; eating in public or in private wouldn't look pretty.

            

Principal A. Salam and I examining the contents of an owl pellet.
Picture taken by Donathan.

Me looking at a mouse skull.
Picture taken by Marni.

Owls regurgitate what they don't digest into small pellets.  Marni explained that these pellets are often collected and sent to schools to be dissected by biology students.  People who go out and collect these pellets can earn around $2 per pellet.  Naturally, after Marni finished her explanations, she handed everyone blue plastic tweezers, diagrams of rodent bones, and an owl pellet wrapped in tinfoil.  We had to dissect and catalogue the bones we found inside.  Everyone had fun with the dissections; me included.  We all ended up dissecting a second pellet.  I found several skulls & bones belonging to mice and rats.  Marni gave everyone the option to keep what they found by handing out small plastic bags.  I chose to keep all the skulls.  Everything else was thrown in the garbage.

            

The last creature we studied was the honey bee, particularly how it produces beeswax, a natural wax used to build honeycomb cells in the hive.  We also looked at how humans use beeswax for candle making.  We each got a strip of beeswax and a piece of string.  Making a beeswax candle was very easy because all you had to do was wrap the beeswax around the piece of string.  The string serves as the wick to light the candle.  

            

Just before it was time to break for lunch, Marni presented two dinosaur plants that had just been placed into two small bowls of water.  In dry weather, the plants curl into tight balls but slowly open (in about 3 hours) when exposed to moisture.  They were her gifts to the schools.

            

I caught up with Stevie and Marni just as they were leaving for lunch.  I thanked them for their interesting and interactive workshops.       

To be continued . . .