It's cold. Minus 23 today. The days are drawing in, it's light at 8 am and dark at 6 pm, but by November 30th it will be dark all the time. The sun won't come up again until the 11th of January. And then, according to those who have been gleefully telling me this, it will come up above the horizon at noon, and then promptly set again ten minutes later. Stuff to look forward to.

We had turkey dinner yesterday, courtesy of foodmail. I discovered that our oven is smaller here, and the enormous turkey only just fit in it. But it cooked beautifully and we've got masses of leftovers. Last night Rachel and I were thinking of what to make with them: turkey waffles, turkey smoothies, turkey cheesecake, turkey oatmeal, turkey-and-custard... But we did pretty good, for where we are, I made stuffing with our own bread, we got cranberry sauce, and although the only potatoes available were tiny they roasted up nice.

Our parkas are all here, and just in time. Mark's Work Wearhouse in Yellowknife managed to get them to us in three days, and so we're all warm when we venture outside now. The locals have been muttering darkly about frostbite, looking at what we were wearing.

It continues to snow. Big lazy flakes, and the sky is the colour of coffee with cream, overhead, shading to grey at the horizon. It's hard to tell where the tundra ends and the sky begins. Miguel came home this morning with a parka for me that he found on sale at the hardware store. I will be warm. Yesterday it was minus 20 with the windchill...

A co-worker of Miguel's has offered to take him hunting for caribou tomorrow. He can't actually shoot anything, but he's interested to go watch. I'm on call for the shelter this weekend, so I'm sticking close to home.

I went down yesterday to pick up the keys to the shelter, and ended up sitting in the reception area of the centre for half an hour, waiting for the family violence coordinator to return from her errands. A couple of other women were waiting to see her as well, and we were gossiping with the receptionist. I continue to be amazed at how much I've been accepted, it felt very comfortable to sit and talk.

Although the last weekend I was on call I found it a bit hard to sleep, I went to sleep quite quickly last night and didn't wake until my usual time (5:30). I guess you get used to anything.

Spent yesterday filling in for the receptionist at the centre that sponsors the programs I've been helping with. Phone was the same model as at my last place of employment, and I kept having to remind myself what to say when answering the phone. The cultural differences are still a challenge, accents are hard to understand over the phone and last names are amazing... I was in charge of the Food Bank for the afternoon, and I was supposed to get names from those who came for food. They start spelling, and they don't stop til they've given you about twelve letters... I was interested to see that most of the food given out consists of the ingredients for bannock. It was an exhilarating day, in a way, I hung around in the reception area and answered the phone, bagged food in the back room for the Food Bank, chatted to clients and visitors, it's all very laid back.

Last night, to my amazement, the public library was finally open. It has been closed due to the retirement of the former librarian and a general lack of folk willing to take over. There are computers in there, and last night they were all full of hyperactive adolescent boys surfing the net. I can kind of see why it would be difficult to find staff, I can't see most librarians being willing to run the equivalent of a youth centre. However, I was there for the books, and they had a brand-new copy of Peter Robinson's last book. I now have a library card for the May Hakongak Public Library, and a book about local history. Life may be liveable, this winter. People keep shaking their head at me when I say I've only been here since the end of August, saying, "Oh, you're going to find it cold." One man said this to me yesterday and then added, "Just you wait." He even repeated it a couple of times, when I laughed.

Today I went to clean the rooms where we hold the programs. There's supposed to be a janitor, but I noticed that during the two weeks the only cleaning that was getting done was our own efforts. I inquired of my boss, and she said that there was a janitor, but he was... not reliable... My co-worker had cleaned the washroom and kitchen before he went back home, but I wanted to vacuum and wash the floors. Put the radio on and opened all the drapes, found that there was a good mop, begged a vacuum cleaner from the receptionist (at her post today) and made it all nice and clean. Very satisfying. It really is a lovely building, I feel very lucky to be working there. Although I'm technically 'off' this week, with no program until next week, I put in a full day yesterday, half a day today, I'm on call for the shelter again this weekend (get paid for that too) and I'm supposed to go in and help plan the new workshop on the weekend.

Adjusting. Kids have their moments where they talk of missing their friends, our old house, fast food. Miguel is in Yellowknife this weekend, for a meeting. Yesterday since we figured Miguel would be eating out, we talked about going out for dinner to the Lodge, and then to a movie they were showing at the school, War of the Worlds, but at the last minute Kirsten decided she didn't feel well. So I made pancakes for dinner and we watched Shrek on tv. Me and all the kids, on the couch.

Sometimes we go to the store and they don't have what we need. And if both stores don't have it, we can't get it. Cream for coffee is often in short supply. We've gotten the hang of ordering food to be sent up from Yellowknife through food mail. It's good to have fruit and vegetables again. We make our own bread. Somedays most of the bread on the shelves is moldy in the stores, or past its expiry date. My co-worker went to open a package of crackers he had bought for the workshop, and when we started eating them they tasted terrible: two years past their expiry date...

I love cleaning this house. Takes about two hours and everything's clean and tidy. Our old house was too big. And no yard work here! No car, walk to work, no remembering what day is garbage day, no inane free newspapers being delivered, no phone or door-to-door solicitors, no traffic... I can walk around the corner with the dogs and let them run free on the tundra.

The tundra is changing, taking on pockets of snow, and the lakes are frozen crunchy white. The light comes from different and ever-changing angles, the sun seems to move almost visibly in the sky and show different rocks and hollows daily. One night last week I sat on the deck and the sky was bright lime green with northern lights, it felt peaceful, sitting there, and it occurred to me (something I need reminding of periodically) that my concerns are very small, my residual anger and my worries...

Workshops go well. I am learning about a culture that gives high priority to family and kin, and struggles to exist in an encroaching world. We prayed a lot, together, something I haven't done for years, but it felt comforting. The women graduated on Friday, with tears and hugs, next is men for two weeks. I begin to see people I know around town, can't get in and out of anywhere without having to talk to someone.

A lot of emphasis in the workshops on thinking positively (but realistically) and taking one day at a time. Both messages I welcome...

This afternoon one of the workshop participants brought raw frozen char for a snack. It was quite tasty, very sweet. The other thing that happened this afternoon is that I got asked to be on call for the women's shelter for the weekend. I said yes, filled out a form, got the tour, was given the keys, and now if anyone needs to go stay at the shelter the police or social services will call me, and I'll go down and get them settled in. I think that sometime this week I passed whatever test was being given, because I have also been approached to help with youth anti-violence programs at the school and family support groups during the weeks I'm not helping with workshops. I'm hoping I can live up to their expectations...... time will tell.

And so, it snows. Big flakes blowing around. Kids are wearing parkas. The wind blows me helpfully to work in the morning, then freezes my face on the way home. At the post office today, three packages. Kurt Cobain's Journals, Micheal Palin's Himalaya and a gift from the real estate agents. This last provokes much hilarity at home, being a full set of barbecue implements.

Work is painful and beautiful at the same time. A women's group, and their lives have been unimaginably hard. Substance abuse, violence, children taken away, residential schools... and yet, they love to laugh, and to make others laugh. I realize, as always, that I am swallowing everyone's emotions and can't eat. A weekend workshop usually caused me to lose about five pounds. Don't know how much i'll lose in two weeks. Today my co-worker left me alone with the group, and we did some circle work. Lots of tears. At the end of the day he said to me, "I swear 9am was about an hour ago." I replied, "Maybe that's what tells us we're doing what we're supposed to be doing, that we don't watch the clock." I also know that compared to 12 hour days at the prison, 9-4 and going home for lunch seems like a picnic.

One of the men I worked with at the prison tried to kill himself on the weekend. And he was quite close to getting out.

Work was good. Very laid back, we spent a lot of time sitting in other people's offices, talking. Planned and organized all the materials for Monday, when a two-week women's treatment program starts. Another facilitator was supposed to be coming from Calgary to help, and I was just supposed to be observing, but she couldn't get her stuff together so she's not coming. Can't say I'm tremendously sorry.

The building I'm going to be working in looks like a shack from the outside, but turned out to be light and airy with high ceilings and lots of wood. My new co-worker and I seem to be on much the same page, we had no difficulty selecting which exercises to do. We laid all the ones we wanted out on a big table, so we could decide which order to do them in, and then there were quite a few times when he said, "Where's that..." and before he could finish I'd handed him the one he was thinking of. He said that we will do an afternoon of circle work this week, and that since the participants are all women he will sit out and let me facilitate by myself. I love circles.

Tomorrow I will have been here three weeks. Friday I start work. I've been lazy this week, hanging out at home in the peace and quiet, reading the books I got at a garage sale on the weekend. I've walked on the tundra, with the dogs, and sat with the kids after school while they talked about their days. Very laid back. Miguel and our neighbour helped the kids make a fort out back with scrap lumber.

This morning two guys from the housing department came to fix a closet door that was jamming up against the wall. They wandered in, two impassive gentlemen looking like fifty-something repairmen everywhere, in coveralls and baseball caps, and said to me, "This was supposed to be done in April, but we didn't get around to it." I chatted for a bit with one of them while the other was out in the truck looking for a hammer. He told me that it's usually winter by now... Then his partner came back in, and they fixed the closet door, and then the one I hadn't been talking to to said to me, with a straight face, "Can you just move out for 3 weeks so we can paint your house". The guy I had been talking to said, "It would be just like 'While You Were Out'.

Saturday night we went for dinner next door, with our new neighbours, and met some friends of theirs. Funny, really, we lived for seven years in the same house in Nanaimo, and I never set foot in any of the neighbours' houses. It was fun, lots of kids, and they told us stories about travelling in the Arctic and trying to come to terms with life up here. One of the men told a story about staying in a hotel in a small community, he's a lawyer and has to do the court circuit, and he said that the window in his room was broken, and the room was about 5 degrees. So he took all the bedding off the bed he wasn't trying to sleep in (fully dressed) and stuffed it into the window, which raised the temperature enough for him to sleep. He was funny when he told it, and Miguel said to him, "You seem so calm about this," and he replied, "Well, I wasn't at the time..."

My parents are dealing relatively well with this. It's not the first time we've lived a fair distance from them, and we've been talking on the phone. I feel released from their expectations about my life... they had, while we lived in Nanaimo, a habit of dropping in on the weekends and criticizing my housekeeping, yard maintenance, the behaviour of my children, etc. As I think I've mentioned before here, I'm not much of a housekeeper, and over the last few years while I've been working/volunteering/going to school it has been almost impossible to maintain any sort of standards. This year I didn't even plant a garden, as I was dealing with final exams and then we went to England, and after that working a lot on the Celtic Music Festival, and it didn't happen. They had plenty to say about my lack of ambition. Which I find a bit strange, as it's only since all of us left home that they themselves did any gardening. It's as if they think everyone has as much time as they do... While Kirsten and Rachel and I were staying with them, before we left Nanaimo, they harassed the girls almost unmercifully, calling them lazy and stupid and ungrateful. At one point, while we were eating breakfast, my father started saying, belligerently, that Rachel and Kirsten weren't worth cooking for because they were unappreciative, and I got up and left the table, quite abruptly. They must have known I was upset, but nothing was said. I've always found it much easier to deal with them in a phone relationship...........

We saw the northern lights a couple of nights ago, while we were sitting on the porch after midnight. Beautiful ethereal green ribbons. Miguel and Rachel went out to Mount Pelly to fish yesterday, and Rachel caught a lake trout. She's pretty happy about that.

Miguel and I went fishing, the other night, and I fell in. We were down by the creek, where it joins the ocean. The tide was high, and there's a little rocky island that is only separated from the shore by a few feet of water. I wanted to go out on it so I could cast into the deep water, so I asked Miguel to give me a piggy-back. We were trying to carry fishing rods, as well, so I was kind of precariously perched, and we were giggling about me falling in... Well, of course, I did. Luckily we were almost there, and I only got wet to the ankles, but the water is... well... Arctic. But we stayed fishing, until I couldn't feel my wet/cold feet any more. Still no luck, I think the fish are pretty safe from us.

I'm still living in the awe and "I'm really here" state. and meanwhile, fuzzy husky pups come to visit, muskox can be seen from our upstairs windows, and when the sun goes down the sky turns salmon-coloured. standing on the banks of the creek, or the bridge, and watching the locals pull out char after char, lining the fish up on the bank until they're ready to clean them. riding around in the cutting wind on the ATV. catalogues come in the mail offering wolverine fur, moose leather, boots that are good to minus 50. in the evening when we walk the dogs and the sun is low, all the fluffy white tundra plants, rust and blood coloured lichen and half-buried rocks for miles and miles.

We are slowly equipping ourselves, here. Garage sales, a constant due to transient workers, have yielded some good stuff; a pressure cooker, a computer monitor to replace one we left in storage, snow hoods, some kitchen bits and pieces. A co-worker of Miguel's is going to sell us a tv and a computer desk. We bought some real dishes, and we've started to stock the cupboards. The house itself is furnished, couch and armchair, coffee tables and lamps, dining table and chairs, beds and dressers, and the furniture is much nicer than the stuff I sent away to Goodwill. The kids think it's funny, though, I'm encouraging them to eat at the table rather than on the living room furniture. It's ok, though, as they can still see the little tv we're currently using.

Jane says I sound very domestic, when I wrote and told her I'd made bread and pea soup. It's been hard to leave my friends, but the people I wanted to keep in contact with have all been emailing and/or calling so I think it'll be ok.

Well. I seem to have a job. Last week I went down, following a suggestion from Miguel's supervisor, to see the director of the community wellness centre, but she was out of town. Yesterday I went back again, in the morning, and she was in court. So I left my resume. About four o'clock I went back, expecting to be told she wasn't there, but she was and she said she had read my resume and showed it to the man who was the facilitator for their treatment programs, and he wanted me to go back and talk to him. She told me what they were doing, and it sounds very similar to AVP; community building, communications, childhood issues, drugs/alcohol, family violence, etc.

This morning I called down and got the man in question, and he asked me to come talk to him at 11. Again I went without any expectations, and was very surprised when in the first five minutes he basically offered me a job being a co-facilitator. The upshot of the discussion, about an hour's worth, is that he wants me to come and be there for the next treatment program, a two-week women's program, which we will start setting up on September 9th, to start on the 12th...

So, very cool.

Also, my little brother is engaged. I told him they can't get married quite yet, because I don't have enough money to get out to Australia for the wedding. (yeah, it's all about me. got a problem with that?)

This afternoon, I watched General Hospital (guilty pleasures) and had a nap. I find it very difficult to sell myself in the way needed to get through a job interview. Draining. But now I can enjoy my time off until the 9th, without thinking I need to get out there and find work.

And here, for your amusement, the song currently playing in my head, I heard it on the radio on the weekend and it seems apropos:

Got my suitcase
Got my dog
I'm packing up my life so far
Got my pictures
Got some cash
I'm getting out of here at last

Got my hands on the wheel
Got my foot on the pedal
Gonna drive 'til I drop
'Til the tires turn to metal
Gonna sleep when I'm dead
Gonna laugh like the devil
Gonna find some place where no one knows me

Gonna stop when the last drop of gas turns to vapor
Gonna ride 'til I can't even seem to remember
Who I was when I left and it don't even matter
Gonna find some place where no one knows me

Jann Arden -- Where No One Knows Me

I'm starting to get used to being here. It feels as if we are perched on the edge of a vast expanse of wilderness, and the wind blows hard because there's nothing to stop it. I don't get lost walking around anymore. I was looking at a notice in the post office this morning, when I went to check the mail, and it was addressed to "Residents" and I thought, "hey, I'm a resident. I live here." Tomorrow our house sale goes through. The phone, which was silent for the first week or so that I was here, has begun to ring again, now that the children's new friends have our phone number. A girl has been visiting Ian, who has developed an increased interest in brushing his teeth. I feel as if he is too young for this, but he's in grade seven, so I guess not.

It is cold today. We have been assessing the state of our winter clothes stock, and I've been mending the holes and tears, but we all need boots and some of us need coats. One of Ian's friends suggested we might want to make a coat for Joeby, as he's got very short fur and will be cold... Miguel let two young boys in the other day, and then went to tell Ian they were here. Joeby came to check them out, and Miguel said, as he walked away, "He's friendly." There was silence for a moment, then one of the boys said, "Hello, friendly."

I saw a weasel, yesterday, darting back and forth across the road outside the house. This morning, when I was on my way to the post office, two Arctic Swans flew over, talking to each other. I had heard that it was possible to see them. They were snow white, and bigger than I thought, but they fly very gracefully, long necks fully extended into the wind.

sunsets... they last for hours

Went fishing last night. The char are running. Stood on the bridge over Freshwater Creek with Ian's fishing friend Harry, and suddenly he said, "The char are coming up, do you see them?" and down in the water were about twenty big greenish fish swimming together. They ignored our hooks. Harry said he had a 25lb fish on the line, but it took his hook. I didn't catch anything, and the wind was cold, but we didn't go home until they sounded the 10 o'clock siren. Miguel got up early this morning and went back to try again, but no luck. I stayed in bed and listened to the wind.

One adjustment that has to be made here is coming to terms with the price of food, since everything has to be flown in the stores have to charge more to make up for the freight. We went grocery shopping last night and I roamed around the store in a daze. Makes for hard decisions. Do I really like frozen corn enough to pay $8.00 a bag? If I buy a $10.00 5kg bag of flour, will I be able to make enough bread to make it worth it? Pop is $8.00 for a 2L bottle, and Miguel is rationing himself. We've been drinking iced tea from crystals, but it's not very nice. Our neighbours have told us that Yellowknife Co-op will mail food up here, but it is necessary to collect the food at the airport. So what we could order would be limited by the cargo capacity of the ATV. (It's a red Honda, Miguel bought it before I got up here). I've been doing what I remember my mother doing in England, making dessert with dinner every night so that when I produce the food and there's not that much of it, I can say, "There's brownies too" (or apple crumble, or chocolate chip loaf...) I bought four bananas yesterday, for $2.50, and this morning when I went to get one, all their stalks fell off, so I guess I'll be eating bananas today. Five pounds of potatoes were $9.99, but lettuce was on sale at $2.00 a head. Milk is the worst, $7.00 for 2L. Eggs are $3.99 a dozen, and we've been getting creative with them. Strangely enough, chicken is cheaper than in Nanaimo, so we've had some chicken, and we had stopped buying it in Nanaimo because it was about $5.00 a breast. We've been kind of looking at it all as a game: how can we eat reasonably well without spending all Miguel's paycheque on food?

Today I don't have a whole lot to do. One letter to mail, and a trip to the store to see if I can find more notebooks for Ian, he needs them for school and so far the hunt has been without success. Kids have settled in at school quite nicely so far, even Kirsten has made friends and likes her teacher. In some bizarre way, I think coming here has made her realize that her life is actually very good... in her gym class yesterday, two girls sat out of the activities because they're pregnant. Kirsten said that the teacher talked to them about it very matter-of-factly, asking the girls when they were due. I was glad that I had warned her, based on my own experience in junior high in Northern Quebec, that most of the kids would probably smoke and drink and be very casual about school in general. She said that out of her class of twenty there are four who don't smoke. Which is better than my grade 8 class, we had thirty-some-odd kids and only five of us didn't smoke.

Yesterday there was a funeral for a young man, 19, who committed suicide on the weekend. The service was in the high school gym, and then everyone headed out of town on ATVs and in the back of pick-up trucks to the cemetery, which is situated on a hill near Freshwater Creek. It is one thing to read, as I did in a few classes at SFU that the North has a problem with suicide, and that causes are thought to be deep-rooted in cultural alienation... being here when everyone is mourning, lots of hugging in the stores and downcast eyes, is something else. I feel as if I am intruding, in a way, a representative of those who make it difficult for young Inuit men to get ahead.

I've met the grade 2 teacher at the elementary school, he's a sweet man, and when I sat with Rachel while they formed classes I noticed he had a huge class. I saw him on the street yesterday, and waved. He came over and we were chatting, and I commented on his class size. He told me he was sorting them into groups, but he has a big span of ability levels, some can barely read a word, and so I said, "Well, I used to go volunteer at Rachel's old school, helping the little ones with their reading, so if you need a hand any time, I'm not doing much at the moment" and he took my phone number.

Husky dogs and pups are tethered everywhere here. There are also a lot of sleds, and people have harnesses hanging from their porches. (and furs, and fish drying) I'll be very interested to see the dogs hooked up to the sleds when it snows. Yesterday I saw a group of people watching someone drive a snowmobile across a lake nearby. Out back of the house there is a caribou carcass. Dogs or something have dragged its head quite a distance from its body...

my first fish ever!

Kids started school today. Yesterday we went down to the Northern store to get indoor school shoes for Rachel and Ian, and an elder in the post office lobby told us there was an icebreaker in the harbour. So we went down to see, and it turned out to be a gigantic red coastguard boat with a pointed front. The yearly barge bringing supplies is expected today, I'm told, and there will be a party on Friday to celebrate, a community barbecue. Rachel and Ian went to a back-to-school barbecue on Monday, and had muskox burgers. Miguel and I have been invited to play in a poker tournament this weekend, (we spent a fair amount of time this winter playing Texas Hold 'Em with Miguel's parents and the kids) but it costs 150 dollars each to enter so we think it might be a bit too rich for our blood.

I've been enjoying walking down to the post office to check the mail. It was never quite such a thrill to have it delivered to the door. I'm finding I really like it here, and don't mind the isolation at all. The only thing I've found that I miss is the Globe and Mail on Saturdays. I'll have to find a new source for my crossword fix...

The dogs like it here, too, we can walk out the door and around the corner and be out on the tundra, and they can dash about chasing lemmings to their hearts' content. Kids can wander around town unaccompanied, too, what traffic there is seems accustomed to looking out for kids.

Muskox don't like it when you try to take their pictures. They run away. As they are doing here.

I'm here. It's hard to know where to start....

We had a good trip, the girls and I. Stayed overnight in Edmonton, although none of us could sleep. It was rainy and cold, and we were impatient to get to Cambridge Bay. The plane that took us up went through cloud and wind, but emerged into a beautiful day. Blue sky stretching for miles, we flew in over the water and landed abruptly at the Cambridge Bay airport. (It's a gravel runway, and we were on a jet) I thought we had a lot of luggage, but everyone seemed to have similar amounts as we stood in the little building and it came in on a conveyor belt. All the boxes I had packed and sent by cargo a week earlier also arrived that day, so we had all our stuff. The house we have been allotted is on the edge of town, with a view of the Distant Early Warning station and a lot of tundra. Very cosy, and quite new. 1500 people or so live in town, so it's similar size to Vulcan, but different. Very few cars, everyone walks or drives ATVs, there are no lawns or gardens, just rocks and dirt. Apparently the snow only melted in May, and it's expected again soon. No trees, we're above the treeline. Everyone has been very friendly, so far, lots of waving.

Thursday night we went down to Freshwater Creek to fish, Rachel made a friend, and one of the locals was standing in the water next to Ian, helping him with his casting. On Friday after I stowed all the stuff, Ian took me down to the store, and as we passed through town we were followed by a chorus of kids yelling "Hi Ian!" He is in his element here, full days of fishing, riding a bike he was given by one of Miguel's new co-workers, playing tag endlessly with the neighbourhood kids in the long evenings. Rachel also has an entourage of little girls already, but she's a little alarmed that some of them are younger than her and smoke. Every time I go out, I come home to find the deck out back occupied by Rachel and her new friends.

Yesterday we went 'out on the land' to Mount Pelly, and climbed it. The view from up top was magnificent, out to the Arctic Ocean, and it was completely quiet. Just as if a giant hand had come down and stilled everything, even the things going around in my head. I find I'm not too worried about the future, I'm going to take it as it comes. I caught a fish, out at Grenier Lake, something I've never done, and it's now in the freezer. I apologized to it, when I got it up on land, which Miguel thought was funny.

Today Rachel and I went for a long walk, just ambling along, out to the river and then down the other side of the estuary, where everyone keeps their sled dogs. Ian and Miguel went back to Grenier Lake and caught a trout, which we ate for supper. This evening Miguel and I headed out past the DEW station so I could try driving the ATV. The road follows the coast, and as I was driving along with Miguel on the back, it occurred to me that if you'd told me a few months ago that before the end of the summer I'd be tearing along gravel roads above the Arctic Ocean on an ATV I'd not have believed it. It's good to be alive.