Fun around town

Well the Canadian Military is in town! About 100 men and women are up here doing some Arctic training. I believe they are all stationed in Edmonton. We did learn that a lot of them just returned from Afganistan about a month ago. These poor folks, they went from +50 to -50!! They have been working with the Rangers, sharing information back and forth. Good learning for both groups I would say! They put on a really nice evening for the community. They fed everyone and put out a lot of gear for everyone to check out. My husband fell in love with the packs that the medics carry around. The whole crew of them were very friendly and we enjoyed talking with them.


Here are all of the skidoos that they brought into town for the occasion. In the background is our complex where they are staying when they aren't on the land.




We watched these guys work their butts off trying to start the skidoo. From out the back door of the college, my students and I watched laughing a lot! This one poor guy must have pulled about 50 times trying to get his skidoo started. Then another guy came over and with one pull got it going. It was a lot of fun as well watching them all pile onto a kamotik. I have been trying to get a good picture of that, but no luck.
This group here was at the community night. We chatted with them and they seemed pretty interested in how we live up here. Surprisingly, none of them wanted to move here for good!




In other news! I got ahold of some funding at the college to have some great elders come in and teach my class and I how to make caribou kamiks. It was a wonderful five weeks and I learned a lot. The elders showed us how to scrape the skins, cut them, sew them and yep, even chew them once in a while! I loved the whole experience.

Here are three finished pairs of kamiks. The elders laughed at me a lot. I have really fat calves so we kept having to add strips to make them big enough. I think everyone had a great time with this project!