Monday, November 19, 2007

These are a few of my favorite things....

Kugluktuk has many talented craftsmen and women. We enjoy seeing new and creative items being sold around town. Many of you have asked to see pictures of items we have purchased since living here. So here is part of our collection!

My stone-faced doll! She stands about about 14" high. Her coat is made out of hikhik, rabbit and bits of wolverine. Her kamiks are made out of seal. You can pull her hood back and her hair is even carved in:
Our huge whale bone carving:
Close up of the front of the whale bone carving:

Back of the whale bone carving:

My Ravens (the one on the right is on a garbage can!):

One of Matts favorites- "Bear with Harpoon":

Another one of Matts favorites "Itchy Back": I took the antlers from the first caribou that I shot and had a local carver make a stone head for them and he also engraved many designs in the antlers:
"Seal Hunter in Kayak":

Drum Dancer:


This one is from a carver in Cambridge Bay. It is a hunter holding a goose:

This one is beautiful. It is a family in their iglu. The dogs is even there, and behind is a child sleeping. Half of the money we spent on this carving was donated by the carver to the kids cancer ward in Edmonton.


The caribou on top of the inukshuk here is done out of antler:


Another drum dancer:



A couple more of our iglus. There is so much detail and I am just not good enough with my camera to capture it all. The lids fit on each of these perfectly!
Our favorite drum dancer. It is carved from one piece of stone and has a lot of detail:
Hunter with Harpoon:

Ice Fishing on Arctic Char:

Another little fisherman:

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ah, you always evoke such memories for me....

We have that Kayak/Hunter/Seals carving too - identical.

I'm too lazy to comment on the other post, with Hunter's new outfits so I'm doing it here. They're very cute. You should have a parka made for him in that camo material.

Rob, Tina and the boys said...

I wish we were able to get carvings around here but we're not, unless I want to go to Yellowknife and pay stupid-crazy marked up "tourist" prices. I'll wait until we move and hopefully will have better luck. I really want a ring.

jen said...

Nice carvings! I wish we had igloo makers over this way! My favourite is the bear scratching his back. Too funny!

Anonymous said...

Hi! Just discovered your blog - love reading about life up north. I have two questions for you - how did you end up living there? And secondly, what's the proper way to dress for the coldest of winter? We usually get away with jacket, mitts, hat, but I'm curious as to the proper way to dress for the really brutal weather.

Matt, Kara, Hunter and Cavan said...

Hi Anonymous!

My husband is an RN and I am an adult educator. There were jobs for both of us here and I had wanted to experience life in the arctic since I was young.

Dressing for the extreme cold is interesting! If you are just walking to work and back (under 1km each way from my house) I usually just get away with my Canada Goose Parka, Sorel boots, mittens and a scarf. However, by the time I get there my legs are pretty cold! If we are going skidooing for the day there are a lot more layers! I will have on warm pants with good quality snow pants(bibbed ones), wool socks in my sorels, light gloves under my power mittens, a heli-hanson face mask, rabbit fur hat with cheek flaps, scarf, goggles and then the canada goose jacket over top of it all. The worst is having to pee 5 mintues after you get dressed up!!

Anonymous said...

Wow, no kidding! That's more winter clothing than I own...lol

Well, thanks for a great blog. :)