Northern Sights

Tuesday, May 09, 2006

Hamlet Days

Hello Everyone,
We're in the middle of Hamlet Days here. Here are some photo's of todays events. I'm too tired today o explain the games but I will by week end. This sunshine is too much for me, it doesn't get dark till after midnight and today I wok up around 4:00 am and it was already light out. everyone else is doing well with the light but its reducing my sleep daily.
Ammendum May 15- Hamelet Days is a week long event consiting of daily games and events for the town to celebrate the arrival of spring. This year the events and prizes have been doubled since the easter games had to be cancelled due to the illness that was going around town at that time. Some of the events have been traditional dress contest, parade, best float (ski-doo and kamatik), as well as all sorts of outdoor events. These photo's were from Tuesdays events, there was a marathon for the young people where they ran about 18 miles across the snow and ice covered lake. while they were running there were events going on back at the starting line. A couple of the pictures show the eginning of the 55 gallon barrel race. In this event, you put a empty barrel on your kamatik and drive it as fast as you can through the course, if the barrel falls off you have to run back and put it back on your sled then return to racing, the first one accross with thier barrell wins.
Another event pictured is the non-motorized version, same thing except you put a empty 5 gallon jerry can on a caribou skin and run to the finish as fast as you can while keeping the can on the skin.
The other picture is the begining of the marathon, about a mile into the event, as you can see not everyone was capable of running the event who entered it, as several are already walking. About 20 people ran the whole event.
The final picture is of a Elder who ran the last game we are going to talk about. About a 100 people stand in a circle. Several dice were passed around the circle and when they go to you you tried to roll a 2, If you rolled a two you ran to the center of the circle and pulled a piece of clothing out of a bag, this continues till all the clothes are gone (there may be another step here, but I missed it), next everyone continue's rolling in hopes of getting a 4, when you get a four you run to the middle of the ring and try a traditional game. You have to get a piece of whale bone onto a piece of whale rib, the first person to do it three times wins. I know I described it poorly, but its difficult to descibe, I'm attaching photo's to hopefully provide a better idea.
Take Care
CG