Reflections of Spring

I got these photo's Wednesday night as we had a storm coming in. They were taken at Midnight and thats a pretty cool moonrise.


With shades of Iwo Jima the town has started cleaning up after a long winter. Across the Bay on a small island there is some sort of memorial or cairn tat had a large piece of wood marking the center of the memorial. This log was blown over and in this photo some local men are setting it right again.

Cold feet anyone, The Ravens have left town and the seagulls have returned.
Just before the thaw, most of the dogs in town were taken to the land for the summer, This team was one of the last I saw leave. They will live on the land for the summer when they aren't needed and will be brought back to town after freeze up in the winter.
The nets ave started to appear in the bay as local people are anxious for the sea's bounty

Hello Everyone,
Spring as sprung and summer seems to ave reared its ugly little head in these parts. The town has finished cleanup, the boats are all readied and heading to the water this week to all outward appearances and it seems everyone is spending their time out in the camps. Soon the daycare will be shutting down for the summer and Christopher and Mom will get to spend some time together before the beginning of Christopher first school year. Time flies when your having fun.
We ave finally confirmed vacation (again), this time there will be no changes, I've made it clear that this is final and plans are made. So, We'll be coming south in the second week of September
Hopefully everyone in the south is keeping cool, and life remains enjoyable.
Take Care
CG

Puvirnituq

Christopher enjoying the slide at the school.
The Puvirnituq Hospital
The Puvirnituq school (Grades 1-12),the statue in front of the school is carved from a single piece of stone and is about 8 feet tall. More on that later.
A picture of the back of the statue, we'll wait for photo's of the front until it rains due to the high bird fecal matter content of the front of the carving.
Christopher helping someone get unstuck from the sand.
A painting infront of one of the local house's (Maybe house 258)
The Northern store,or at least the front half.
The Hotel Novalinga (a local family name). It is one of the 2 hotels in town, About $180 a night. The other hotel is run by the Co-op and is a much more modern facility and I believe runs at about $400.00 a night per person, and be warned if your staying alone in a room the Co-op reserves the right to put someone else in there with you, but that doesn't change the cost.
A "traditional" style Kayak

Hello everyone,
Another set of photo's and maybe only one more left. Yesterday the temps hit a amazing 36 degree's C. Well,actually it hit 16 but it felt like a amazing 36. Everyone was out, working on boats and docks getting ready to start the upcoming fishing season. Last night we had a little trouble sleeping as the local children (ages 6-11 approx) continued to play outside our window until about 3:00 am, and since it was so hot out we needed to sleep with the window open.
I find it amazing looking around the Northern blogging world how quickly the teachers remove themselves from their adoptive home's. It seems sad tome that all these people never get to see their communities celebrate some of the most important times of the year. The summers here are so different that they should be experienced to get the full Northern experience. Also one of the most joyous times of the year up here is usually the Christmas break, when the games are in full swing and the "March Break" when most communities usually celebrate their town pride. It seems unfair to live through most of the daily drudgery but miss the celebrations.


I guess that's it for this entry,
Talk to you soon.
Take Care
CG

Man,three more times and I'll have my Photo'supdated

As you can see the thaw has started, since Thursday the bay has emptied every day of ice then fills again through the night. Since we've come North we've encountered the local children on the roof's of everything they could find. Since the weather has improved it seems they spend more time on roof's than they do on the ground, it occurred tome today, what else are children going to climb,there are no tree's.
View of the town from the northern sideof town.
Lots of boats are being readied for when the ice clears the channel to the bay.
A camp just out of town, Its a nice place to go when the hustle and bustle of town life gets too much for you.
The town cemetary.
A couple of ducks,I believe they may be Eider Ducks,but I don't know... A couple of ducks.
The money shot for a different duck.
Christopher playing on the beach today.
Melissa liked this photo,the reflections appealed to her, myself,I'm just dissapointed I didn't get focus right.
Our neighbour coming home from camp.

Hello Everyone,
Most of these photo's are from today's walk.and various views of the town with our recent improvement in weather.
On a sad note a three year old child drowned yesterday afternoon in the newly thawed bay, Its a very sad time for the community.
Take Care
CG

Hey, I got on !!!!

We found this piece of equipment just out of town. The question is, what is it, please tell me its not a harvester or combine of some sort. Us city folk are having trouble figuring out what it is, but we would be really concerned if it was a combine of some sort.
Just out of town, it looks like this piece of equipment went to die, Guess what this piece of equipment used to do and you could move onto final Jeopardy where the value of the questions double.
One of the favorite foods available at this time of year, at least goose is the common food, but snow goose is perferred.
Ok, these photo's came in in reverse order. This is the last photo in the series of one of the local hobo's caching a fish he caught. Here, he nose's the soil back over his fish.
Here, she is digging the hole where she will hide the fish. she didin't say exactly why she was interested in hiding the fish.
The choice of the perfect hiding hole for fish is vitally important, apparently,like everything else our frontlawn is the perfered location.
This is a example of some Mini-ATV's we sold, $1,000 dollars and you too can look like a circus clown racing around town


Hello Everyone,
I was able to get online for a couple of hours this afternoon so I just threw up some photo's. Hopefully after we return from a walk I will still be able to get on-line and post some more. We've been off-line for so long I have of pictures of all the recent thawing and some photo's of the land we'd like to share.
Take Care
CG

Closed due to technicial problems

Hello everyone,
We are having lots of Internet problems, that are stopping me from being online with any consistency
Thank-you
CG

A week in the wind

One week ago photograph of my front yard, June 3rd
June 9th, same shot.
The bay has shown allot of changes in the past week, the light green color is the standing water at the shoreline.

Hello Everyone,
We've had a very windy week, with a couple of days of rain. the difference around town is remarkable. Its now almost time for the spring town clean up, with all the melted snow, seven months of neglect has reared its ugly head and now we all have to pitch in and reverse the state of the town.
We've found out of another big seagull tour coming in for next week. The President of our company and the presidents of several of our suppliers (Proctor Gamble, Imperial tobacco, Dufrense furniture and Frito Lays) are coming in to visit out store, so as usual we have focused on silly little things rather than preparing for the upcoming Sea lift as we normally would have. Which will leave us in a bit of a rush cleaning up and preparing for our July 12th sea lift. Such is life.
Check out this forecast~!!!!!

	Wednesday A mix of sun and cloud. Low 8. High 21.
	Thursday A mix of sun and cloud with 30 percent chance of showers. Low 11. High 20. Normals for the period..low zero. High 9.

And the Sunrise and sunset times...

June 11, 2007	Rise	Set
Actual Time	3:46 AM EDT	10:31 PM EDT
Civil Twilight	2:08 AM EDT	12:11 AM EDT

I hope it actually happens, but I doubt we'll ever see anything like 21, but time will tell.

Take Care
CG
PS. Happy 40th Birthday to my Darling wife.

Charter of Rights and Freedoms

Hello everyone,
I'm sorry to force this problem upon my readers however I didn't bring my copy of the Charter of rights and freedoms with me to the Great White North. I'm sure that somewhere in there (near the back I think), It outlines that all Canadians are entitled to have a BBQ on their days off during June through September. You may have to tolerate rain and wind (I think that part is in small print) but you can have a BBQ during these periods.

This brings me to my new problem, I am having a BBQ.... kinda. I have a BBQ, I have food, I have a full tank of fuel, and I have a 60 mph wind that keeps blowing all my heat away. I didn't think this was possible but I can't get the temp above 200 in the BBQ with the lid closed and everything. The BBQ has been running for a hour and we stand at a firm 200 degree's, My chicken has started to brown (optimistically) or maybe rot... I'm not sure. Before anyone suggests I move the BBQ to a area out of the wind, I would like to add this is a area "out of the wind".
So could someone please look this up and see if I get some sort of tax rebate for this problem?
Thanks a million
Take Care,
CG
P.S. Even better would be if I could sue Environment Canada... Can someone check for liability in this regard?

Sunday Musings

Hello everyone,
We are now into June for those of you whom have lost their calenders or minds. Yesterday I had my first BBQ of the year and the temp is a warm +2 degree's, so its off with the jackets and onto the deck. It seems from the phone calls on my birthday that everyone in the south is suffering through extreme temps but the winner is my brother camping in BC who reported a +37, better him than us. The activity in town has become more focused on going to the land than we've previously seen in Quebec, I guess everyone is counting off the last days of their Ski-doo travels before the ice melts away. Once the ice melts away the travelling is considerably slower by ATV than just scooting across the ice. However as I understand it this is a big fishing community so I'm sure they are looking forward to the break-up in some ways. Since we live on the edge of the bay and ice field it holds we have collected 6 ski-doo's that the owners don't want to drag across all the roads back to their homes every day. Its amazing how small things change this time of year, the last couple of days I've been at the airport doing freight at the end of the day and it surprising, there's a dozen guys working feverishly to go home from unloading the plane until you hear geese honk, then everything stops and eye's go to the skies, the guys in the plane stick their heads out, the people in the airport come out onto the deck, everyone want to know whats direction they are heading for the night. I'm sure that in more than a couple of cases what they see also affects if they will be able to make it into work the next day.
We've swapped managers in this location, the previous going off to Salluit and the new one coming in from Fort Chipewayan in Alberta. There has also been overtones that our time in this community may also be limited. But only time will tell with this company, don't bet on anything until your on the plane, but my district manager seemed anxious to get us on a vacation, sooo... who knows.
Since early January we've been speaking with a new friend from Nova Scotia who was thinking of joining the Northern, and as far as I know he and his family (Rob, Tina, Colby and Joey) have arrived in Fort Rae NWT on Friday. So, if they're experience is anything like ours right now they are looking out their front window and realizing they are not in Kansas anymore. Good luck and have fun. We look forward to hearing about your experiences.
Thats it for today,
Take Care
CG