Tsiigehtchic (SAy-ga-chicK)
Hello everyone,
Well we really haven't discussed our new home much, so I figured I'd start now. The town has a population of about 175 people and 45 houses. The Native inhabitants are predominately Gwichya Gwich'in Indians, which appears to be a offshoot of the Dene Indians. It is found at the mouth of the Arctic Red River where it joins the Mackenzie river system in the Mackenzie Delta river system.
The town has a school for grades K-9 and 25 students with four teachers. Three teachers from the south, Dan, who is the principal deals with grades 7-9 and arrives to us from a teaching stint in Kuwait. Cindy teaches grades 3-6 and is originally from southern Ontario but recently has been teaching throughout northern Ontario. Annette, is Dans wife and is one of Christopher's teachers and also teaches grades one and two. Renie is our final teacher and a local resident, from what I understand she teaches throughout the school specializing in teaching the Gwich'in language. The school is fairly new and contains three classrooms. It is also connected to the towns gym where the students have their exercise time. The gym is now managed by someone I don't know, she joined us from Moscow and only arrived Thursday, I don't know wheter she is shy or if the language barrier is still holding her back but I've only met her briefly at this point.
We also have a campus of the Aurora college, which is essentially a adult education center, claases vary from month to month, and has included things such as driving licsences, CPR, QED, apprenticship programs are routed through the college as well and Shiela runs this facility until March when she returns to New Brunswick.
We also have a new daycare (for now) that just started in the beginning of december, it can handle 6 children and get this, it only costs $100.00 a MONTH. The drawback to this new venture is that the kids have to get picked up and dropped off for lunch. I think right now that is the idea thats bothering people as last month she was fully booked and this month half of her days none of the kids have shown up.
Other than that we have the usual assortment of government offices, a radio station (located across the hall from our apartment and left unlocked 24/7....) with a announcer monday to friday 9:00-4:30 and the rest of the time they run a direct CBC feed.
We also have a firestation (/garage, as this is where everyone fixes thier snow machine's) and a nursing station. Once a week a nurse comes down from Inuvik to see everyone and deal with any new problems, once a month a doctor will visit and every 4 months a dentist will come to town.
Welcome to our town, everyone is friendly, the town has no police presence and from what we see it doesn't need one. When someone is acting up they are quickly "rerouted" by family or friends.
Towmorrow I'll be driving around town getting some photo's for the blog.
Take Care
CG
2 comments:
Looking forward to pictures!
I think you might be directly north of me? I/m at: N41 49.513'
and W 88 4.949'
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