Yesterday, I woke up to see it was snowing, which isn't even normal for Repulse at this time of year. Apparently this summer has been colder than usual, which makes it very difficult to motivate myself to go out hence I am here writing on this blog instead of exploring.
On Friday, we saw our fellow classmates, Eryn and Nicole in Sanikiluaq through Telehealth (videoconference) and got to talk to them for a bit before getting cut off. It was nice to see some familiar faces.
In the afternoon, I attended a funeral. It was very moving watching the community come together in prayer and song. Since the ground is permafrost, the coffin was above ground and buried in rocks. Everyone put a rock on top of the coffin and then the men finished up by burying it with the big ones.
In the evening, I got a chance to go on a dog cart, similar to a dog sled except we ride on the frame of an old ATV instead of a sled and the dogs run along the road since there's not enough snow for sledding right now. I'd show you pictures, but the internet has gone wack for the past few days, so I'll leave it to your imagination.
Afterwards, Bill, the gym teacher who took me out on his dog cart, invited us over for dinner.
For dinner, I tried Arctic Char for the first time, which was delicious. It was also amazing to have ice cream after having no dessert since we first got here. He even put blueberries on top of the vanilla ice cream, which I thought was quite brilliant. It was interesting to get his perspective on life in the Arctic. I think I'm better getting to appreciate that it's really like being in a different world here because the people in Repulse are quite isolated from the rest of Canada even with TV and the internet. It's not that uncommon for people to get homesick after being away for even just a day, especially when they go to places like Winnipeg that are so different from home. I really appreciated Bill's hospitality, going so far as to lend me his wife's rubber boots and his copy of Invictus. He made us feel right at home.
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Will it get old if I keep saying awww? Anyways, I keep hearing how drastically different living up north is (12dollar green peppers in spring), but i know I don't get it. Now you're living it a bit...
ReplyDeletelol, no it will not get old. Apparently it cost bill $2000 just to ship up 2 bags of dog food that cost $26, it's a bit crazy. A lot of people here buy from Safeway online and get it shipped from Thompson, which is cheaper than buying from either of the 2 stores in Repulse. They say that it costs the same as a Safeway in Winnipeg would plus shipping.
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