Saturday, September 17, 2005

on the land with Kam




Two full weeks of classes and I'm still here! I'm finding it occupies most of my evening time preparing lessons. The classes are still challenging but I'm finding that if I have lots of stuff prepared it's a lot easier to keep the kids on task. (I know, I know, just good teaching strategy everywhere.) I got the rest of my stuff on Wednesday last. Everything is now here but the TV arrived in many pieces and I'll have to see if I can make a claim to get a new one. On Friday the school and the community put on a Terry Fox run. The weather was cool, but as someone on staff said, we got out early and no blood was shed, so it was a success!
Today my friend Paul Mooney and I went with the only teacher on staff who is a native Inuit 'on the land' as they say here. We went by boat up Soper Lake stopping several times for Kam to scan the shores for caribou. Then we got out and hiked for about two hours while Paul and I took pictures and Kam hunted for caribou. We didn't see any caribou but did see some marvellous country as you can see in a couple of pics. Then we went to Soper Falls to fish for char. Kam caught five before losing his favourite lure, Paul caught one on one of my lures, and I didn't get anything! Kam did give me a fish though and I had a feast of char for supper. (Seems to me I read of the Queen having char when in the north!) We stopped another time for caribou on the way home and saw some geese. Kam managed to shoot one out of the air with a rifle! All in all it was a great day and now I'm tired so I'll post this note and go to bed. Cheers!