Posted on September 28, 2020 under Monday Morning Musings with no comments yet

 

Akulavik

 

Much ado about nothing.

I’m not sure what was more challenging this past week -returning to teach school after an extended Covid break or walking 42.2 kilometers last Saturday with two of my colleagues. One was mentally and physically demanding. Make that two. Teaching requires physical endurance but it’s mostly the mental part that can be draining. Walking a marathon is mostly physical but near the end of the walk, it is the mental part that carries you across the finish line.

I’m still of the opinion that if you are lucky enough to have good health at my age, that doing something meaningful, that pushes you a bit, is not the worst thing in the world.

I don’t like to dwell on the negative, but life can be very cruel. In recent weeks I know of a few situations that have been devastating to the individuals involved. There was loss of life and loss of love. It’s impossible to compare the two. There is no comparison between love lost and the loss of life. They both produce grief. The grieving process is painful. Sometimes it is extremely difficult to see the sunshine when the clouds are so dark.

“You can check-out any time you like,

But you can never leave.”

Hotel California – The Eagles

If all goes as planned, I will be moving into the Kangiqsujuaq Hotel tomorrow. “Len. You’ve been teaching all of three days and you already need a vacation?” Not exactly. My long- suffering readers will recall that I spent the month of August in my apartment complex while three of the apartments underwent a major facelift. None of the occupants were in their apartments at the time. My turn has arrived and it would be impossible for me to occupy my pad while they rip up all the floors, and also completely re-do my bathroom. I expect to be in the hotel for at least a week. It’s a nice spot. My only concern is that I will be sharing kitchen facilities, dining and living spaces with many other people including workers from the south. I will need to go into full Covid defense mode and wear a mask at all times with the exception of my hotel room. It is another minor inconvenience. The good news is that I will have a virtually new apartment when the work is completed.

Halloween should be quite a spectacle this year. The choice of masks should be pretty simple, wouldn’t you think?! I’m not sure what the village is planning but “trick or treating” across Canada will be very different this year.

We have already had a bit of snow which is hardly surprising. Puts a person in the Christmas spirit. Did I actually say that? I’m not sure what’s going to happen to Santa with the various quarantine restrictions still in place in some provinces. I have already mentally prepared myself for not making it back to Nova Scotia for the holiday season. If the current self-isolation rules are in effect in N.S. in December, it becomes a moot point. Many of my colleagues are talking about spending Christmas here in the village which could be a great experience. Things are not the best in Quebec right now with Covid so it’s impossible to tell what things will be like in a few months’ time.

There you go. Six hundred words with barely a coherent thought… my specialty!

Have a great week.

P.S. I can hardly wait to see the expression on our postmaster’s face when he sees a small deluge of mail coming to me. Don’t know what I’m talking about? Read last Thursday’s post: https://www.week45.com/thursday-tidbits-244/

 

 

Posted on September 21, 2020 under Monday Morning Musings with 3 comments

 

“One ringy dingy. Two ringy dingy.

Is this the party to whom I am speaking?”

Lily Tomlin as Ernestine on Laugh- In

This is a second installment of getting my bell rung. If you thought the previous episode was bizarre to the point of unbelievable, keep reading. Once again, I couldn’t make this up. Well, with my vivid imagination, I could probably take a stab at a fictional piece.

I will call this post “not saved by the bell.”

First of all, the quote at the top of the page. If you were born after 1973, you missed one of the truly great comedy shows on television. Laugh-In ran from 1969-1973 and Lily Tomlin, playing Ernestine, the telephone operator, was one of its biggest stars. I have spent a lot of time on the phone recently and many times I wished I could have been humored by Ernestine.

Who remembers the Gordian Knot? As I suspected, just about all of you, at some point in your illustrious careers have stumbled upon this term in a history class. The term “Gordian Knot”is commonly used to describe a complex or unsolvable problem. It can be traced back to a legendary chapter in the life of Alexander the Great… not to be mistaken with Alexander Keith. He was great too… and still is!

Sometimes there are problems that just can’t be solved. Paying a phone bill shouldn’t be one of them. If you didn’t read last Thursday’s Tidbits (shame on you) go there now to get the back story. https://www.week45.com/thursday-tidbits-243/. The Reader’s Digest version is that I had a landline phone installed in my apartment on August 13^th. The invoice came a few weeks ago. I tried to pay it. I was unsuccessful.

Last Friday, I called the service provider (rhymes with smell) to try and put this issue to rest. If I get into all of the technicalities, you will stop reading this post if you haven’t already. Louisa, my CSR, put me through my paces. A subsidiary of the Mother Ship services the north, but they get their marching orders and accounts information from Head Office. It has become apparent that Covid has played a role in making these transactions more complicated.

Louisa told me that It was imperative that I get my bill paid that day as the bill now included the prepayment for September meaning that I was now officially in arrears and faced having my account closed by the end of that business day. I cheerfully told my new friend that, indeed, I had been trying for weeks to do just that with no luck. Even after five weeks of service, she could not find an actual account number for us to use to pay the bill. Fear not. She hastily created a sort of “dummy account” (somehow appropriate for me) and we got on to the business of making a payment.

I had my Mastercard at the ready. “I am sorry. I cannot accept a credit card payment because I am working from home and we are not permitted to authorize these types of transactions.” Ditto for e-transfers. “You will have to get a money order today and call me back with the serial number on the money order to prove that the payment is in the mail.” No sweat. I told the secretary at the school that I had a short errand to run (it was a planning day for me so my absence wouldn’t result in the collapse of the educational system in Kangiqsujuaq).

Did I mention that my internet connection was abysmal that morning and that there was no internet connection at the school… on the first day back for some of our students? More on that later.

The post office is located in one of the two grocery stores in the village. It is conveniently located a mere 10- minute walk from the school. I sauntered down, into a very chilly breeze. In my hand, was an envelope, addressed and ready to go to my service provider. “I need a money order for $196.20 and a stamp.” “We don’t have any money orders left and we are out of stamps.” “Ah. Some Friday humor”, I was thinking to myself, but the stern clerk wasn’t joking, or smiling. The post office indeed was moneyorderless and stampless. I don’t give a shit if these aren’t real words. They are now. “You can try the other grocery store,” was his suggestion.

I was now walking into a cold wind, uphill, to the far end of town still shaking my head at the idea of a post office with no stamps. The other food chain in town didn’t handle money orders. I headed for home to place a call to Louisa. Before I got home, I stopped into the school briefly and was approached by one of the technicians who asked to borrow my modem to assist the school in getting the internet back up and running. The Good Samaritan that I am didn’t think twice. Of course, this meant that now I didn’t have an internet connection at home. Remember that I had tried unsuccessfully last week to pay the bill online because they couldn’t find my account number.

I momentarily thought about scanning and e-mailing an old- fashioned cheque just as a sign of intent and goodwill, but with no internet, that wasn’t an option.

I got back on the phone waiting to break the unpleasant news to Louisa that I did not have the serial number from the money order. Louisa works in a call centre. I refused to talk to anyone else but her as I had spent an inordinate amount of time explaining the whole fiasco to her earlier in the morning. I did, however, have the distinct pleasure of speaking with Monica, Zeke and James (not their real names) who assured me that they could help me untie the Gordian Knot. No disrespect but I don’t think any of them could have untied my shoelaces. James, the last of my helpers sounded like he might be the same age as one of my grade 5 students.

I never did get to speak with Louisa as they are not permitted to transfer calls inside the call center. Mentally exhausted, I gave up.

My next call will be to someone in the Public Relations Department of the service provider. And then it might be on to the lovely folks at CBC’s Market Place.

Of course, if my internet connection is bad and my landline is cancelled for failure to pay my bill, I may have to resort to stepping out on the tundra and start howling at the top of my lungs… just like the sled dogs at feeding time!

Stay tuned for the next gripping (griping) episode of “For Whom the Bell Tolls”.

Have a great week.

 

Posted on September 14, 2020 under Monday Morning Musings with no comments yet

 

Caribou meat in the community freezer

 

Do you know where your food comes from?

Some of you were raised on farms and know exactly how things get from the land to the shelves of the grocery store. Many of you are avid gardeners and grow beautiful crops right in your own back yards. My guess is that most of us in this part of the world scarcely give this a thought about where our food comes from as we wander aimlessly up and down the aisles (in the right Covid established direction!) of one of the large grocery chain stores.

The notion of food security seems to be a hot topic these days but let’s face it, in many parts of the world, having access to nutritious and affordable food is not a given. Truth be told, this is a serious issue in our own country and even in our own back yards if we care to look closely enough.

So, what is food security? I checked that unimpeachable source, Wikipedia and found this definition: “Food security is a measure of the availability of food and individual’s ability to access it. Affordability is only one factor.”

I don’t mean to be cheeky (yes I do) but for me food security is a piece of coconut cream pie, or a half dozen, fresh out of the oven, chocolate chip cookies and a tall glass of chilled milk. And speaking of pie, today’s existential question is this: Are there the same number of calories in a piece of day-old pie compared to a fresh piece? I don’t wish to make light of such a serious subject, but I’m always prepared to share my weaknesses, which is painfully obvious to my regular readers.

There’s also a lot of talk about sustainability these days. According to one source (US EPA), “Sustainability is based on a simple principle: Everything we need for our survival and well-being depends, either directly or indirectly, on our natural environment. To pursue sustainability, is to create and maintain the conditions under which humans and nature can exist in productive harmony to support present and future generations.”

A few days ago, I was walking through the village. A truck pulled up. I knew the driver and he knew me well enough not to offer me a drive. A few of the local people have started calling me “the walker”. This is the same man who graciously gave me caribou meat on a few occasions. I thanked him profusely for his most recent offering. One thing led to another and the next thing I knew, I was standing inside the community freezer.

Since the day I arrived here almost a year ago, I have been intrigued with the community freezer. It is situated close to the tundra and to Wakem Bay, just a handful of paces from my front door. I knew that it was a storage facility for food from the land and sea. Some of you might shudder at the picture at the bottom of this page. This is the place that arctic char, caribou, beluga, snow geese and other species are taken and processed. You can see the hides of caribou which will be used to make things and for warm bedding. Nothing is wasted. The hunters are paid for their efforts and then all of this food becomes public domain, stored in freezers in this same building. Yes. Anyone in the village referred to as a “beneficiary” can come to the freezer at any time and take what they need. The door is never locked. I repeat, they take what they need and not what they want.

Teachers from the south are not beneficiaries yet last spring when the pandemic began, the mayor of the village offered access to food from the freezer to us.

The Inuit have been practicing sustainability and food security for centuries, long before these words became hashtags.

Those of us from the south have much to learn from our indigenous people.

“Maybe I’ll be there to shake your hand,

Maybe I’ll be there to share the land.”

Share the Land. The Guess Who

Have a great week.