Fifteenth Blog

Boat launch area known as the Saw Mil

It feels like it has been ages since I had posted anything, I have simply been waiting for something extra ordinary to happen before adding another post. But I have come to realize that there aren't  going to be that many exciting events in my life any time soon, so I better not use this excuse any more!

Slab of ice on the river bank

Can you spot the Ptarmigans?

Our first school term was over by the end of January and I am pleased to say there were more successful students than I had expected. Always a nice bonus. The second term started with more enthusiasm due to result of the first term and I am hoping it will continue for the remainder of the year. Last weekend We went on a bumpy Winter Road Trip to Thompson, Manitoba using the school bus. The trip was 200km North West (the roughest ride you can ever imagine) to Gillam, and another 270km South West on a permanent gravel road to Thompson. We went there chaperoning some of our high school students attending an Aboriginal Youth Festival/Conference. It took us 6.5 hrs to finish the first 200km and another 4 hours to do the remaining 270 km. It was a fun weekend, hanging out with students attending different workshops during the day and at night sleeping in sleeping bags on a cold tiled classroom floor! Thompson is a city of about 15000 people but devoid of any character. It is simply made up of houses and big box stores acting as a hub for all the communities of the north. I dont think I'll ever want to go there again. The trip back was pretty cold as we had filled half of the bus with groceries which in turn blocked the heated air from getting to us, or so we were told.

The ever curious Fox

Although it has been a relatively warm winter, we are experiencing a few very cold days. Yesterday morning was -31 with a windchill effect of mid minus forties. It was very similar this morning for our weekend adventure. But the upside of it was that we saw two large wolves! One was orange brown and the other almost black.  Its funny how I always mention how large these magnificent animals are, but this time they were simply the largest ones yet! The orange wolf disappeared immediately in the woods to our left, while the black one ran ahead of us on the road, stopping once in a while to see what we were. There were finally some caribou tracks which explains the presence of the wolves. I tried to take a photo but every time we got out of the truck it would start running again. Unfortunately no photo to show for, but two happy witness to back me up this time! However I did take a few shots of wolf tracks both in shallow and deep snow.

My prints next to wolf's

Wolves' tracks in deep snow.

I am happy to say that I have been able to run quite regularly these days. There is 2.5 hours of daylight after work and I couldn't be happier using it for running 3-4 times a week.

Cheers!

Fourteenth Blog

Houses in the community

Well, its been more than a week since I have been back from the winter break and it was nice to see that the cold hasn't negatively affected anything and everything was in working condition. I remember last year having a terrible time due to frozen pipes after returning from the spring break. I was however disappointed to find out that the winter roads were not quite operational yet due to warmer weather. We have had some very cold days with temperatures dropping to -35 degrees, of course much colder considering the windchill effect.

Band office with the airport in the background

Town's Fire hall next to the mechanic shop

last weekend I went for a couple of rides on snowmobile with a local friend. Its a fun but extremely cold way of getting around and seeing places that otherwise would be impossible to see. I still have a frostbite from that ride on my right ear. He was driving so fast that I couldn't let go of the handles in order to adjust my hat. All it took was 10 minutes of fast ride to sport a nasty frostbite for more than a week. The reason for him driving so fast was that early on our ride we came across two adult moose. And moose being such a highly prized game, we decided to head back to town to get a rifle and let other hunters know about them. We did that alright but no one has seen them since. People still search the area hoping to see them. I felt pretty good having finally seen another majestic creature I have been hoping to see ever since coming up here.




Lately my solo outings have been limited to shorter walks and three runs a week after work. The reason for shorter and closer to town outings is the unusual number of wolf sightings. The other day I had a local friend stop by to show me a patch of hair and asking me what it was. I guessed a caribou hide he had shot. He replied it was his dog's tail, eaten by the wolves right outside his house. Most days while running I get trucks stop to tell me be extra careful and to watch out for wolves. I am sure they are right to be vigilant as there are kids and elderly walking about. But I cant help to think about the two books I've read over the summer about researchers spending time with wild wolves in the north and documenting their behavior. I tend to take comfort in knowing that they almost never attack people, but cant help being a bit more nervous every time I head out. On my run today I came across huge wolf tracks right at the beginning of the winter road. they were the largest tracks I have seen yet! I'll make sure to take some photos tomorrow and post them on my next blog.

Site of a plane crash, October 2005, just 500m from the runway

Memorial monument at the site of the crash

Unfortunately my problems with the four-legged creatures wasn't limited to wolves only, I had an altercation with a pack of dogs as well. Last Wednesday night I was walking home from the gym after a game of soccer when I was attacked by a pack of 7 or 8 strange dogs. At first I was so bewildered and confused that I didn't know what to make of it. I thought they were local dogs coming to greet me, as I have never been attacked by dogs. But soon I realized the sharp pain on my left leg was not something to take lightly and started to swing my back pack around. They encircled me and managed to bit me a couple of times before I managed to scramble to school's front steps and hide behind the guard rails. Luckily enough I was wearing my heavy winter pants, which is almost an inch thick, and escaped with only a couple of red spots on my left calf. Two days later I heard a student was attacked by another pack of dogs, so the band office decided to shoot some stray dogs yesterday. I heard some shots but cant tell how many dogs they have killed. I might find that out if I include the dump in my route tomorrow morning.

View from across the frozen river

Thirteenth Blog

Sunrise outside my unit

I have been thinking about writing a blog about many problems residents of Shamattawa First Nations community face ever since the unfolding of events at Attawapiskat First Nations.

Just like most Canadians who have never experienced life in the reserves I was under the impression that the government of Canada took good care of the first nation communities and that the core of the problems laid with mismanagement on parts of the local chiefs and counsels. I must say that even after living here for more than a year I was still under the same false impression that members of the community receive hefty allowances to live a pretty comfortable life. But after a couple of days of research I was shocked to find out how short changed the locals really are, and still cant believe the amount of money they have to survive on in this harsh environment.

A storage in the community, 3:45pm

I talked to some of my local friends and asked them about average income and cost of living in this community. What I have found is astonishing. I am pretty sure many of you, my non-First Nation friends, will feel the same after reading this blog.

Here are some of the facts I manged to gather. I must say that some of the numbers might not be exact since I decided to be very conservative and take the minimum for costs and expenses and maximum numbers for income and government subsidies.


Social Assistance (Welfare cheque):
   
   $371 per adult per month

   $646 per child over the age of 6 per month

   $663 per child under the age of 6 per month

I was told those who are disabled receive a slightly higher rate which I am sure can not be higher by a few percents of the above sum.

Basic Expenses

$100 per month, house maintenance fee

$100 minimum per month, hydro bill (could be much more depending on the number of appliances)

$60 per month, for a land phone line with a Canada wide long distance plan

$80-$120 per month, for satellite TV (if they chose to subscribe)

$1000 per month, for fuel for heating ( Many in the community simply cant afford this fee and cut woods to keep warm!)

I would like to remind you that it gets pretty cold up here with typical low of about -30 for many winter nights. The houses that I have visited are poorly insulated or not insulated at all which can increase the amount of wood needed to keep the place warm. Not to forget the health hazards associated with burning woods in an indoor environment with almost non-existing ventilation.

Class Party

Running Water
There are houses without running water up here as well. Houses that not only don’t have running water but not toilets either so these people have to either head out in the freezing cold or have to use buckets!

Poor Quality of Tap Water
The other major issue is the poor quality of running water in this community. I have been here for more than a year and still can not bring myself to drinking the water. I take water from a spring which is about 3-4km away from the reserve on a pretty rough dirt road which is often inaccessible due to either mud or snow. There is however the option of buying water but that could cost you a lot of money up here. To refill a 20L container we have to pay $9. If you didn’t have a container, it could cost from $17-$20. Bottles of water can cost up to $3 per half a litre.

Class Party

Overcrowded Housing
Due to whatever reason, I wont speculate the supposedly financial rewards of having many children, houses are extremely overcrowded. It is quite normal to have families of more than 8 living in a house with two or three bedrooms.

Cost of Food
In my mind one of the biggest problems many northern communities face is the lack of quality and affordable food. Most reserves have a single blood-sucking food chain that charges an arm and a leg for basic food items at the lowest possible quality. A four-litre jug of milk costs $13.29 with expiry date of no more than 7-8 days. A loaf of cheap white bread costs about $5. There are a few items in the produce department but are too expensive for most locals to afford. Price is only half of the problem. The more sinister issue is the poor quality of the items available up here. There are shelves after shelves of ready made hot dogs and hamburgers, rows upon rows of pops, chips, candies, yet you would have a hard time finding juice and fruits. It is cheaper to buy pop than buying water which forces many to drink pop instead of water. I cant count how many times I have seen kids come to school in the morning having chips and pops as their take away breakfast. As a result more than half of the kids are missing numerous teeth, and unfortunately more chronic health problems are sure to follow.

A family can spend all the monthly money they receive from the government on food that may sustain them for one week only! It is no wonder that there is always a long line up at the town’s nursing station. Which brings me to my next point.

Cost of Health Care
Its true that the health care is free, but there is nowhere near the level of care people receive in other parts of the country. If it did, this place wouldn’t have one of the highest rate of TB in the world. I can understand its hard to bring in resident doctors up here but wouldn’t it be possible to have better incentives to have doctors up here. I can see them being successful with bringing in nurses with good enough incentives and am sure it would work if they used the same level of relative incentives with doctors. I can assure you that the cost of medical evacuation (medi-vac) at $10000 per flight would handsomely pay for a rotating resident doctor. I don’t know the exact number of medi-vacs per month but it is more than 25, as I often hear planes at odd times and most of those are for medi-vacs.

Class party

Government’s Claims
Every time there is a crisis, you hear the officials speaking of the enormous amount of money allocated to these communities. I would like to argue that very little of that money actually goes to the locals. If it is for health care, it is going to drug companies and airlines taking care of the problems that would have been easier to prevent. It would make much more sense to improve the quality of life than using urgent treatment of problems that keep coming back.

If money is allocated for infrastructure, it always goes to outside firms with little oversight to the quality of their work. If things break the locals are always the first to blame. It is much easier this way, since there was no real government inspection of these projects. 

The government might as well hand the money to the outside firms, since most of it goes directly to them any ways. I have just learned that the grocery chain charges locals a fee for cashing their social service cheque in order for them to spend it at that very same grocery store!


I feel like I can go on and on and on, but I am sure you are aware of many of the issues I have mentioned above. I do however want you to crunch these numbers I have mentioned and see whether it was possible to survive on the allocated money. To me it is heart breaking to see the true owners of this country suffer so much in a country so well developed and so rich in natural resources which belonged to them in the first place!

In memory of my best friend in the north

December 7th. will always be noted as a sad day for me as I lost my best friend in Shamattawa, the black dog. It made it even harder to accept since we were together merely 15 minutes before he was hit and killed by the school bus.

The long outings on the weekends and short walk after work were becoming much more fun with him around. Unlike other dogs he had this understanding of the surroundings. He knew when to lead and when to follow. When we were out in the woods, he was the only dog that would stay close. By doing so he would not scare off the pray, while at the same time protect me from unwanted attention. When walking in town, he would not run after neighborhood dogs and would respect their territory. And once in a while when were being chased by a pack of dogs on the other side of the town, he was the only dog that didn't escape and stuck right by me. Although he was just a year old, he had managed to assert his leadership in the area that dogs who were much older and heavier than him would not dare to venture in our neighborhood. He didn't need to fight, just getting close to an unwelcome dog was enough to deliver the message. I only saw him fight once with a much larger dog, and as soon as he established the superiority he let the dog a way out without hurting it. He had this silent and humble take on being the top dog in the area.

You will be terribly missed.

Eleventh Blog

Completely frozen section of the river

The weekend was very cold and windy, by far the coldest two days of this term. Saturday we had a blizzard and Sunday a sunny but extremely cold and windy. We didn't have internet for long periods of the weekend so it was hard to know exactly how cold it was. But I heard that it was roughly about -30 with windchill of about -40. On Saturday I went for an hour of walk with a colleague. It was too windy and I was walking backward for a good portion of the walk. Sunday I decided to head out at noon, supposedly the warmest time of the day. But soon I realized that there was no such a thing as warm for that day. It was crisp sunny and very beautiful though. You could see mist rising from the river and even though it was windy, everything appeared dead still. I had three dogs with me, the big black and still nameless dog, a chocolate brown female dog and a young husky pup. In the beginning it was fun having them around but soon things changed and they started to act very strangely. As soon as we left the village and out into the woods, they dropped behind me; soon they were nervously trailing me by more than two hundred meters or so. I started bribing them in order to calm them down and to calm myself down as well! There were wolf tracks everywhere and the dogs would examine each track and nervously look in all directions! The big black dog was the closest to me but even he kept looking back towards the town more frequently now. I knew the dogs could sense or perhaps see something but decided to move forward any ways, especially as I had one of the locals open the door and jokingly ask me to get her a ptarmigan or two!

Still nameless!

Soon I noticed a wolf is coming right at us on the road. I have learned that dogs and wolves trust their nose more than their eyes, and this wolf was coming right at us sniffing the ground without even lifting its head to see us down the road. I started to shout out loud and waving my arms to get his attention. Sure enough it worked and it went flying and disappeared in the woods to our right. I stopped and looked around to see if there were any more around. The dogs by now had made up their mind and were running back towards the town. I had to call them and practically beg them with treats to stop them from leaving me. I thought for a couple of minutes whether to continue or head back to town. I walked back by about five hundred meters, but then suddenly changed my mind and decided to continue with the excursion. By now I was about two kilometers away from the village. The dogs were a bit calmer but they stopped following me after a few minutes and zoomed at a point on a gravel mount on the left. I called them but they wouldn't follow and kept looking at that same spot. I went back and saw a magnificent grey wolf standing on the mount looking at us. It was exhilarating and scary at the same time, its hard to explain how you feel seeing a wolf in a classic pose about a hundred meters away. I shouted and threw my arms up in a threatening manner, but he didn't move at all and just stood there sideways looking at us. I knew there had to be others, since they tend to move apart from each other. But this time I didn't want to look for the rest of the pack and decided to head back quickly and as calmly as I could. As soon as I turned around the dogs were running back and soon two had disappeared. I only had the black dog with the help of treats to head back to town. I was hoping to take a picture of the wolf, but it was too cold and later on when I tried taking a shot of the almost frozen river, there was a message on the screen telling me the battery temperature is either too low or too high! So it wouldn't have worked any ways!

Its strange how different it is when you see one compared to seeing their tracks. I had seen their tracks all over the places I had ventured to, some as far away as ten kilometer from the town, but seeing them in person no matter how close it was to the town sent shivers down my spine. I am not sure whether I head out alone, well at least not without a real gun!

Work has been pretty good and if things move the way they have been for the past couple of weeks, we should be able to finish off the chapters we are working on before the break. Grade ten math, and grade nine science students are doing pretty good, my only worry is with the two grade nine math classes I have. It is hard to get them do any work and the few motivated students are coming to class looking more and more tired and sleepy in the morning. The problem is that we are working on the most fun section of the curriculum, drawing symmetric shapes, and finding area of 3-d objects. If they are not excited about this, I don't know how I can get them to do algebra once we get back from the break!

Last week we started an indoor soccer, Futsal team with scheduled practices on Tuesday and Friday nights. The response has been overwhelming and I am thrilled to take part in something that I truly love that they enjoy as well. On the first night we had about 30 kids and the next session twenty of the serious ones showed up. We start the session with some running, then stretching, drills and end it with a game. If things go as they are now, we will have a pretty good team capable of competing with any school in the province.
 

Tenth Blog

Ice floating on God's River

This is my second try at posting this, the Tenth Blog. I wrote it last weekend but lost all of it at the end due to loss of connection.

I cant believe it is almost the end of November and soon I'll be heading home for the break. It seems it was just the other day when I had packed and left for Shamattawa. And I am certain I will be saying the same thing in few weeks time about the holiday!

Last weekend three of us, teachers went for a short outing on the freshly frozen wetlands leading to Ontario. It was nice to see areas and step on the ground that has been out of reach since last April. I cant wait for the river to freeze so we can go north west and explore the other side of God's river. There seem to be much more wildlife on the other side as it is out of reach of humans for long periods. I am pretty sure it will happen before we head for the holidays.

The road East to Ontario

I must say that we are having a relatively mild fall so far. Outside temperature is about -4 which is pretty warm for a late night in late November. The rive is completely frozen to the East and it wont be long it stops flowing completely for the next 4-5 months. Fishing is sadly out of the question, well at least comfortable fishing that is. The open sections of the river has ice formed on either sides by about 20 meters or so which makes it impossible to cast. The only option would be to wait for it to completely freeze, then attempt ice-fishing. I have limited my free day-light time, roughly 5-6 hours on Saturdays and Sundays, to walking in the woods and looking for Ruffed grouse and Willow ptarmigans. It has been slim picking but not bad nonetheless. I should have had two more of those today if it wasn't for my useless dogs chasing and scaring them away. Not only they didn't spot the birds first, which was supposed to be their natural talent, they came running back to me as soon as seeing me crouch to shoot. After the mishap I decided to get rid of them; easier said than done. I went back to the main road in hope of getting a ride further up the road just to lose the dogs. Fifteen minutes later I got lucky and jumped on the back of a pick up truck. Dogs followed us for a couple of hundred meters but as we sped up they gave up. Mission accomplished. The look on their faces was priceless!

River starting to freeze from the East

I jumped off the truck and ventured in one of the side trails. Right away I noticed a few rabbit snares and looking closely I saw a dead rabbit in one of them. Its sad to see animals suffer a dreadful death like that. I wish people shot them rather than snaring and trapping. Further up the trail I noticed that I was following a very large wolf's path on the trail. It was obvious that it was ahead of me by an hour the most. I guess they have learned of the snares and check those spots regularly. Right away I regretted not having the dogs along! Although there were quite a few fresh tracks of birds all around, I was more concentrating on spotting the wolf than looking for birds. Unfortunately there weren't any large tree for me to climb either, so I had to be extra vigilant. It took me about 20 minutes to round that side-trail and was very relieved to be back on the main road where there were plenty of large trees to climb in case of an emergency.

Dead snared rabbit

On the way back I walked through the garbage dump, landfill, and noticed a few dogs feeding. Its nice to see they have a last or only option for food!

Trying to get the dogs in the picture

As for work, days are moving along smoothly and I am happy to have the core group of serious students still intact. My only issue is to wrap up the respective sections and chapters before the festivities begin. I know as soon as the holiday spirit kicks in it will kick out the learning spirit. So I better be ahead of the curve by finishing what we are doing now and start something relatively different after the break.

Ninth Blog

Sheldon and Okka in the beginning of the hike

Brothers starting the fire

Today was Aboriginal Veterans Day, start of our 4-day long weekend. As there isn't much to do up here for the long break, I decided to head out into the woods again with Sheldon and Wallace. We ventured out the same way as we did last weekend in hope of better seeing whats out there. With roughly about 30cm of fresh snow it would be very easy to read the stories that were unfolded the previous night/day.

Wallace leading the way, Okka pondering.

Today it was Okka that followed us for the journey. He is a puppy of about 4-5 months and very energetic. Although today's outing might have been a bit too much for him. We walked about 6 hours in total but due to deep snow it felt much longer and harder than last week's 7-hour hike. Surprisingly enough we didn't see as much as we would have hoped for. We saw numerous tracks of rabbits, foxes, wolves an caribous but none in sight! However it felt great walking on fresh and undisturbed snow, enjoying the stillness of the surroundings and breathing the cold crisp unpolluted air.

Sheldon by the & tree!

A successful fire out of wet branches

As for trophies, we only managed shooting two grouse. From now on I have to do a better job of hunting, as fishing season is sadly coming to an abrupt end. There are non-stop slabs of ice floating on the river which makes casting very difficult. Worse yet the river has started to freeze from both sides and there is already about 10-15 feet of ice formed on the banks. Even if I do mange to hook a fish it will be almost impossible to bring it to shore, as it will be pulled under the ice. I plan to head out tomorrow and see if I can break the ice in a thin section and reel the line in through a narrow channel.

Okka & I

Okka resting at lunch time

The extra long weekend also provides me with a welcomed opportunity to finish off and organize the mid-term report cards that are due sometime next week. I am glad the spreadsheet template I created last year is compatible with Mac's Number software; all I have to do is to change the names of students and the number of assignments, tests. Everything else will work just fine.

Wallace and Okka, towards the end of the hike

My unit

And the dog everybody seems to love!