I have been in Rankin Inlet for 8 weeks now. 5 days until the half way point of my contract! Sorry for not posting the pictures, I have been working a lot. We have had sick babies in the unit and they keep you hopping. As a grandmother, I get my baby fix, when the mom's go out for their smoke!!!! The birthing centre has been busy too. The Health Centre has been doing so good team work recently. When a challenging birth happens and labour was progressing too fast to transferred the mom to Winnipeg, we pull together. Think about the number of people involved in a birthday down south and the number of staff in our whole Health Centre. Both doctors, about 4-5 nurses and 2 midwives. And we had medivac on standby on the unit. And the clinic had to still run and the inpatients still needed to be cared for. I ended up in the clinic doing preliminary assessments for the RNs. Boy did I learn a lot in a short period of time. My interview skills were challenged to get the information needed to do a full assessment, the Inui(t) people are very quiet people by nature. Even the kitchen was involved to take care of everyone's nutrition. It was an awesome day, and great to see some really great team work.
Labour Day weekend, my room mate Millie and I were taken for a 3 hour drive out on the Tundra...way out by Sarah another person who works at the Health Centre. The terrain is not dull here. We do live in a beautiful country. There are so many lake up here and what impressed me the most is that they are on different levels of terrain. None of the pictures will ever do justice to what I saw. You have understand that it is not flat here...there are rolling hills of rock and they are what hold some of the lakes. There are a few lakes that you can actually drink from.
I saw the new Elders cabin being built. The community takes elders out for a day of picnicking,
drumming and good fellowship. On the most part Elders are taken care of. There is a conservation park that is huge out this particular road. We also drove the other road that took us to the Diana River. It is a river for lots of fishing. Since the weekend weather was great the roads were busy. As the roads are basically one lane, people are very polite and let others pass. Lots of families were berry picking.
And the pot holes on the road were big enough to swallow a small car.
There are lots of little cabins out on the land. It you want a place on the water, pick a spot, build the cabin and it is yours. Anyone can do this!!! So you can live in town which is on the Hudson Bay or be at your cabin on Hudson Bay, a river or a lake.
After our day on the land, Millie and I were invited to dinner with Sarah, her husband and some of their friends. It was a Jigs Dinner..a Newfie meal and a great berry dessert. Good food + good company = good time.
There was a Penny Sale recently. Now what is a Penny Sale? Basically it is a fund raiser/draw raising money for a wheelchair accessible van to get the Elders to community events. I bought 1 $5 ticket and placed in the bag for a polar bear carving. I won!!! And it by a reputable carver and made out of marble. There is so much talent here!!!!
Other than my Polar Bear carving, I have met the carvers. Very cool to have a carving and know the carver. My 2 carvings and ulu from Caribou antler are made by a young artist of 17 and he has been carving since he was 6 or 7. His name is Etwah Noah. I met him the other day at work. He is skinny, timid and humble young man. The colour of the carving is based on the age of the animal it was killed.
Inui need to hunt for their food and as with other aboriginal people who hunt, they use most of the animal. They eat the tongue, the brain and may parts of the gut. The few left overs are left on the land. If the Inui do not hunt and fish for some of there food, they would be under nourished. The food that comes of the land is called country food. I have eaten caribou and arctic char and they are good and very nutritious.
Millie and I are going to host a pot luck Thanksgiving supper. We inviting our neighbours and a few people who do not have someone to share Thanksgiving with. We have our turkey already...you got to buy when you see it at the store or it won't be there the next time. Millie has been transferred here to set up the mental health program in the Kavalliq Region. She was working in Cambridge Bay before this. She will be moving her things here over the Thanksgiving week/weekend. Because of the convoluted travelling up here she will be flying through Yellowknife....so there will be wine at our celebration. They have a liquor store. We get ours by going through the RCMP to get a permit to order it in. Easier to not have a drink. The only place in Rankin Inlet you can order a drink is at the legion. You have to be a member or be invited by a member and I think that is only Friday night.
The days are short here now. When I got here the sun set in the north west and now it is in the west and going more south. Daylight when I arrived was for 20 hours of the day. Now the sun it setting at about 7:30 pm. Not sure about sunrise. We had the first snow yesterday. It was wet snow and did not stay....the ground it not frozen yet. There are fall colours in the north...it is on the vegetation on the ground. Just a few adjustments of the north .
