Note: apparently the giant boats that look like canoes but have motors are called skinoes (I have no idea how to spell it or if someone was yankin' my chain. Whatever!!)
Yesterday there was a scheduled power outage in Wemindji, and since my classroom has no windows, it would be pretty hard to get much work done without light and a computer so I decided to embark on a fabulous journey hosted by the Cree teachers of Maquatua Eeyou School on a giant canoe on James Bay to an island. Here is a little tidbit of information for you folks. Islands belonging to the territory of Nunavut are located as far "south" in the Bay as Wemindji is so technically I was in NUNAVUT yesterday!! Ahh!
We left around lunchtime on 2 big boats, about 20 of us in all! The trip was short but amazing! I sat in the bow of the boat with Karen and Marsha, where Marsha promptly mouth-violated me with her finger covered in salty water, "ITS SALTY!!" delicious!! I got a little soaked but it was really nice. It was quite cool out on the water so I wore layers and a scarf but it was crisp and refreshing. We walked across a little island once we landed and found a nice spot to light a fire and eat lunch. We spent the afternoon gazing at the Bay, keeping our eyes peeled for animals (saw none) while the kids practiced their goose calls (eerily accurate!!) and collected sea monkeys from the water. One of the Cree teachers brought the ingredients for
bannock, a traditional bread-type fried thing which was pretty tasty!! I should have brought my Nutella though. Note to self. People generally stood around and talked, lay on the huge rocks, collected blueberries and cranberries. It was really awesome. I am so glad I went, even though I didn't see any polar bears or seals!! (SIDE NOTE: I forgot to mention that on my way home from Montreal on Saturday I saw a baby wolf AND a baby bear!!!!!!!!!!!! And Marsha hit a bird.)
As soon as word reached us that the power went back on, we hightailed it out of there and I spent the rest of the evening planning using the new GVC! YAY!!
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| Getting a little roasty toasty on the Bay! |
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| Tasty!! |
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| Canadian Eh! |
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| This is what sunbathing looks like in Northern Quebec |
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| I am just going to go with "Giant Canoe" for the name of this thing |
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| Chillin - literally |
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| Gorgeous blond couple! Shelby and Alex |
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| Excuse my finger |
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| The rocky terrain of our lunchtime island! |
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| Funky! |
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| Action shot! |
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| Crazy clouds! |
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| WOO!! |
This is amazing! You took your students on a field trip to Nunavut?! :) Why weren't my teachers nifty like this? We went, every year, just before Christmas to see a movie at the local theater, one block away from our school. Same movie every year.
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