When in Wemindji...: Radisson Weekend!

Well another week has passed uneventfully!

Last night I went to a girl's night at a lovely gal named Katherine's house while the men played poker across town. It was really nice to hang out with some ladies I don't usually get to see often (I, being in the elementary section of the school and most of the others from last night in the high school section).

Today Karen and I set out early in the fog to take a day trip to Radisson where we stocked up on fresh groceries, wine (me) and beautiful gifts for the family for Christmas!

Radisson is a neat little ~~mining~~ hydro town where the Quebec Hydro Dam is located. It supplies electricity to most of Quebec and some of the states! (thank you Stacy haha) There isn't much to see but what they offer (a real life grocery store, SAQ/liquor store, and really cool native craft store) is quite enticing!! Wemindji is cool and all but when you get sporadic deliveries of fresh food and the most exciting thing to do is watch dogs roll around in sand across the street (I am not really the outdoorsy type if you haven't noticed...) then a trip to some place else - ANY place else is pretty awesome.

The way in to Radisson

Grocery store! Liquor store!

The other side of Radisson.

The drive was beautiful, a little overcast but we didn't hit any rain which was nice. There aren't maple trees up here so I didn't expect to see many fall colors but there were some types of fir trees and others that were changing to yellow which actually looked quite beautiful! Karen and I set out at about 9 am and reached Radisson at about 11. We had a delicious brunch of eggs benedict (I am a repeat offender!!) and then got SHOPPING. Oh boy I spent so much money but in times like these you really need to stock up on the essentials when you find them. For example, I purchased 21 small zucchinis. I brought them home, shredded them in the food processor and froze 4-cup bags in the deep freezer. That will net me approximately 16 zucchini loafs in the future and I can't get zucchini in Wemindji so badda bing badda boom! I also stocked up on cream cheese (also in the freezer), wine (in my belly) and guacamole power mix because if I don't eat guacamole at least once a week I go coco bananas.

Then we stopped at this awesome native craft store where people from the neighboring communities as well as from across Canada sell their beautiful crafts and artwork. There is something for everyone there and I had no trouble finding beautiful and affordable and authentic Christmas gifts for my entire family. A success!!

Karen spending her life savings

Ah!

AHH!!

Cool clock!

Seal skin gloves

On another note, Wemindji has a number of Facebook groups: Wemindji Buy and Sell, Wemindji Announcements and Wemindji Bidding Wars. Wemindji Bidding Wars is basically an auction group where people post items or food they want to sell at auction. They usually post a picture, a starting price, increment amounts and finish time. I check this group hourly because it is so awesome to see what people will sell and how high the bidding will go. I saw a cheesecake for got like, $70 the other week!! So anyways, I was convinced by my lovely co-workers Marsha, Stacy and Carmen to auction off my chocolate chip banana breads, so I did! At first I felt shameful because I didn't want to take advantage but people really liked their baked goods up here so my guilt quickly disappeared when my 3 breads sold for $46!! HOLY CRAP. So needless to say I will be doing this again (apparently it was a slow night because Bingo was on so I can expect a more heated auction next time), it is so fun and making deliveries of my breads with my friends was pretty hilarious.

Anyways here are a bunch of pictures I scavenged from my birthday party a couple of weeks ago, some pictures from the drive today and some of the auction my breads sold on haha!!