sitidgi and the end of snow

INUVIK, NT

For the past three weeks, I've been lucky enough to assist some colleagues in taking groups of students out for ice–fishing overnights. Each Monday morning, we loaded kids into toboggans and sledded over to Sitidgi, a sizeable lake 27 miles east of Inuvik. Once there, we'd embark on a marathon of ice–hole drilling and then settle down for a few hours of trying to think like a fish.

Admittedly, some students were more devoted to achieving this kind of anthro–ichthyological oneness than others, but everyone had a go at 'jiggling,' some classes even using traditional muskox–horn lures they had made in an earlier workshop. For a few kids, this was the first time they had ever fished, and for others, the first time they had ever spent a night away from home. Chris and Jason, the teachers responsible for this fantastic programme, had used some of their funds to buy parkas, snowpants, mitts, and sleeping bags, so that kids without any gear could still take part, and even feel cool in their slick new duds.

After the jiggling began to wear on the wrist, we would head back to camp and cook up the day's catch, consisting mainly of lake trout, but with a hefty loche and pike thrown in for good measure. Loche liver, which is an enormous organ relative to the size of the fish, is a delicacy among the locals. The richness of it was quite remarkable, but as the livers of the fish up here are the most toxic parts of the fish, I didn't indulge too much.

After dinner, students were encouraged to burn as much energy as possible, and we generally succeeded in getting everyone to bed by midnight or so. (If getting nine–year old kids to bed by midnight doesn't sound like much of an accomplishment, there are two things to consider: the sun has only just set at that point; and the concept of curfew is generally considered foreign to many Aboriginal parenting traditions, at least in the North. Come 24–hour daylight, gangs of eight year–old kids can be seen playing road hockey at three in the morning.) The next day would consist of a leisurely breakfast, followed by clean–up and the return home.

Some other events of note since my last posting include tasting muskrat, trying it again, giving it a third go, and then running to the bathroom. Much more enjoyable was the Eskimo ice cream, a hearty blend of whipped seal fat and caribou marrow, easily imagined as life–saving calories on long winter journeys. It reminded me of creton, a similar combination of pig fat and marrow adored by certain Québecois on their toast in the morning.

Tragically, my adventures here in the Arctic will soon take on a very different tone. Over the course of the last week, temperatures rose from -20° to +14°. It is the end of snow. In particular, this seasonal succession means that I won't get to do an epic winter trip, as I'd hoped. The unfortunate fact of the matter is that finding people willing to ski or snowshoe long distances in cold and snowy conditions proved rather difficult. Everything up here really does centre on the snowmobile now.

Time to start planning my river trip. . .

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A satellite view of Inuvik and Sitidgi Lake. The smaller lake to the north of Inuvik is Noell Lake, the subject of an earlier posting. (If you haven't checked out Google's satellite images of North America yet, go do it right now. Seriously. I'm watching you.)

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This is me joining the time-honoured tradition of men posing with animals they recently killed. At best guess, my pike (note the arrogance of the possessive) weighed somewhere between 25 and 30 pounds. Known locally as jackfish, pike contain an additionional set of bones in the main part of their body, and aren't generally eaten by local Aboriginals. This is likely because an accidentally ingested pike bone could, and probably did, result in an untimely end or two. However, we ate this lovely lady, and it was good.

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Yet another sunset. Yadda yadda stunning yadda yadda mesmerizing &c.

Take good care, all.