Thursday, October 9, 2014

Long over due

As no surprise to anyone, I've totally be failing at maintaining my blog. I wish I could say it's because I've just been way too busy to even think about it, but really I just don't feel like I've had much worth sharing.

However, looking back through the photos I've taken and haven't bothered to upload to my computer... there have been some pretty magical moments with the beautiful landscape here.

Starting with the northern lights dancing across the sky over town last night:


 This is what they looked like directly above me: 

Then last week there was the moon: 

And whoever said there was a pot of the gold at the end of the rainbow must have meant a river full of char.... 

Friday, July 18, 2014

Impulsive changes

I have always been the kind of person to make impulsive decisions that end up changing my life dramatically. Just over a year ago, I made the radical decision to move to Nunavut to be a daycare manager in a small hamlet.  Over the last year, I met an amazing man, made tons of awesome friends and have learned an enormous amount about who I am personally and professionally. I have developed many new skills, improved my ability to adapt to new environments, and learned that I can't do everything, I don't know anything, and with an open mind, life can take you anywhere. 

Despite all of the things I have learned, and of all the ways I have changed, I am still one impulsive girl. 

Over the last few weeks some major changes have taken place in my life. 

I decided to sign a new contract with the daycare, this time with changes to my position.  My new title is the Administrator. After spending a year being responsible for all administrative, operational, human resources and programming duties, I learned that it is too much for one person to handle and to maintain any sort of life outside of work.  I was taking work home with me every night, constantly feeling stressed and that there were never enough hours in the day. Now, I'm responsible for the administrative side of management, including bookkeeping, payroll, invoicing, developing policies and procedures, researching and completing funding applications, and ensuring that we are in good standing financially as well as complying with all legislation and regulations. It has only been 2 weeks since I started in this position, and I every day it's is becoming more and more evident to me that I have a passion for policy development at the organizational level, but also territorial and federal levels. The contract is for another year, ending July 7, 2015. 

Another big change that was also rather impulsive, was to rent a beautiful 3 bedroom house across the street from where I'm currently living.  My nephew is just abou big enough to be needing his own room, and I have been craving to have a space of my own. The lease lines up perfectly with the end of my contract, and the house is close enough that I can still see my family whenever I feel like it. Though I will be seeing them every day, as my nephew will be attending the daycare full-time starting in August! 

Joining me in my new house will be this adorable pup (and major impulsive decision #2):

He's a mini schnoodle (schnauzer poodle x). Right now he's living in Hamilton and will be ready to come home to me August 2nd....

...which leads to impulsive decision #3:

Instead of simply having him shipped up in live cargo, this girl decided in the spur of the moment to book a two week holiday to go pick up little McGuff. As a bonus, I'll get to see most of my immediate and expanded family, a great number of friends, and run some errands that are impossible to run in the Arctic! 

I take off the 27th and can't wait for my summer getaway from all the mosquitos and limited bandwidth! 


Wednesday, May 21, 2014

Jack's stories

I have no photos or crazy adventures to talk about at the moment, but I do have some stories from Jack.

I met him Monday evening. He is an Elder, originally from Holman, living in Cambridge Bay for the past twentysomething years, and was in town to talk to the students about the Lands Claim Agreement.

We didn't get to talking about that, but he was telling enamouring stories with endless humour about what it was like to grow up in the North. This man was so interesting to listen to. I will try to recount them as accurately as possible.

Eric asked him, "Where's home for you?".
His response: "It's in my house. It's got a bunch of walls and a roof."

He told us about how he had TB when he was a young teenager, and had to be sent to Fort Smith for treatment that lasted over 2 years. He could have left sooner, but living in a part of the world that is so cold and so windy, it was likely that his TB would come back and that he would end up back in Fort Smith for more treatment. Plus, he didn't want to leave because he liked the school he was going to there. He liked it so much that even when they told him he was well enough to go home, he wanted to stay. At the time, Fort Smith was 100% Catholic, but Jack is Anglican. He did his best to practice Catholicism, learned their prayers, the routine of church services, etc. He became so good at it that he was asked to become an alter boy. Jack respectfully declined the honour, saying that as an Anglican, it wouldn't be proper for him. He was told that he could finish the school year (this was early spring), but then he would have to leave Fort Smith. So he finished his year and they shipped him off.

He told us his memories of, in the day of the igloos and before snow machines and ATVs, the RCMP would travel from town to town by dog sled delivering medicine to the various camps. He never knew until later in his life that the RCMP were cops, he thought they were just nice people, maybe doctors.

He told us that before drugs and alcohol were introduced to the North, the Inuit people were the happiest people you could find. They lived together on the land and no one had locks on their doors. He could go hunting, come back late and leave his sled with all his camping gear, shot guns, etc. out all night and come out again in the morning and not a thing would be missing. He ranted about the problems caused by the involvement of the Government with the regulation and distribution of alcohol in the North.

He knows a man who was such an excellent athlete that he was working towards qualifying for the winter olympics. He had skidoos and hondas, a house, a wife, children. He had furniture and many of the nicest things you could have. He met Drugs and sold what he could and lost the rest. Drugs took his family and his machines and left him in an empty house. Jack, whose family never knew what he needed, gave him too many coffee makers and too many watches. What Jack really needed was a new truck, so he gave his friend, who now had nothing, a coffee maker and a watch. The following week Jack was visiting again, and neither were to be seen. Drugs took them. Then Drugs started to take Jack's son. Jack took his son to the empty house to give his friend an electric frying pan. His son looked around the empty house, telling Jack that he remembered that this house had had everything at one point. On their way home, his son asked, "that frying pan isn't going to be there tomorrow, is it?", and Jack knew that their visit to the empty house gave his son the message he had been hoping to give him. His friend in the empty house has been in and out of rehab, but he is always sent back, and he is not getting better. Jack can see from his window three dealers, though his hope in getting drugs out of his community has withered. Every time one dealer is taken down or taken away, another one comes. There will always be another one coming to fill the gap and feed the addiction.

I hope I meet Jack again one day, to talk to him more about what life was like, as there are so few Elders still around who lived in igloos who can speak English.  How interesting it was to hear a first person account of the history of the North and the changes that have caused so many struggles for the Inuit.


Sunday, April 20, 2014

crystallized underside

I've been terrible at keeping everyone up-to-date on my life in the North and my experience as a Daycare Manager. I mostly have J.K. Rowling to blame for that over the past few months, as Harry Potter was stealing all my time.

Anyway, a while ago I went for my first walk on the frozen ocean with my family, and here are some pictures I snapped while we were out there. It was the first day that it really started to feel like spring (-15, mild wind).



Clear enough to see the inside wall of the cracks. Super thick ice! 


I just couldn't get over how breathtakingly beautiful the snow looked glistening in the sun.





We came across some ice that had formed over an air pocket. After smashing it to pieces, we flipped the ice over to discover a crystallized underside.


The geometry and natural beauty of the earth is spectacular (you've got to click this to see the full version!)


Monday, February 24, 2014

on a more personal note...

I have been reading.

For those of you who know me well, I have never really been one to read for fun, so this has been a new concept for me to explore. Since I've been here (Friday will mark 8 months), I've read and finished 7 books, and I have 3 I'm reading now (though only one actively because it's so friggen good -I know I'm super behind on this, but I'm half-way through Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire). After I finish the series, I will be reading books sent to me by a lovely friend and mentor (the cuckoo's calling by Robert Galbraith - a.k.a. J.K. Rowling and Dear Life  by Alice Munro).

I have also been busy beading and sewing! Over Christmas I finished the beaded uppers/toppers for my moccasins, which I posted a picture of way back when.
Here is the progress:


I picked a patter for the moccasins that would require minimal stitching - just around the heel and the "crumpling" (as the sewing instructor called it) at the toes. I finished the actual body of the slippers in 2 hours.


Then I had to sew the upper on. To get the finished look around the edges, a thin strip of leather (this is moose hide) is placed between the leather and stroud (what the beads are sewn on to) before sewing. I hand-stitched this, but with a good machine you can do this.


I made the liners out of duffle (wool) using a pattern I found online, which seemed to work well and fit nicely!


And I added a beaver-fur ruff around them! I still plan to do a peyote-style beaded design to go around the back and ankle parts, but I will wait until I have time to do that!


I was also busy over the New Year making Laura's birthday present, which is uppers for her! She was expecting them without knowing the design, but I also surprised her by saying I would make the rest of the moccasin for her too (since she is so busy and also has several of her own sewing projects on the go right now). This is what she got: 


And today I scored a sweet deal at the shop across the street and got these beautiful suedes for only $60! I'll be busy sewing now! I think next up are the slippers for Grandpa's birthday and maybe some more to sell at the next bazaar! 


If anyone wants a pair, put your orders in now! 

7-10 Nights

It's been pointed out to me that I've been slacking in keeping everyone updated on what's going on with me these days.
So ok, here goes the update:

A few weeks ago I took a Supervisor's Safety Course run by the WSCC at which I learned a lot about how many safety regulations there are and how many I haven't been following as a supervisor/employer. Whoops! Our new policy and procedures manual will certainly be reflecting what I learned there. It was a 3 day course and really quite valuable. Scary, really, to think about how liable I am for all of the staff that I am supervising every day.

Work has been insanely busy and stressful and I am completely overwhelmed with all of the responsibilities associated with managing a barely functional daycare in the North. I have had a tremendous amount of difficulty with staff not showing up to work and constantly being understaffed and overworked. It has been a daily struggle to find casuals who are willing to come in or who aren't already working casually for any of the other programs in town. The daycare consistently has only half the staff showing up, making it next to impossible for me to get any administrative work done.
How much administration does a daycare possibly need? SO MUCH! Filling the role of the person who does the hiring/firing, staff discipline, etc.; the accountant (day-to-day accounting like purchase orders, invoices, etc., as well as payroll, paying bills, catching up on data entry), it's also year-end time...meaning T4s, funding applications, contribution agreement renegotiations and mega burn-out. I am totally the type of person to set expectations for myself that are way too high and that no one else has for me, but these are the things that I have to get done on a daily basis or everything will start to fall apart. For example, this morning on the way to work I realized I made a small mistake on all (42) of the T4s that I processed (my first time so cut me some slack) (and keep in mind that I have 5 staff at the daycare, so you can get an idea of the turnover in just 1 year), I also had to give half of my staff written warnings for AWOLs, send attendance reports to Cambridge Bay for funding, make invoices for parents and prepare a funding application that's due this Friday.

I am just hanging on to the ounce of hope that I have left that things will improve over the next couple of months once funding starts to pour in and we're able to maybe get some training for the staff. Keep your fingers crossed for me! I've been feeling so disheartened because things were going so well and I had staff showing up to work every day and it feels like now it is all falling apart again and I'm headed back to where we were when I first got here....just with a better paint job.

Anyway, I have been using my Aerogold Amex like mad so that I can have enough points to book my flights for May because I NEED a vacation. I'm thinking a Caribbean cruise of some sort for 7-10 nights.


Thursday, January 30, 2014

Assets, revenue, liabilities and expenses

As some of you are aware, I spent last week in Cambridge Bay for accounting training, specifically geared to using Sage 50. After only having been home for a week since my Christmas vacation, I wasn't feeling too keen on leaving for another 8 days, mainly because my nephew is learning so much these days and I don't want to miss a thing, and also partly because CamBay is farther north, colder, and I didn't know anyone there.

After arriving at the Arctic Island Lodge, I was relieved to have my own room (and not sharing with the assistant manager, which she was also pleased with). Time to load up on groceries for the week and settle in for the afternoon and evening before the training starts Monday morning.

My stay at the hotel was decent, though the wi-fi signal was poor, and there weren't enough staff to provide housekeeping every day - this wouldn't have been so bad, but I ran out of coffee!!


The weather was very cold. Most days were 40 below feeling like -50 to -60. Luckily, just like home, it doesn't take more than 15 minutes to get from one end of town to the other, and most places I needed to be were within a 5-10 minute walk from where I was at any given time.

Just about every STOP sign in town had a hand print in the corner. I liked it.


This is Lena. She works for one of the agencies that provides funding to the Daycare. She also makes beaded jewelry. She was at the training all week, and we all got a kick out of her. I'd never seen her joker side before, as it was always straight to business, but it was so good to see this side of her! This is also an excellent example of what most Inuk women wear in the winter: Handmade parkas and kamiks.


And of course it was nice to see some beautiful sunset skies!




As for the training, I learned a lot of basic accounting: credits, debits (which in accounting are actually reverse to what they are in banking), assets, revenue, liabilities, and expenses. I learned some fancy equations, and then how to input all of our financial data into Sage 50 so that we have current financial information at all times. The trick now is to enter into the system every single invoice, bill, payment, withdrawal, bank charge, late fee, donation, fundraiser.. (you get the idea) since April 2013. SO much work, but once we're current, we can apply for so much more funding and finally be able to get the kids some new materials! 
It also helps that now I actually know what I'm doing and what happens with money. All of what I learned can also be applied to my personal finances...bank reconciliation, etc. I'm not quite a chartered accountant, but I'm getting there! 

I also had a chance to check out the Cambridge Bay Childcare centre, which is HUGE compared to ours, and has been open the longest in the Kitikmeot region. I didn't get any pictures, but it looks like just about any typical centre. Lots of colours, lots of materials, etc. I was jealous that they have separate rooms for each age group, as well as a staff bathroom, a big office and a staff room! Is it too much to wish that we'll get a new building one day that I can design?? 

Thursday, January 2, 2014

most wonderful time

After spending a relaxing Christmas Eve with my sister in Calgary, I was on my way to see all the damage caused in Toronto by the ice storm. All I could see was beautiful ice-covered everything.





After days and days of travelling around, I finally had a chance to see my beautiful girl, who is now SO big (32", almost the full length of the wrapping paper tube she's hiding in).


I had the most wonderful time with my family for New Year's Day.