perpetual motion

Six more months in transit and all of it to be packed into one trip back.

I am so bloody tired of living out of my car/my suitcase/boxes and bags, on buses/planes/the road.

Really, really, really tired of it. Three years and all I want is a little nest. A little place to put things away in. So that I can sort through boxes and bags once and for all and not have to try, every 4 or 6 or 2 weeks to figure out what the best place each thing should inhabit. So that things aren't always lost or almost so. So that I can stop anticipating what material items I am going to want to use 2, 4, 6 months from now. So that I know that at the end of the journey I have somewhere to go.

In spite of the massive cull that saw all my possessions sold or given away 18 months ago so that every last item would fit into my tiny little car, it still just doesn't fit. It still continues to expand (books, papers, and more GARBAGE). And all of it burdensome: I have to worry about how to keep it safe, or accessible.

Six more months, and then, and then, and then I will continue wishing for something that I still won't be able to afford, alas. But I'm going to try, because I can't see, from the thick of it, how this is worth it.

make soup

olive oil
1 sweet potato, little cubes
1/2 small japanese cabbage (daikon), cut into 3 cm pieces
small handful carrots, chopped coarsely
veg. stock
white pepper (or black)
water

Combine the first 4 ingredients and soften in pot over med. heat.
Add remaining ingredients and simmer. = brothy soup.

Serve with friend.

Yum.

Movember

Resolute

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Here I am - by happenstance and for lack of good weather in Nanisivik/Arctic Bay - in Resolute Bay for 3 nights until the next flight can attempt to land us on a typically fogged-in strip a little south and east of here. Sitting around in the lodge (inhabited by research and construction folk) I was treated to 30 year old scotch and such stories: grizzly encounters, mud-sunk twin otters, downed planes! Riding around in the back of the RCMP truck today, I got to see my first polar bear! What a way to spend the first days of fall. A balmy 7 below, with snow and barenlands, whale carcasses and hungry dog teams. Similar in some ways to the many other Nunavut communities I've visited, but stranger still because truly, no one is supposed to be here. The Inuit were almost forcibly relocated here decades ago, for reasons strikingly similar to what has prompted Steven Harper's two visits to the territory: sovereignty and the promise of resources. There were Thule families here more than a thousand years ago, but it was a different land then - warmer, and whalier. I am intrigued and pretty delighted about my stranded state.

Canada Day in the Far North

Just arrived two days ago for a four-month stint in Iqaluit, Nunavut.

Today, Canada Day, there were festivities and fun in town, and three images that will cement my memories of my first national day spent in this uniquely Canadian town:

A diminutive (not 5 feet tall) Inuk woman, striding about proudly in her seal-skin kamiks (boots) and one of those umbrella hats in red and white with maple leaves shielding her eyes from the the sun (all 21 hours a day of it).

Stan Rogers' son, Nathan, singing about the northwest passage, under a giant circus tent erected for 11 days of arts festival, which attracted performers from Cuba, New Zealand, and everywhere in between.

Steve and our new friend beaming as they carried deep-fried bannock ($2 a piece) over to me at the door to the tent, where I'm stationed as the (dancing) first-aid volunteer.

i love you,
and there aren't
better words
than that
i love you.