Tuesday, October 8^th, 2002

Hello, Crew…. I hope this letter finds you well. I’m fine, thanks.

I apologize that I cannot write to each of you individually, I hope you’ll understand.

My intent is that through this and the (hopefully) subsequent letters, you will have a sense of what I have been doing with my time over the past few weeks. I will share some stories of my recent adventures and thoughts about those adventures. If you would not like to receive these notes in the future, please write to me saying so. I understand that this first note is pretty long, the next several will probably be much shorter.

For those who are not aware, I am writing you from Northern Canada, which is why I am writing in the first place. Phone calls to the States from here through my Sam’s Club phone card cost me 17 cents a minute. Specifically, I am in an area of Northern Québec known as Nunavik. This village of about 500 people is called Kangiqsujuaq (KAHN-yir-SU-yuahk). I have a friend, Véronic who lives here and is playing hostess by introducing me to the area, people, and the culture. I will be here a total of 3 weeks.

Kangiqsujuaq means "Big Bay" in the native language and is off the Hudson Strait near the Ungava bay on the Eastern coast of Northern Québec. This terrain is tundra as it north of the tree line and a short flight to the Artic Circle. Yes, the Arctic Circle! This is a cold place, and very beautiful. As I write this part of the letter, it is 2 in the afternoon, Eastern Standard Time. There is a mountain range outside of the apartment’s window dusted with snow, and the temperature is probably at its h ighest today. 30 degrees Fahrenheit.

I have now been here approximately 9 days, and for about 5 of those, it has snowed here. Sometimes, it is merely flurries. Other times, it is a driving, snowfall accompanied with 20-30 mile per hour winds. That’s when life gets a bit tough. That is f or a greenhorn from Texas.

The natives of this area are known by the name "Inuit" (an individual is an "Inuk", which means "human" in the native language) and they occupy this Nunavik area, plus the area farther north and west known as Nunavut. Basically, most of the Northern Canadian land mass area is inhabited by the Inuit. The Cree Indians are the natives in the Western 3^rd of the northern country. The Inuit run the rest. Something that helped me with my mental picture of the Inuit is that these people are what most of us know as "Eskimos". This term is offensive to the Inuit, because this is not a name they created for themselves. The Cree Indians in the West gave them that name because of the marked difference in their 4 thousand year old cultures. The Cree operated more of an agricultural society, while the Inuit hunted, trapped, and fished for their food. No Vegetables. The Cree gave the Inuit the name "Eskimos" which means "meat eaters". The name stuck.

Traveling was quite interesting, as six foot plus black men wearingTexas Cowboy hats are a rare sight in Canada…. Let alone in Nunavik, where there are very few Inuit taller than 5 feet 8 inches. I feel a bit like the literary character Gulliver here , and am careful to wear colors that distinguish me from a bear. I flew into a snowstorm in Kangirsuk, then got lovely, sunny weather in Quaqtaq and Kangiqsujuaq. The communities in Nunavik are so far north and in such mountainous terrain that they are not accessible with a car or a truck. You have to fly or float. So each time a plane or a boat comes into one of these communities, it typically leaves some cargo. So our tiny plane that could possibly hold 30 people only held 17 because we were flying with someone’s groceries! Yes, there are stores here, but they are like expanded convenience stores…. Not Wal-Mart. So I rode inside the plane with boxes of groceries and skis and other supplies. Luggage was in another campartment. The plane coming to the village seemed to be air-conditioned, too. It does not help that I was wearing shorts and sweating just two days earlier in Southeast Texas.

This community of Kangiqsujuaq sits on a bay flanked by large hills on all the other sides. Recently, I hiked one of the hills with my hostess and her dog, Arthur. Arthur is five years old. And is basically a mutt. But part of that "mutt" is Siberian Husky. So this animal is pretty big, and can be very active (and currently, when he wiggles he sheds his fur in clouds like the Peanuts character "Pig Pen"). So when we walked far enough away from the village, Véronic released Arthur from his chain, wh ere he could run free and be crazy. That was nice to see. As he ran wildly… Vèronic noticed something on the ground… which at that time, was amongst the lichen, a moss-type grass that provided a cushion from the actual mountain earth. In this "grass" we re these little red berries. They are wild growing cranberries. Not too far from the cranberries, were wild blackberries. But hold on… as these berries are black, but they are the size of cranberries or our traditional blueberries. Not the raspberry-looking fruit we typically see in the U.S. I ate some of the blackberries later in a sauce over some cheesecake… delicious!

One of my responsibilities here is to bring Arthur inside the apartment after a couple of hours hanging around outside. Typically, he and I go for a walk. Often, we simply walked around the village… where he seems to enjoy sniffing and urinating on a nything with a surface. I simply enjoyed following along and looking at the surroundings while getting acquainted with the speed and the layout of the village. After a few days of snow, I have had to learn what I call the Inuit shuffle. The Inuit have a lot of experience dealing with ice. So they simply shuffle their feet on the icy surfaces to keep their balance. The uninitiated are easy to spot… as we are slipping and sliding on the unpaved streets looking for just the right spot to kiss the ground. I have yet to fall… but I have given Arthur some serious jerks on his leash as I have made several attempts to pull a Michelle Kwan-style triple toe loop in the middle of an intersection. It has been quite humbling to discover that at now 32 years old, I have to re-learn how to walk! I guess I am in a totally different world now.

One day, I walked with Arthur and after initially directing our course away from the village, I allowed him to, once again, take me where he wanted to go. This turned out to be a mistake, as we ended up walking across the local garbage dump. Each village has its own garbage dump… because, of course, you can only drive so far in the tundra. In the midst of his joyous sniff-and-mark excursion I noticed that he found something to chew on… which looked like a shoe or an old glove or something. He also enthusiastically marked this object by rubbing his neck on it. I let him chew on it for a few minutes and then we walked on. Upon arriving at the apartment, Véronic noticed something that I did not out in the tundra. Arthur stinks! And inordinately so. The pungent odor that cut through the typical apartment aroma turned out to be a piece of rotten seal meat, thrown away by some Inuit family (yes, seals are not safe here, and they will be shot and eaten just like a walrus, or the traditional caribou, which is like a small elk, or a polar bear found this far south). Anyway, just as the smelly seal did not agree with our nasal passages, the meat Arthur chewed on did not agree with his stomach… and out it came. Under Véronic’s computer desk. A long with some other grey sludge that had camped out in Arthur’s digestive tract. Yuk!! We did not even know that Arthur created his own scientific experiment until the aforementioned pungent smell initially noticed on his fur seemed to increase by a po wer of 30 after it made friends with the carpet.

This experience reminded me of a life lesson. Going through life allowing another earthly being to lead me where he wants me to go can be fun for awhile, as there is no responsibility. But as is typical with human beings, refusing to lead our own liv es often results in finding ourselves in a garbage dump with smelly, rotten trash… which will eventually lead to an upset stomach and a very embarassing and painful clean-up job.

One note about caribou. I have eaten some. When its well butchered, it has the consistency and the taste of beef. When it’s NOT well cut, then you might as well slice off a piece of your couch to chew on, as some of the connective tissues are as soft and as tender as the cover of a phone book! The Inuit have been a nomadic people for thousands of years. Only recenly have they lived in static villages year round. (I met a Inuk man named Yaka who is probably around 45 years old. This guy was born in an IGLOO!! Just to give you a sence of how recently times have changed…. As today’s mothers now go to Kuujuaq to deliver their babies) Typically, when an Inuit man would kill a caribou or whatever animal, they would eat what they could right where the a nimal lay. Yes, that means raw! The Inuit are used to eating raw meat. And their instances of heart disease are half of what exists in the larger cities of Southern Canada. So with the help of some downstairs neighbors, a caribou leg went thro ugh surgery in Véronic’s kitchen. I even watched her eat some of the raw meat… and live! So, I decided to do so also. I ate a tiny piece of the raw caribou meat, which has the texture and taste of, well… beef. It is actually not bad. And I can see why s ome people like their nice cut of steak VERY rare. I still prefer mine cooked and seasoned… but I understand better (Véronic still likes her steak raw enough that if you listened closely, you probably could hear the cow bell ringing as she is slapping i t on a plate!!)

Québec is the French speaking province of Canada. There is a contingent of Québecers whose native tounge is English, but the Francophones (French speakers… English speakers are called Anglophones) dominate the landscape here. So though the help of a CD-Rom program and the dominant French speaking contingent of the teachers here in the village, I am learning some elementary French. The prounuciation is a challenge, but it is fun.

Speaking of language, the language of the Inuit is Inuktitut. This ancient tribal language sounds to me like a hybrid of Japanese and German. To see it written would remind you of Phoenecian or Ancient Egyptian. I think I now know 3 words. This langu age will be a challenge… especially since when I return to the States, I will use Inuktitut to the same degree that I would use a walrus tusk. Nice to show friends, but otherwise, it is basically a souvenir from another land.

I’d better go now, but my next message will contain something interesting from the heavens.

Until later, or I get snowed in…