New Beginings

Happy New Year!!!! 2010 is here! What Y2K hooplah?

It's amazing how much life changes in the span of 10 years and how fast time goes by. Who thought, in the year 2000 that I would be in the Great White North in 2010? Huh!

I am lucky that the end of 2009 presented a great opportunity for me and Terry to head up North. While he is obviously in his element, I continue to be bombarded by new things daily and am having a great time learning all about a very important part of our nationality: Inuit life and culture. Before I start to wax poetic about Canadiana and the importance of appreciating every aspect of this beautiful country and all it's people I will just share this one thought that has become truer in every sense of the word since I have been up here; Canadians are a very hardy people" and nowhere is it truer than of those who live in the world's Arctic circle.

Celebrations here are coming to a close tomorrow. While the weather has definitely been frightful it hasn't kept these folks indoors. Games and dances continued late into the night every night at the community hall. New Years Eve church services were held at 10PM (the services were scheduled on the same day, last minute decision - the community radio here is by far the best form of communication I have seen in any town, big or small) and then this was followed by everyone heading down to the docks and shooting their guns towards the sea at midnight. Once the Wild Wild North had all holstered their guns they all hopped on their horses/skidoos and toured the community (giddy-up!). It was an impressive sight and sound, a long line of lights and noise for miles and miles. Finally, although I missed this part of the evening as my eyelids insisted on succumbing to gravity, they square-danced the night away until early morning hours! There is a video of this great event that I am trying to get my little greedy hands on, but it's a very big file, so it may only appear in a later blog.

We are relaxing here this weekend (I know, so out of the norm for me), as the weather remains dreadfully cold. It was the first day in about 6 that Hope could actually stay out for more than 5 minutes without all 4 of her paws freezing at the exact same time...big baby. She doesn't like her boots, not sure if they hurt her but I suspect it might be more about her being embarrassed about what the local dogs think about her!! Hoping the fact that she could stay outside a little longer means that there may be some warmer weather on the way.

While we have yet to see any wildlife around here we found the following video on YouTube...I wonder if this is how the bears would be with Hope? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JE-Nyt4Bmi8

Wishing everyone the very best this year! Lots of love, laughter and a whole lotta fun!

Yours in writing...

DJ
xo