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First Day Exploring........
Getting ready to journey on the ice. We are meeting in the big room where all the expeditions gather to brief and plan their projects.
Christine outside base camp playing with the camp dog Nanook
Outside the conditions are nice. 30 miles an hour winds. -12 degrees Fahrenheit. Just walking 200 yards to the school from base camp we all felt the biting cold. Dressing for this is all important. If you don't it can hurt you.
On the way over to the school we pass the homes of the Inuit. Hanging outside are polar bear skins bleaching in the sun to make them white, caribou skin and a musk ox skull. The Inuits use all these animals for food. All the parts are used. Human food, dog food, bones for carving and skins for clothes.
Arriving at the school the children are out in this weather playing on the jungle gym. Not bad weather for them.
Once inside the school the principal Brian Manning gave us a talk on the Inuit culture and the important mission of the school to preserve and protect it. This includes the Inuit Guiding Principles. He also showed us a skull of a Polar bear, the result of a student hunting field trip run by elders.
A bulletin board at the school with students accomplishments
Tracey MacMillan the schools outreach coordinator gave us a great tour of the school facilities and all the unique things they teach. Besides the reading writing and math classes it is an important part of the schools responsibility to carry on traditional Inuit skills. These skills include things like carving, hunting, cooking traditional meals, cleaning the animals after the hunt, taking care of the skins, building igloos and throat singing.
Here you see the skin of the Polar bear that the class brought back FROM THE hunting trip. They are in the class rooms freezer waiting to be uses to train the student how to preserve them. You see that the bear is not all white, but has some yellow fur. In the summer it gets even more yellow. They bleach it white by hanging it in sun.
While on the tour we got to meet students in the classes room. There are 80 students in the entire school which covers from 1st grade to 12th grade.
Whale bones, dogs and sleds and ring seals drying in the sun
After the school visit we went to the general store. The only on in town. It is called the coop. When the kids got out of school they all came out and found us. We are a novelty to them as we are the youngest group to ever make this journey.
Our Guide for tomorrows trip to Beechey Island
