For the past two years, I have had the pleasure of working on and off with a great organization based out of Southern Ontario. Essentially we are trained and sent off into to the northern reaches of Ontario and Quebec to deliver educational programs to younger children in Native communities, and to provide exam assistance to the older students. As long as you don’t mind living in the communities for 2 months or more at a time, it is absolutely great work, and you can have an absolute blast exploring all of the communities.
When I began, I was toting a pickup truck and trailer full of fun educational activities (a bouncy castle and giant squishy stuffed animal guts – you know it) up the ice roads in Northern Ontario to Kasheshewan, Fort Albany and Attawapiskat, where the landscapes were expansive and the prices were expensive. But the experience itself was unbelievable. In six dog-sledding, round-dancing, moose-eating, -60oC weatherin’, bouncy-castlin’ months, I had gone further north in Ontario than I ever had before, and had loved every minute of it. I am, and will always be, a Northern Girl.
So when Herb and I found ourselves without contracts for the winter of 2013, we decided to get back in with the company, this time travelling to northern Quebec, to a fly-in community called Great Whale (the last Cree and Inuit community) on the shores of Hudson’s Bay. Living in a place like that during the winter is mind-blowing to say the least, and we quickly found that Mother Nature has her own plans, and you just have to learn to jive with them. At any rate, this is what came of it…memories; sweet, frosty memories.
Duckie Sees The World 