Drama Costumes I: The Process (Working #4)

Well, technically not "working," as I didn't get paid - but definitely work in that it took pretty well three months of steady and sometimes close to full-time effort!

So here's the story:

Last fall, on my first day of substitute teaching at St. Patrick's High School (just across the street) I met the amazing Emma Smith, drama teacher. Actually, the assistant principal introduced us pretty well immediately after he heard I could sew. Emma, in turn, put considerable faith in me by inviting me to take on a leading role in costume design and production for their February staging of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Most of us have heard of it - Broadway musical, Andrew Lloyd Webber, 1970s, and a perennial favorite with student groups. Well - I said yes. What fabric lover could resist a chance to design the actual "dreamcoat" for this production? certainly not I. Not that I had any clear idea of what I was getting into... for I worked on many of the other costumes as well, and it is certainly a very large cast! But I guess I'm a bit of a "go big or go home" kinda person, and don't necessarily shrink from a challenge.

Work began pretty well immediately on October 1. For my plan was not only to acquire fabric and design and sew costumes, but to dye most of the fabric as well - and that's where my fibre-friend and dye-master Donna MacDonald came in. Emma, bless her heart, agreed to our experiment. We put in an order to Dharma Trading Company for three bolts of fabric, and for much of October and all of November my dining room looked like this:

Some of the costumes were made with old drapes, piled on the chair below (before dyeing):

In late November and into December Donna and I spent four sessions dyeing the fabric out at the Guild of Arts and Crafts, with stunning results. In one of the courses Donna had taken in Ohio, she came away with a swatch book that allows her to achieve intended color with great accuracy. Still, the fun is always that different fabrics take the same dye very - and unpredictably - differently. The picture below shows her dye book, as well as rayon/linen fabric (large pieces for the wives caftans) each dyed together with silk chiffon (small pieces) and straight rayon (smallest pieces) - with sometimes startling results. For example, the green and orange (first pieces lower right) come from the same dye bath!

Dyeing is equal parts science and alchemy. Three pictures show a typical session at the Guild: 1) Donna the Dye Magician measuring and weighing; 2) the white board with the steps and the timing (when to stir and mix, when to add soda ash etc.); 3) the whole set up, with fabric pieces and buckets and charts etc. all organized:

Our dyeing proceeded from basic to tricky, i.e. the (cotton) drapes that made up the brothers' tunics through the (rayon/linen) caftans for their wives to the (rayon/silk) pieces that went into The Dreamcoat itself. I also sewed more blue, gold, and bronze lamée (known in the serious quilting world as "shiny sh**") than I ever want to see in my life again, the Egyptian scenes needing that kind of ostentatious pizazz. For much of January, therefore, my dining room table looked like this:

The show is currently on - Wednesday through Saturday evening, with an afternoon matinee on Saturday, and I've seen it twice already. I went on opening night for solidarity, and will go on closing night just to enjoy the achievement. Don't want to jinx things by showing the costumes themselves - that'll be the next posting, also because I'd like to be able to include a few pictures of the cast in their costumes. Suffice it at the moment to say that the kids did the costumes proud - I felt like a proud mother (more accurately: grandmother) and had tears in my eyes at their tremendous effort. Quite amazing, considering I hadn't set eyes on any of them three months ago.

The Ledge (Leg) Café (Working #3)

On the first of February I started a six-week stint of part-time work at the café in the Legislature building. A friend of my sister's runs it - "Putte" (whose official name is Dagmar Nielsen, and yes, she's a Danish immigrant) has had the contract for the past three years: she's to provide generally available noshings during the day as well as all the food that legislators require when they're hard at work deliberating territory finances and health care and devolution and such. And when the Ledge is in session, as it is during six weeks in February and the first half of March - goodness, a lot of food does get consumed!

So first a few pictures, then a few comments. First of all, I've said in previous posts that The Ledge is one of a number of beautiful buildings in Yellowknife, and well worth the tour should you come up to visit. I walk to work, and still get a little thrill every time I turn the corner and see it, now in the snow (the first picture closer up on a snowy day, the second in the distance on a sunny day):

My walk takes me through downtown Yellowknife and into the natural area on the picture above, where I take childish delight in using a shortcut to the Prince of Wales Museum by following snowmobile track across a little lake - walking on water after all, or perhaps Yellowknife's version of "look, Ma, no hands!":

Once in The Ledge I sign in at the security desk and get a pass, since my work sometimes require traversing areas off-limits to visitors. The desk is located inside "The Great Hall," as the central open area is called - here's The Great Hall, the security desk in the distance, and behind it the warm lights of the legislative library:

There is some beautiful art in the building, such as this sculpture in one corner of The Great Hall:

If I do a 180 degree turn from where I took the picture of The Great Hall, I see the approach to the café. It's a lovely spot (and yes, that's a bison head on the wall to the right of the door):

My main domain is the actual café area, where from 10 to 2 I am responsible for making food (mostly sandwiches augmented by a few daily specials) and doing the mechanics of selling. That means I now know how to work the credit/debit machine from the vendor side of the ledger (not rocket science, after all). Here the little kingdom for which I have responsibility:

The Great Hall is used for receptions, three of them last week, the opening week of session. That meant catering work for all of us - I peeled 58 hard-boiled eggs, for example, to make devilled egg hors-d'oeuvres. While in a past life I did of course prepare food for parties, sometimes large ones (over 40 people for Alan's wonderful 65th birthday, I recall), never in my life have I peeled 58 eggs in one sitting! I also put massive numbers of assorted squares on little white cupcake cups, flattened out - thinking all the while that though I have of course in my past life lifted such squares from trays, I never particularly thought about the person who must have spent several hours putting them there. A life lesson.

Putte has all this work well in hand, managing vast quantities of food and numerous litres of coffee. The first picture shows her in her tiny kitchen (two burners!), the second with her and co-worker Sheena in the café area putting some sort of special sandwich together.

 

Rounding out the team is the equally hard-working Ruth, here enjoying a rare free minute to grab a bite (often indeed only standing up):

I have asked myself, of course: just WHY am I doing this? Perhaps because I've always wanted to see what it is like to work in a café, and this is the perfect opportunity - six weeks only, and part-time. My conclusion: I am glad I don't have to do it for a living. For that is another reason, perhaps: a tiny expression of solidarity with those who have no recourse but to work in the service industry, especially immigrant women who have qualifications not recognized in Canada. A third reason: try out whether steadier work, a place to go to every day, would be good for me in other ways (my conclusion: not really; I do not want for connection in Yellowknife).

Part of me fluctuates between amusement and chagrin that I am making sandwiches and exchanging coffee urns for people doing things similar to what I used to do, in a previous life from which I voluntarily retired. I realized, however, that I don't miss my previous occupation as such - what I might miss, sometimes, is the prestige associated with it. How much more social approbation is earned by being able to say: I'm a professor! than: I work in the Ledge Café!

That being said, Yellowknife is really the perfect place to try something like that out. Many people here do many different things: a geologist friend who last year spent several months doing geology work in Greenland is a part-time coordinator for Ecology North, one sales clerk in the bookstore is taking a break from a law career, my brother-in-law stopped running a complex dairy operation and is quite happy with the machine-shop job he currently has. Reactions to my working in the Ledge Café have been invariably positive, even envious about the beauty of the location. And - after all - it's only six weeks. Put a check beside another item on the bucket list!

Ice Fog

This past Tuesday, even by noon, the temperature had reached only -41. This causes ice fog - the weather on my phone made the noise of tinkling ice crystals when I checked to see if had warmed up any - of which I have a marvellous view from my apartment window. Needless to say, indoor recess for the kids across the street pretty well all week!

It can get a little scary if you're driving the ice road in ice fog in the dark, as my sister did to get to work. The road takes a sharp turn when it reaches Dettah - apparently ice roads always begin and end with turns, so that waves generated by entering cars do not run the length of the road - but also continues on 10 kms or so to the fish plant. Not that it wouldn't have been possible to turn around and go back, but the lack of orientation when the whole world is white (and dark at the same time) can be disconcerting. She found the turn safely, I'm glad to say.

REALLY Cold...

Ok, I admit it - today was REALLY cold. I still walked to Javaroma, mind you (well wrapped), and the car started for driving to supper at my sister's, but goodness, was it cold! Trudy and Bill thought today/tonight was the coldest they've experienced in their four years. It's the windchill that meteorologists always talk about so glibly, now experienced first hand. So I checked the weather site - and indeed, it's -32 but feels like -47, with overnight temperatures just a little colder. This weather is supposed to last until the end of the week.

Oh well - dress warm, cover your face, wear the big sheepskin gloves. Walking is still surprisingly pleasant. And today there was a partial sun dog around the sun - not unique to Yellowknife, as I've seen them the odd time in Calgary, too - but very pretty. Apparently Aristotle was the first to have written of sun dogs (see Wikipedia Sun dog) - didn't know it ever got that cold in Greece!

Walk to Tuk'!

 
"I walked to Tuk!" is the slogan of the 2013 Mackenzie River Walking Challenge (slogan from the website pictured on the right). "Form a community, schools and workplaces team," advises the website ( Challenge Homepage), "and together ‘walk the distance’ of the Mackenzie River from Fort Providence to Tuktoyaktuk. Teams have from January 7 – March 4, 2013 to collectively walk a total of 1658 km." The Challenge is organized by NWT Recreation and Parks Association (http://nwtrpa.org/rpa/ ), and sponsored by local businesses, including First Air which has donated a flight to be won by some lucky draw participant.

It's quite a distance, and one a person couldn't do as such, certainly not in winter but not in summer either, although it might be possible to boat it, I suspect (but don't know).

My team - "The Arctic Plodders" - is organized by my sister's friend, librarian Erin. Walking achievement is submitted in time rather than distance. The goal, of course, is health, accepting the premise that activity leads to health and that walking is a great activity. I concur - the walking for my almost daily errands amounts to at least 20-30 minutes, sometimes an hour if I go out several times. I suppose that if one can have something against Yellowknife, it's that everything is so close by it might be difficult to get in the requisite time!

The Challenge seems particularly keen on Nordic walking, and the website shows groups of hardy folk poling steadily on snow-covered paths/roads. I do have some poles (ski poles, but hey), and should dig them out. I've found that walking in the cold - even in the -30s - is really quite pleasant, for the most part, as long as one dresses the part.

Should be fun to track the hours and "walk to Tuk!"

My Mom in Yellowknife

Last fall we (my sister and I) tempted the Canadian winter travel gods by suggesting to my 90-year-old mother she consider spending the Christmas season here rather than in her assisted living apartment in the Niagara Peninsula, her home for the last four years. It took a bit of arranging, but the upshot of it was that she arrived on December 8 and departed on January 6, a period which enabled her to attend my concert, take in a few shows at NACC, "do" Christmas and New Year's with family, and celebrate her 91st birthday on January 4th.

The weather gods smiled benignly (whew!! thank you thank you thank you!!) in Toronto, Calgary, Yellowknife, Edmonton, and Toronto again. It must be said right off that the whole undertaking could not have happened without the wonderful contribution of my son Willem, who ferried his grandmother from her apartment to the airport in December and back again in January, the return trip no small feat since it involved a midnight pickup in Toronto the night before his first class. Thank you Willem!! And the Air Canada staff who saw to my mother's well-being in the various stages of the journey were almost universally uncommonly attentive and kind - thanks to them, as well!

So of course the first thing winter visitors from "the south" almost always require is suitable attire. Note the difference in my mother's outerwear in the first picture (waiting in Calgary airport, where I had gone to meet her), and in the second (Yellowknife, my sister having brought the right clothes to the airport):

The polar bear is iconic and must appear in thousands of photos around the world - not that polar bears are native to Yellowknife, but they are to the arctic parts of the Northwest Territories, and since Yellowknife is the capital, it's legit.

We did many things, considering that the first few weeks were indeed very very cold. One day, after we had spent the previous one only indoors, I suggested a walk, if only a short one, on the flat and relatively sheltered path around Niven Lake. Dressing my mom in windpants, parka, hat, mitts, boots, had us both laughing at the Charlie Brown image it invoked, of his falling down in his winter attire and having to be pushed around by Snoopy. That was certainly what it felt like! but such wear does have the advantage of warmth, which is the ultimate goal. So mom at Niven:

We attended a few events at NACC - Timothy Chooi on the violin, the Bella Dance Academy's delightful performance of the Nutcracker - and of course there was loyal support for my choir concert at St Patrick's Catholic church. Here my sister, my mom, and I after that concert:

Other events were more mundane - comparing grocery prices, for example, which to my mom's chagrin turned out to be cheaper here than where she lives:

But the most important part of the visit - besides giving her an impression of where two of her daughters are living - was family. My niece Laura was up from San Francisco - in the first picture she and mom are at Trudy and Bill's enjoying a bit of advocaat (potent Dutch vodka-laced "pudding"), in the second she is relaxing with Bou, in the third about to open her stocking at our family Christmas "do":

 It was a good visit, all told - and we all agree we'd better not tempt those weather gods again!

Ice Road to Dettah

The ice road to Dettah, as mentioned in my last post, shrinks the distance between Yellowknife and Dettah by some 21 kilometers, from 27 to 6. It starts about a 5 minute walk from my house (all of the following images were taken at about 10:00 a.m., with the sun a ball of fire just above the horizon):

The sign tells you: cars only, no trucks! and limits the weight of vehicles allowed. Ice roads are fascinating structures, and even a quick search on the web will provide information on building them (Popular Mechanics at Building Canada's Epic Ice Road; good old Wikipedia at Ice Roads (of the world)). There is danger inherent in driving over ice: at higher speeds, or heavier loads, and especially heavy loads going too fast, the weight generates waves under the surface which can damage the road in various ways. One of the bigger ice roads to the mine does not allow two-way traffic, as the road to Dettah does, but is a loop, because heavy trucks meeting each other generate waves in opposite directions - not a good thing. In addition, global warming is having an effect: the mild winter last year, as I understand it, greatly reduced the time the ice road was in operation and the number of truckloads able to use it. This winter does look better, at least so far.

On the Dettah road the speed limit is a clearly posted 40, and fines for speeding on ice roads are much heavier than on regular roads. For example, on a Yellowknife street going up to10 kms over the limit will draw a $58 fine, while 10 kms over on an ice road will bring a $230 penalty.

 Here are two shots of the first bit of the ice road as it leads to Dettah:

And here are two shots looking back at Yellowknife - the second shows my apartment building:

And, finally - cracks! I was startled to see a very clear, although relatively hairline crack across the road - perhaps a few mm in diameter. Of course ice inevitably cracks, I remember that well from my pond-skating childhood, but to see a crack in a road on which I was walking and had driven was a little disconcerting. Still, I trust the ice road builders, they've done this before and must know what they're doing.