Recycling On My Bicycle - how coolly green is that!

Today - another beautiful semi-sunny, slightly breezy day - I loaded some of my recycling onto my cheery bike and did a tour about town. First off, I zoomed out of the parking lot, down the hill and around the rock, and stopped at the recycling depot. It's right by the Old Town community garden, mere minutes away. Almost Dutch, what the bike can transport!

I must say that recycling in Yellowknife is a bit confusing - newspaper, tin, glass, sure; boxboard, white paper - what counts as boxboard (versus corrugated cardboard), what is not white paper? Plastics - yes, but only #s 2, 3, 5, and 7, and not if they're ketchup or syrup bottles. And I understand that envelopes - "mixed paper"? - can't be recycled. There's a more detailed guide on the web, but that's not entirely helpful if you're standing with your stuff in front of minimally signed blue bins. However - and this is a plus - there is a "Compost Only" bin at the landfill (more on the famous "Yellowknife Dump" in another posting). So things are on the right track, even if there's some room for improvement in the system.

Next I dropped in on Down to Earth Gallery - right next to the larger and more touristy Gallery of the Midnight Sun - to see if I could locate some copies of Triumph of the Chill, a wonderful short DVD on the making of the famous Snow Castle on Yellowknife Bay every March. Unfortunately they were out, but "Tony" (the Snowking himself) will be contacted to see if there are still copies available. You can watch a trailer of the video on the Snowking site - http://snowking.ca/ - and better yet, come up for this marvellous winter celebration!

Then I thought I'd go to TJ's Nut House for a latte - using the preferred Yellowknife way of giving directions by places rather than streets, I'll just say he's located "on the government dock in Old Town" -

but alas, for good reasons the place was closed:

Of course, now having connections in Yellowknife, I knew that Janet, owner of Tangletree Gallery and my new fibre arts heroine, was away this weekend, so that was no surprise.
 

Speaking of being away - it's one of the many things I like about Yellowknife, namely that if someone is away, or sick, it's not business as usual. People are not replaceable - if they're available to do what they normally do, that's fine; if not, you just have to wait until they are. So the other day Frankie's illness had an impact on the offerings at the Gourmet Cup Beverage Station in the basement of the YK Centre:

The Light - and Bugs.

Some of you have asked about these two aspects of life in Yellowknife: what's the light like??? and: how are the bugs???

Second question first: the bugs aren't bad, at least not yet, at least not in the city, at least not on the boat, and even - at least - not during the hikes we did in fairly breezy conditions. I've had two no-see-um bites, I think - actually, I'm pretty sure, because I react badly to them and I remember them very well, all too well, from a camping vacation in Vermont in June of 1989. Which brings me to this: even if there are bugs, as I am sure there are, there are worse places in the world for bugs, and I've been in them: mosquito masses in the Hardanger Vida in Norway, flea hordes in my otherwise picturesque Amsterdam rooming house, uncountable because unseeable no-see-ums in the northeastern US states. So far, Yellowknife has been relatively paradisical by comparison.

The light - well, here are a few pictures. My camera is getting old and doesn't do the light justice, but the images do give an impression of the night sky in summer.

First the sun going down between 11:30 and midnight (that's the school across the street below the setting sun):

Then sunset, perhaps up to an hour later :

Finally, night around 3:00 a.m. at which time the streetlights are on, in my view unnecessarily (it's actually somewhat lighter than the picture shows). People water the garden across the street after midnight some evenings, some evenings kids sit and talk - summer just seems to be a different time.

The Quilting Course I took with Susan Carlson on June 20-22 was marvellous - eleven of us (one woman flew down from Inuvik, another was an 86-year-old grandmother from Oakville visiting her family!) and the instructor, sequestered for two evenings and one full day in the workshop room of Quilters Getaway.

Susan Carlson is internationally known for the collage quilts she is showing us here (check out her website at http://www.susancarlson.com/Welcome.html).

 In essence, Susan paints with fabric - snippets (and we are talking some seriously small snippets here) arranged impressionistically to create a stunning image. She had us going full tilt within the hour, in my class creating turtles (a few more experienced women insisted on doing fish), in the second class creating sun or moon portraits. Janet created a stunning fish out of silk she dyes herself, and Pat was including some wonderfully googly felted eyes on hers. All of the creations were unique and entirely stunning.

My - as yet unfinished - turtle is pictured below, with a close-up. I had thought I would call it or him or her "Psyche," as a tribute to our own multifaceted beings. But after reading The Globe and Mail today I am leaning towards "George," to honour "Lonesome George" who recently died at 100 in the Charles Darwin research centre in the Galapagos. Turtles are wonderfully mysterious creatures linking us to ancient life forms beyond our ken - and I'll have to reflect on whether my creation does that ancient wisdom justice.

More Fibre-Arts Inspiration

This afternoon the Prince of Wales Museum hosted local artists to show off their skills, so it gave me an opportunity to expand my knowledge of what's happening in the arts scene in Yellowknife. In the process I re-met some recent quilt guild acquaintances and met some new folk as well.

From the quilt guild there was Pat the Felter, making the most delightful sea creatures. With Donna and Hazel, whom I had also met on Thursday, we had an inspirational chat exchanging ideas and techniques and wondering "how do you do that!?:" and oohing about "so that's how you do that!" Turns out we know some of the same teachers, our beloved Lynn Pflueger among them. So much to learn, so many people to learn from!

That's Pat doing the felting; to her right is Donna, and Hazel has her back to the camera.

At the next table was Janet Procure, of Tangletree Gallery (and Fibre Art Studio: check it all out at http://www.tangletreegallery.com/). Janet was dyeing silk, but she also paints and felts and does other cool stuff (snow dyeing?). Turns out I had connected with her already: she M-Ced the Fascinator Show this past Tuesday in which I participated! But even more fun - she's been wanting to get together a fashion show in the fall of fashion made - not just sold but made - right here in Yellowknife. Of course that was right up my alley, and I will be exploring possibilities with her in the near future. What fun!

There's Pat demonstrating silk dyeing to some interested children, with samples of her work in the background and on the left (very small), a sign advertising Tangletree.

About-town with my Electra!

Today I took out my new bicycle for the first time, to do errands, attend events, have coffee, and look at some sights. The Electra is wonderful: it rides well, but even more, the yellow background with orange butterflies and green tire rims delight not only me but others - as one young woman said: "That's the coolest bike I've ever seen!"

It's great to be able to bike about, especially in Yellowknife's beautiful weather as it was today: temperature in the mid-teens, a delightful breeze, one half of the sky with white clouds, the other the brightest blue.

First stop: the Book Cellar to buy a Saturday Globe and Mail and the most recent Yellowknifer. Next stops (no pictures): over to the Prince of Wales Museum to catch some more of the 8th Annual NACC Festival of Stories: first up were Michael Kusugak with some Inuit stories he had learned from his grandmother, and Scott McQueen about his father's adventures as a champion dogsled racer in the 1960s. Next a latte at Javaroma, to fuel the rest of the ride.

Both of these pictures are of the Old Town Community Garden, the first established of currently three community gardens in Yellowknife. Things are starting to grow! it's a much shorter and more intense season than it might be in other parts of Canada, although I do remember that in PEI, when I worked at a greenhouse there in the summer of 1976, serious gardening really only started in early June.

Final stop: Yellowknife Bay, with houseboats in the distance. Note the blue sky in the pictures above, and the clouds in the picture below. Pictures were taken only minutes apart, of different halves of the sky.

Yellowknife Quilters Guild - my goodness, am I going to enjoy these women!

Tonight was the AGM of the Yellowknife Quilters Guild, one of the world's most northern quilt guilds (check them out at http://www.ykquiltersguild.ca/). I walked up with Donna MacDonald, who just happens to live in my building, who just happens to be the organizer for the out-of-town instructors and with whom I therefore had already been emailing about next week's workshop, and who just happens to have made the quilt that my sister bought for me at the Guild Christmas Sale back in 2008!

Synchronicity again.

One part of any gathering is "show and tell" - and were there quilts to show and tell! Collaboration with one of the grade schools, Weledeh right by my building, had produced six beautiful pieces, made by children under 13 (some in grades 3 and 4), which will be donated to the Alison MacAteer House, Yellowknife's shelter for women fleeing family violence. The picture below shows one of the quilts in detail - I love the impression of randomness resulting from the un-square squares!

Two other women had made very different but stunning quilts. One displayed her sense of humor in the quilt for her soon-to-be born grandson, stressing, as she unfolded it, that her grandson's parents were Democrats! (check out the block in the very top left corner... in case you can't make it out, I took a close-up).

The other had done exquisite hand work on a quilt that took her two years - the detail of the flowers is truly stunning. I've included a close-up of the bleeding hearts that are in the bottom row, centre block. Hand stitched! amazing!

Donna is a dyeing enthusiast; the first person to whom she introduced me, Pat, is a felting enthusiast. I am going to learn lots and lots and lots, I can tell that already. 

Day 2 (June 2) - Grande Prairie to Hay River, a good 750 kilometers (written a good week after my arrival in Yellowknife - just catching up on the trip!)

Good road, some rain, some transport trucks, a few campers likely doing the Alaska highway, some local traffic (mostly pickups), the farm land of the Peace River Country gradually transitioning into Aspen Parkland. Beautiful.

Not far out of Grande Prairie is the Dunvegan Bridge spanning the Peace River. In the shadow of the bridge is Dunvegan Provincial Park, one of Alberta's earliest fur trade posts and missionary centres dating back to 1805. Still intact are the Factor's House and the St. Charles Rectory and Church (1867); "Our Lady of Peace" keeps serene watch over a serene setting.

It's been a dry spring - I mentioned that before - and we passed a number of forest fires. Particularly High Level was very smoky because of a fire west of the highway. And the following day there was one near Behchoko of which we could see the flames shooting over the tops of trees. When a fire does not actually threaten a community, however, it is allowed to burn itself out - a reminder that fire is one of nature's ways of rejuvenating a forest.

Of course everyone has to have their picture taken at the 60th parallel - and I'm no exception, as after all this blog is called "North of Sixty."

If you drive rather than fly up, you'll stop at the information centre just behind the sign, and you just might meet Elsie Bouvier from Hay River working the booth. While she didn't know Rosalie directly, she knew Rosalie's sister Karen, who had taught all of Elsie's seven children. Connections - the North just might be a small world in a big space.

One final stop on the stretch between the border and Hay River, the town: Twin Falls Gorge Park on Hay River, the river. Beautiful. Quiet. Wonderfully quiet.

We spent the night with Rosalie's family, Karen and Jack. Supper: lake trout freshly caught in the east arm of Great Slave lake, roasted over an open fire. Delicious!!

Garden Parties and Fiddle Cats and Fascinators - from the sublime to the ridiculous?

During June the City of Yellowknife hosts a "Garden Party" themed event every Tuesday evening, 6-8 p.m., at Somba K'e, a lovely small civic park beside City Hall. Background for the amphitheatre is Frame Lake and the Prince of Wales Museum, an interesting building in its own right. Artists and groups come out with activities (mask-making, hula-hoop dancing, a lemonade stand contest), there's food, and a bring-your-own barbeque on the City's grill, if that's what you choose to do instead of buying the picnic lunch "The Nut Man" has for sale.

Last evening's theme was "The Queen's Diamond Jubilee" (Will and Kate certainly having inspired support for the House of Windsor during their visit here), and there was a Fascinator Contest. Although I am no royalist myself, I AM a good sport, and so I agreed to wear a fascinator if one was made for me. My sister's friend Brenda was true to her word, and showed up with fascinators for all in her party. Not only did I wear mine, but I participated in the fashion show!  Two pictures below: me, and Brenda and her friend Liz.

Most fun of all, though, was the entertainment. First up were the fiddlers: the Aurora Fiddlers are an adult group, the kids - just lovely little kids, some barely as big as their fiddles - are the Fiddle Cats, and their music was wonderful, each group by itself and in a few numbers together.

The second and final hour was filled by "The Committed", also known as "Saviours of Northern Soul." They're good, they're just plain good - great fun. The music got a lot of the kids up to dance, and the dancers were wonderful, too. And for one of the numbers, the fiddlers - young and old - got on stage and joined in! It must be something about summer nights in the North - you think? - that brings out the party in the person. In case you were wondering, yes, that is Minister for Justice Glen Abernethy on bass guitar. Apparently the Premier was planning to come but something got in the way.

Politics in NWT - Fascinating. Substantive. Respectful. Inspirational.Amazing!

Today I sat in on a third day of the current session of the Territorial Legislature (last week I had some extra time, today it was pure interest). It's a wonderful way to get acquainted with my new home - a crash course in current issues facing "The North" generally, and the North West Territories specifically. The rising Liard River forcing evacuations. The state of Hwy #7 (gravel and permafrost heaves, I gather). Patient transportation in remoter communities (most NWT communities) - ATVs and pickups. The cost overruns and construction delays on the Deh Cho bridge, which will replace the MacKenzie River ferry before most of you get around to driving up here. The water purification needs of Enterprise (home of "Winnie's" and her famous buttertarts) - currently Enterprise buys water from Hay River. The cost of gas, i.e. transportation - $1.88 in Inuvik. Local food initiatives (http://www.farmnwt.com/: who "south" knows that there is a Territorial Farmers Association? that "food sustainability" and "local food" are debated issues? that there is arable land in NWT? that  residents in Yellowknife want bylaws changed to allow for raising "urban chickens"?).

The NWT political system - the consensus model - ought to be adopted by the rest of Canada. There are 19 MLAs, each elected on their own individual merits (imagine if that applied federally!). These 19, by secret ballot, choose a Speaker, a Premier, and six Ministers, in that order. The remainder of the MLAs form "the opposition" - so the Opposition is always bigger than the Government. The Government proposes legislation, the Opposition critiques, raises issues, seeks to get Ministers to devise remedies. Debate goes through the Speaker and is - based on my three days of observation - always substantive and always respectful.

Today was extra special: much of the debate in the Legislature centred around the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a federal commission charged with documenting the awful legacy of the residential schools. A good third of NWT MLAs, including the Premier, are "Residential School Survivors" - and all who ever attended residential schools are called, and call themselves, survivors. The legacy goes beyond the possibly somewhat more widely known stories of physical and sexual abuse: the cascading effect of separating parents and children generation after generation, of institutionalizing the development of children who would of course grow up to be future parents, has had an unimaginably devastating effect. How does one learn how to parent when one is not parented oneself? I imagined myself, I imagined Willem, taken away at six years old, to a harsh and forbidding environment that understood its mandate as erasing who each of us were. I shuddered.

At the mid-afternoon ceremony officially thanking the members of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission for their work, and honoring the survivors "who have shared their suffering with great dignity in order to promote healing and reconciliation," MC Norman Yakeleya (MLA Sahtu) introduced himself as a school survivor, "#153." This prompted Premier McLeod to mention the two schools he had attended, where he was #15 and #44 respectively; but at 14 he had also met his wife there, and they are still married (appreciative laughter from the crowd). There is actually a lot of humor - humor, said Yakeleya, got us through.

There are so many wonderful things to learn, here.

A good day's work setting up the sewing room, or fabric arts studio, or whatever my mood inspires me to call it. It's not done yet, but much of it is in place. My goodness, there's a lot of fabric (not all of it would fit into the picture). I have vowed that by the time I move again, whenever that is, there will be less... so now to decide on product, to execute, and to find market for said product!

One problem to solve, yet, is to ensure that the extensive summer light doesn't fade the fabrics. That wasn't a problem in the basement - but then again, the basement wasn't as pleasant a work room as this one will surely be. So that will be next week's project. In the meantime, I'll keep the shade down when not actually using the room.

And here's the massive sewing table. Can't wait to use it!

The view - part of the view, off to the right - is of Back Bay, as it's called. It is separated from Yellowknife Bay (which goes into Great Slave Lake) at the one end by a causeway that joins Old Town and Latham Island; at the other it is simply part of Yellowknife Bay. In the far far far distance a row of powerlines (ubiquitous marks of human civilization) marches over the horizon.  From my balcony I can see float planes and sailboats; and sometimes I can watch seagulls from the top rather than from the bottom!

Coffee in the afternoon - an important ritual not to be neglected, especially when one is in major transition. So I just made and enjoyed my very first afternoon coffee in my new apartment - sat in one of the several "sit and reflect" pods that I'm in the process of setting up - and it felt very very good.

Thursday - this past Thursday - was move-in day. The fellows from Matco showed up promptly at 8:30 as agreed, they were done just before 3:30. Nice guys, obliging and conscientious, not to mention strong. Very few hiccups - a scratch here and there, probably the worst was that some water had gotten into "the cube" en route, but fortunately there was very little damage, and of that even less to things that really mattered.

The only glitsch in putting pieces where I really wanted them was that the truly massive sewing table I had bought just before I left Calgary was seemingly too big to be put into the room which I'm setting up as my fabric arts studio (my, that sounds pretentious). Despite valiant efforts by the moving guys, who took it on as a personal challenge, it was a "no go." However, the sewing table hadn't counted on the determination and ingenuity of my brother-in-law Bill - in the evening we tackled it again, and between us decided that a) taking the top off (saving 1.75"), b) taking one set of wheels off (saving another 2"), and c) removing the bathroom door opposite to enable some sophisticated "back-up and tilt" manoeuvres might just do the trick. And so it did - the table is now in the designated room. We will need to remember how we got it in there, should I need to take it out; as Willem commented, "disassemble table, disassemble apartment" should do the trick.

Meanwhile, my sister Trudy and her friend Sue tackled unpacking boxes for the kitchen, and much of that area is now set up. It's wonderful to have that kind of support!

The view from my apartment is lovely - in the 180 degree arc there's a bit of Old Town and Back Bay, a school and school yard, the newest community garden (there are 3), downtown, and in the distant horizon a line that is Great Slave Lake. I thought I had gotten some pics from Rosalie - but if there were downloaded, I can't find them! Pictures next time.

Back to unpacking.

Day 1 (June 1): Calgary to Grande Prairie, with a stop in Edmonton to pick up Rosalie.

It's a trip I've done before, though in segments and some of it longer ago: the 300 kms from Calgary to Edmonton as familiar as the back of my hand, the roughly 450 kms from Edmonton to Grande Prairie last driven with Alan on our first holiday together back in 2000. And it's a trip I love - the vistas of land and sky that make the Alberta landscape.

The valley view at Valleyview, between Edmonton and Grande Prairie. At the tourist information booth I bought the 2012 edition of Milepost, "the" Bible for anyone driving north. Thanks Alane (intrepid northern traveller)! for the recommendation.

A previous post shows Rosalie and me eating ice cream in Whitecourt - well, here is the Burger Baron where we got it. Rosalie says that it's an important rural Alberta experience to have a soft ice cream from a Burger Baron - and she's right. Of course, Rosalie knows: she grew up in Neerlandia, one of the many smaller towns roughly north of Edmonton, and it has a Burger Baron!

Space. Distance. Sky. Road. Trees. More trees. Somewhat different trees. Water. Ponds. Creeks. Rivers. Lakes. Ducks. Two Sandhill Cranes. Bison. More Bison. Lots of Bison. A forest fire. People watching the forest fire from the top of their trucks. Several forest fires, it's been a dry and early spring. The fire fighters cleaned "Winnie's" in Enterprise (still some 450 kms from Yellowknife) out of her famous buttertarts that my sister asked me to pick up for her on our way. Winnie knows Rosalie, but then again, Rosalie knows everyone.
So much to see, so much to experience, so much to learn, in this vast land that is our Canada!

So I've arrived in Yellowknife, safe and sound. A comfortable three-day trip of 1700 kilometers, and not a boring moment. Trip pictures, in rough chronological order, will follow! since I'm not entirely an experienced blog poster, bear with my efforts, or shut me down.... the beauty of a blog, isn't it. With the exception of two pictures, I'll make separate posts for the three days.

The start - packing "The Durango" for the trip.  My most precious belongings come with me directly - my best sewing machines, the hard drive of my main computer, the most current business files, my photo album of Alan. Underneath everything - the plate glass top of my fabric design table. Who knew the darn thing could be SO heavy!

The finish - raising my fists in victory in Yellowknife! We made it, arriving at 5:20 on Sunday June 3. The Durango enjoying its well-deserved rest beside Trudy and Bill's house.