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Post by imec on Nov 6, 2009 18:22:01 GMT
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Post by bixaorellana on Nov 6, 2009 18:29:43 GMT
Oh my goodness! Imec, this is one of the coolest things that's ever been posted on this forum!
Everybody is having such a good time and seem so glad to have been included in the torch passing.
I love the pictures of the terrain, too -- bleak, but beautiful and interesting. Your nephew inherited his Uncle Imec's photo talent! Be sure to let us know what he says about this thread. Better yet, persuade him to get on AnyPort. It would be fascinating to hear about life up there.
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Post by imec on Nov 6, 2009 18:36:00 GMT
Hope he doesn't mind me stealing his pics off of Facebook .
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Post by Deleted on Nov 6, 2009 19:02:15 GMT
That's a great event for such a place, but it has a very nice airport terminal. The first time I landed in the Maldives, the terminal had no walls -- it was just a roofed shack open to the wind. The airport bar was a man sitting at a table in front of a refrigerator.
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Post by imec on Nov 6, 2009 19:06:04 GMT
Walls are a necessity here unless you are on good terms with Polar Bears.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 6, 2009 19:13:13 GMT
Wow, thanks for sharing those, imec. So interesting. I have a cousin who lives in Yellow Knife, she works in a hospital up there. I imagine the winters must be quite harsh, although one gets used to them.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 6, 2009 19:14:17 GMT
Have you ever been up to Nunavut?
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Post by Deleted on Nov 6, 2009 19:26:26 GMT
When is the torch coming to you, Deyana?
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Post by Deleted on Nov 6, 2009 19:30:21 GMT
Later on this month, K. I believe.
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Post by imec on Nov 6, 2009 19:37:11 GMT
Have you ever been up to Nunavut? I have not, but Mrs. I has been. Each year she has a couple of her students assigned to the Northern Health Unit in Repulse Bay, which is managed by the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority. She's on the left in this pic:
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Post by Deleted on Nov 6, 2009 19:39:59 GMT
That must be quite the experience, going up so far North.
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Post by cristina on Nov 6, 2009 19:57:01 GMT
Fabulous photos, imec. Thanks so much for your Facebook thievery! Btw, my SIL lived in the booming metropolis of Iqaluit, Nunavut for almost 10 years when she was in the RCMP. She described having non-perishable food items delivered 2 or 3 times a year and having a sea-locker to store it in - basically a trailer home filled with flour, rice, beans etc. I imagine your nephew and his wife live a similar experience?
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Post by imec on Nov 6, 2009 20:04:14 GMT
It's improved somewhat in terms of deliveries, but there's no question, they don't live like we do. It's sad that kids in these communities are often malnourished due to the poor availability of fresh produce and milk etc. - while there's no shortage of pop, chips etc... Mrs. I took various fresh fruit on her visit, some items of which were completely new to some of the residents.
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Post by lagatta on Nov 13, 2009 12:55:35 GMT
I have a cousin (who's mum is an Inuk) who is working up in Iqaluit. I've never been to Nunavut, but I have worked up in Nunavik - Arctic Québec. The tropics compared to these pics - it is at the tree line and there are little conifers like bushes.
Oh, how I love the traditional parkas, handmade from sealskin and other furs!
People who have hunters in the family and still eat a traditional game-based diet are in good health, but the stuff that comes up from the "South" (down here) have very severe nutritional problems, as do northern First Nations (Indian) communities. There is as you can imagine a lot of diabetes and heart disease among those communities - there have been a few success stories about such communities turning this around - a documentary was made about one. Another problem - less known than abuse of alcohol, illegal drugs and solvents when the former are banned (alas a problem in Indigenous communities around the world), is the harm done by second-hand smoke, as people are smoking indoors in close quarters. The little windows of those houses have triple glazing.
Some of you may have read an amazing story - it was in the Guardian as well as Canadian papers - about a 17-year-old Inuit hunter who managed to survive on an ice floe for almost 3 days and actually shot a polar bear who was on the same bit of ice floe. The young man and his uncle, an experienced hunter, were rescued and are recovering in hospital in Churchill, northern Manitoba. Imec, have you been up to Churchill?
Churchill is named for John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, an ancestor of Winston Churchill, who was governor of the Hudson's Bay Company in the late seventeenth century. (No, it is not a renaming from the postwar period, as many might think). A railway goes up there, and it isn't just for tourists - also for exports and as a shipping point to Arctic communities.
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Post by bixaorellana on Nov 13, 2009 16:07:49 GMT
This whole area of North America is so extremely interesting. Thank you for a closer look at it and its culture, LaGatta. I'd love to hear more.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 13, 2009 21:16:15 GMT
After global warming has reached its apogee, those will be the only places left anyway.
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