Parka making

The girls of Igloolik have decided to make parkas. Laura, Larissa and Maren decided to make some parkas before the onset of the cold weather. It is Larissa's first year and she decided to make a winter parka for herself. Maren is making a parka for Jay, her boyfriend, as a birthday gift from last year. Laura is making a parka that she will be able to wear back in the South when we return.


Laura and Meeka are helping Larissa size the fur around the hood of her parka. She bought the fur from Northern store and it cost about $25 a foot (it wasn't cheap).


Laura adjusting the sleeve on her parka. She wasn't happy with the location of the trim on her sleeve and actually took it all off and moved it further up her arm.


Meeka helping Laura with the sewing machine. Some stitches around the arms and the zippers were very tough but the girls managed to do a very good job.


Meeka cutting the fur from Larissa's hood.


Maren, Meeka and Larissa busy in Laura's sewing room (also known as our kitchen). It was very enjoyable having the girls over all the time to sew. I am not being sarcastic at all (maybe a little...)


The finished parka!


The back of the finished parka. Notice the pointed hood. Traditionally, every community in Nunavut would have their own style of parka. Igloolik was well known for their pointed hoods but they were traditionally only put on the hoods of the males.


Meeka and Laura enjoying a smile after the job was finally done. Laura got a lot of help from Meeka and Karen during the making of her parka. She is very grateful for all the time Meeka spent with her on the making of her parka. To practice her skills, Laura is now making me a parka for the spring time.

Fishing for some lakers

Well, it has been a while since my last post and that is probably because it has been a while since I have had any luck catching fish. This past weekend, I went fishing Saturday and Sunday and didn't catch a single fish. We went to a lake where people were taking out 10-20lb Arctic Char out of nets but nothing was biting when we were jigging.

My luck changed today. We had the day off for Rememberance Day so Marty and I decided to go fishing out on the land. We had to cross the sea ice which finally froze a couple of weeks ago. The ride is about 50 kms away over the ice and then over land the land to a small lake. We were very lucky to find an Inuit family who showed us the way to the lake. Luckily, we had a GPS that tracked our journey because the weather got bad and we had some "interesting" turns on the way.

And remember, we only have about 5 hours of sunlight now so that is only a couple of hours of fishing after you finally get to the spot!


Here is Marty with a couple of Lake Trout. These pictures were taken moments after we got back. Does everybody notice the light? It was only 4:00pm and we had been driving in the dark for about an hour.


Here is the laker I was lucky enough to catch. It's the only fish I saw but it was big enough for me.


Here are the 3 fish that Marty and I caught The Inuit family we were with each caught a fish as well. The Inuit family also emptied their net from another lake today and had about 30 fish in their qomatiq. They had a lot of fish.


Marty and I cleaning the fish. It was nice to clean something that was bigger than 1lb.


Marty cooking up the fish. Marty, Ellen, Laura and I had a fish fry for dinner tonight. It was good!