Twenty-Four Hours on the Bear

This is the first fish I caught on my September trip to Great Bear Lake. We hadn’t been on the water for an hour when Ron Oe (pronounced exactly as it’s spelled: ohh-eee) stopped his boat. We were about halfway to our destination for that night. The sun was getting low but Ron just had to try for a few grayling. This, he assured me, was the best spot on the river. Ron got a bite on his second cast. My line got tangled on my second cast. Within minutes, Ron had two small grayling in the boat (each about two pounds). He took my crappy fishing rod from me and gave me one of his spares. Within a few more minutes, we each had a fish on our lines. But while Ron was having little trouble reeling his in, my rod was doubled over.

“I must have a snag!” I said. And then I felt the fish pull away. The brake on the reel allows line to come off rather than snapping. The fish was pulling the line off almost as fast as I could wind it on. Ron got his grayling in the boat and then came to assist me. We had no dip net, so I maneuvered the fish to the side of the boat, and Ron hooked his fingers under the gills and pulled it into the boat. I was swearing like a sailor and Ron, through his laughter, mumbled “language.” I later found out Ron is a Christian. So I felt a bit guilty after that. But it was still an amazing experience. I was later told that it is very, very unusual to catch a bull trout on the river. It weighed in at 13 pounds, in case you were wondering.

Later that night we went to stay at Ron's friend's cabin. During World War Two, the Americans mined uranium for one of the atomic bombs from the far eastern side of Great Bear Lake. They used a barge to carry the ore across the lake, down Great Bear River, and down the Mackenzie. But one section of Great Bear River is too shallow for a barge. So the Americans built a road around that section. Bennie’s cabin is on the western end of that road. You can still see a couple of run-down buildings from the camp. Bennie has written “Jesus Loves You” on the roof of one of them. Bennie’s cabin is where the mess-hall used to be. Ron and I stayed in his guest cabin: a small building I assume was left by the Americans which Bennie has fixed up.


Bennie was our guide through the rapids the next day. It wasn’t really rapids per say. Just water that is about three and four feet deep on average, with the occasional rock jutting above the surface. The water is crystal clear, and sometimes the bottom seemed dangerously close.
When we came to the lake, it was like glass. The wake from our boat was no match for the stillness. I thought we would stir up the whole area, but the wake just petered out to be replaced by stillness that stretched to the horizon.
Bennie and Ron warned me it would be cold on the lake. I had been expecting huge swells. Eventually I had to take off my coat. The sky was completely clear, as was the water. I could easily see bottom ten feet eblow us. We would see schools of five and six trout swimming past us as we were trolling. A minute later, all three of our rods would double over with ten pound trout. I caught four all together that day, but lost many, many more.

Peace on Earth

There was a light dusting of snow on the ground when I got up this morning. More than frost. The knid of snow that completely covers dirt roads and roofs, but still looks patchy on grass. It made the whole world seem peaceful, dispite the fact that:

a. North Korea now has the bomb.

b. All the pepsi, water, and milk in our last two barge containers may already be frozen solid.

c. I have to be at work in 15 minutes to finish counting all the general merchandise (anything that isn't food) in the store.

d. The boss and his wife are coming over for Thanksgiving dinner and our carpet is polka-dotted with pee-stains from the dog (who I swear is now housebroken).

Happy Thanksgiving!

Nicole's Sprained Ankle

It has been far too long since I have posted. I think I've had writer's block since my fishing trip to Great Bear Lake. Recording the story is too monumental a task, but expect an abridged version soon.

Last Sunday, Nicole, Macky and I set out for our weekly walk. When I brought Macky home, I invisioned taking her for a walk every night. At that time, I was getting off work around seven, and the puppy could barely walk across the room without falling asleep. Now Nicole takes her for a walk every night. I'm the one who can't walk across the room without falling asleep. Sunday is about the only day I get to take her out for a walk

The Northern Store's property, once the property of the Hudson's Bay Company since God knows when, is at the top of a hill looking out over the river. There is a steep bank with a well worn path that runs down to the road. We usually run down this path to get to the beach. Only last Sunday, as Nicole was going down the hill, she rolled her ankle at the bottom.

It was clear within a few mninutes that she had sprained her anke. I got her shoe off and we sood there by the side of the road debating what to do. I was going to get the truck when someone passed by and offered us a lift.

We didn't get to the health center until the next morning. We could have gone and got the nurses to look at it, but there wasn't much they could do anyway. Monday morning they took a few x-rays (which didn't turn out), gave Nicole some crutches and something to wrap her ankle with, and sent her home. Now, a week later, she can still barely get around. A nasty green coloured bruise is forming on her still-swolen ankle. There is no word from Yellowknife on the second set of x-rays taken on Wednesday.

The nurses have been good. They said if there was a problem, someone from Yellowknife would have contacted them immediately. Unfortunately, a sprained ankle is worse than a break or a fracture. It takes longer to heal, and because there is no cast, it is easier to bump or reinjure the ankle.

So the house is a state right now. I've been doing my best to get meals and keep things clean, but it isn't easy. Mackey finally chewed into the stuffing of her favorite toy: a stuffed bone with a smiley face I have dubbed "boner." So right now there's a sink full of dirty dishes, and the living room floor is covered with balls of fluff.

Work isn't much better. The new guy the company sent to work with us quit after a month, and the part-time produce guy is off work for a month because of surgery to his wrist. But life goes on. We're plodding along, and still meeting all our budgeted sales figures. I have to go over for a few minutes today to get the freezers ready for Thanksgiving turkeys. MMMMMM. Turkeys.

But it's all worth it becuase tomorrow I'm ready to pay off my line of credit in one fell swoop, and possibly a large chunk of my student loan as well. Once we're out of debt, we can tell the whole world to kiss our aaa....ankles.

Hand Games

Labour Day Weekend is the biggest weekend of the year in Tulita. Every year the town hosts the National Hand Games Championship. It’s a three-day tournament with teams from all over the Northwest Territories and Northern Alberta competing for a 25,000 prize. It’s also a weekend of gambling and drunkenness for those who attend.

Hand Games is a misleading name. It’s a single game played by two teams of eight. It’s sort of a variation of Three-Card Monte. The basic premise is for one player to hide a stick in one of his hands, and for the other team to guess which hand it is in. It sounds like a two-player game. But at first, all eight pretend to have the stick, and the other team narrows it down one by one.

I first saw this played when we were living in our old house. I heard traditional drumming and singing coming from the community hall one Sunday night, so I went over to take a look. The players were seated in two semi circles, facing each other. Two young boys, about ten years old, were kneeling at the center, facing each other, bouncing up and down to the rhythm of the drumming. One would hide his hands behind his back, under his shirt, and under his arm-pits. Finally, after much writhing and twisting, he would present his two fists to the other team. The other ten-year-old would point to one fist or the other. When he was right, he would win the stick. Games go to a predetermined score, generally about fifteen points.

I’m sure you can see the potential for gambling here. Spectators can bet on individual hands in the game, on the outcome of each game, or the championship of the tournament. And with the tournament comes other events. Endless cookouts, house parties, and a big bingo for the ladies, which took place yesterday.

Of course, like any other time something is happening in town, I’m stuck in the store. I went in Saturday morning at 8:30, as usual. We open at ten. Before long we were hit with a rush of women trying to withdraw cash from the ATM. They also bought coffee, gum, Hawkins Cheesies and bingo dabbers. Those still in line near the top of the hour urged me to hurry, told me to keep the change, and then sprinted for the arena.

Men and women from out of town made all sorts of requests for odd and obscure brands of cigarettes. I had no idea there were so many name brands of smokes, each in 20 or 25 packs, king size, and various degrees of mildness and flavours.

“DO you have lucky 7’s extra mild king size?”

“Ahhhh, no. What’s the closest thing to that in DuMaurier or Players?”

“Just give me DuMaurier king size.”

At one slow point in the afternoon, I went to get a coffee. Some out-of-towner was filling up several cups of coffee.

“Will ten bucks pay for all of this?”

I did the math in my head (no small task for me).

“Yeah, you’ll be fine. Are you in the tournament?”

“Not really. I’m here with our team. Trying to sober them up a bit before they play. We got three thousand bucks on the line and all they care about is dumping more booze down their throats.”

Each community that sends a team sponsors them. There is an entrance fee of a thousand dollars or more. I’m not sure why some communities paid more than others.

At seven on Saturday night I had to make a delivery of pop to the arena. There were trucks all over the parking lot. Several women were cooking moose and fish over three smoking barrels. Folding tables protected by blue tarps were covered with freshly butchered moose. The head of a cow moose lay next to unrecognizable cuts of flesh, waiting to be cooked.

I could hear the drumming and chanting as soon as I got out of the truck. People were streaming in and out of the arena. As I walked inside, the vibrations of the drums started to reverberate in my chest. You have seen and heard drumming and chanting on TV, but until you are in the same room you will never understand the energy that comes with this. The only thing I can compare it to is a rock concert. Everyone’s attention is focused on the game. It is hypnotizing. I wanted to stay and watch, but instead I was carting loads of pop to the canteen. I briefly saw the two teams staring each other down. The fellow hiding the stick looked as if he were in a state of either pain or ecstasy. His eyes were rolling back in his head and his neck was twisting at odd angles. His arms were flailing about in rhythm to the drumming as he tried to hide the stick.

On Saturday night they had a talent show. This wasn’t your usual talent show. First they had a love song contest, where men and women got up and sang traditional love songs in native languages. Some of the songs were jokes, although the punch line was beyond me. Then they had an animal calling contest. Each participant stood up, announced the animal they would be calling, and then did their performance. Again, many were jokes, although I didn’t get the jokes. Nevertheless, it was great to get out into a carnival atmosphere.

The store has been unbelievably busy. We were supposed to close for the holiday Monday. There is no such thing as a long weekend when you work with this company, because it is against store policy to close two days in a row (the one exception being Christmas and Boxing Day). So we opened this afternoon for a “half-day.” Although the store was only open four hours, we came in an hour early, and stayed two hours after close. I guess when you work fourteen-hour days, only working seven hours is technically a half-day. Now the boss has decided to open the store tomorrow afternoon because so many people will be leaving town. It will again be a “half-day,” so at least I get to sleep in. Oh well. I’ll appreciate my weekends and evenings even more in a few years time when I get a nine to five job.

Sad Week

It was a bad week in Tulita. It was a bad couple of weeks. There was a plane crash last week. All six on board were killed. One of the people was a fellow from Tulita. It all started the week before that, when several people from Fort Good Hope were killed in a boating accident. Some guy who just got out of jail thought it would be a good idea to go drinking and boating on the Mackenzie. He killed himself and two others. One made it to shore alive.

When there’s a funeral in this area, a lot of people go. So planeloads of people from the surrounding communities showed up in Good Hope for the funeral. The plane that crashed was full of people leaving Good Hope after the funeral.

So on Thursday they held a funeral for the fellow from Tulita who was killed. He had a wife and three young kids. I recognized him from the store as soon as I saw pictures. He worked for the phone company. He had even been in our old house to hook up our phone.

I also had seen the pilot around. He was one of the young kids who fly for the local airline. I think he was the guy who flew us into Tulita. Chances are it was even the plane we had flown in, because they only have one six-seater, and they only use it when the other planes are full or unavailable.

I waited on the phone guy’s daughter in the days after the accident. She came into the store, like she does almost every day, to buy candy. I used to tease her. I’d ask her for ID if she were buying Popeye candy cigarettes. You get to know certain kids (the nice ones at least) and joke with them. But I wasn’t sure what to say to her this time. So I just tried to smile and ring in her hot chocolate.

One day after the store had closed, they brought his body back to town. I saw a truck go by with the casket on back. There were about eight guys sitting on back with it, as if they were helping move furniture or lumber. That truck was followed by almost every other truck in town.

On the day of the funeral, we closed the store in the afternoon out of respect for the family. Now people from all the other communities were coming to Tulita for this funeral. I served dozens of strangers. They bought a lot of junk food and magazines for the plane ride back.

Things are slowly returning to normal for most of the town now. It’s my day off. I don’t know where the day went. I tried to get up at a decent hour so I could savour my free time. But here it is, nine o’clock. All we really did was take the dog for a long walk to Great Bear River. She is getting a lot bigger, and she is starting to behave. She was bad for biting, but rolled up newspapers have broken her of that habit.

This may be my last Sunday off for a while. Next Sunday, the store is supposed to open for the afternoon. At least I’ll get to sleep in one day a week. Legally, I think I’m entitled to 24 continuous hours of rest per week. I may have to contact a lawyer. If I was getting paid hourly and making my overtime hours, I’d already be rich. But you’ll be surprised what you’ll put up with when your employer is also your landlord. Don’t get me wrong: I enjoy my job. But free time is nice too.

I’m thinking about getting dial up. I have no other expenses, and I’d like to get back in touch with the world. Maybe this week I’ll call and get an account.

Brew

I am the only employee in the front of the store. This means I’m manning till and office. The store is almost dead. Jim shuffles in. He comes to the office counter, and his shaking hands produce a government cheque.

“I’d like to cash this.”

His voice is raspy and hoarse. He is wearing a dirty white shirt that has the top three buttons undone. He smells of B.O and rot

“Sure thing. Would you like to make a payment on your account?”

“I can’t. I’m heading out this afternoon on medical.”

“Ok. No Problem.”

We’re always supposed to ask people cashing government cheques if they’re going to put money on their grocery accounts. They usually do.

As I start to fiddle at the computer, Linda comes back from her break. I allow her to do the cheque cashing. She asks Jim the same question. He gives the same excuse.

I move back to the till. Jim takes his money and shuffles off down an aisle with a blue basket. He returns a few minutes later with his groceries. A bag of sugar, a carton of Crosby’s molasses, a bag of raisins, and five packets of yeast.

When anyone has liquor in town, they call it shot. The homemade beer they drink is simply called brew. It’s basically made in uncovered buckets. The ingredients are simple: water, yeast, sugar, and maybe raisins or molasses. Let it sit for a few days or a week, and drink it down. You can tell when someone has been drinking brew rather than booze because, as my boss put it, they smell like stale bathwater.

The other day we had a call to the store. It was a well-spoken woman on the other line.

“Hey, My plane isn’t flying out today because of the weather. Do you have any mouthwash or hairspray for sale at your store?”

In other words, she was stuck in town for another night and wanted to get drunk.

We only stock a non-alcoholic type of mouthwash. We only sell artificial vanilla extract. And we do not sell hairspray or Lysol in aerosol cans. That is just the way we operate up here.

Summer Hiatus

Nicole printed off some e-mails for me the other day. I must say it is nice to know people are thinking about me. There is no excuse for not writing in so long. Ok, there is. I’m in the freaking Northwest Territories. I work 12-hour days six days a week. I no longer have internet. I have a puppy to take care of. Pick one. But it is good to be back. I’ll try and make this a weekly event. Lord knows I have enough stories to relay.

What a long strange month it has been. Shortly after my last post, the store offered me the company house where Nick and Anna had been living. That same morning, Nicole was flying home to be with her grandmother, who was sick. For the fifth time in ten months, I packed up our stuff and moved it up the road.

Our new house is great. Our oil, electricity, water and basic phone are all paid for. What this house lacks in character, it more than makes up for in things like insulation, a working fridge, and a dryer to go with the washer. And the pool table in the basement is a nice addition as well.

I was on my own with Mackey the dog for three weeks. With the real manager back from his vacation, the hours suddenly got a lot longer. We worked a lot of fourteen hour days. A twelve hour day suddenly became a luxury.

One Saturday, I started work at 8. Around two o’clock, the freight plane came with about 200 cases of frozen food for the freezer. This shipment included everything from ice cream to frozen pizzas and TV dinners. We put most of it to bed by the store’s closing time of six. Then we worked another two hours trying to put more from our walk-in freezer out on the floor. At 8, I was loading up on groceries to come home. While grabbing some potato salad from the meat cooler, I noticed it was unusually warm. The digital thermometer read 22 degrees. I yelled for the boss. Two coolers had given out. We spent another hour and a half throwing meat and milk into carts and parking them in our walk-in coolers. Then we took a load of cardboard to the dump. Then we had to deliver a couch. As we were driving home from the delivery, the 10pm curfew siren sounded.

After a day like that, most people would go to bed with dollar signs dancing in their head. An emergency came up at work and suddenly you’re making time and a half. Not so for me. I’m on salary. You can’t just say “to hell with this” and go home when your employer is also your landlord. Yet I am strangely smitten with the grocery business. As my boss put it, “I never come into work and say ‘gee, I’ve got nothing to do today.’” There are always at least three things that need to be done. Customers are constantly asking you for one thing or another. If I get bored of paperwork, I can grab a cart and load it up with anything you can imagine to go out on the shelf. If it gets busy around supper, I go out on the till and talk with the customers. And at the end of the day, when I feel run off my feet, I can sit down and do some more paperwork.

I am already the acting grocery manager. It is my job to place most of the orders. If we run out of milk or bread, it is now my fault. There are a million little details to remember. When half the town left for vacation, I had to cut back orders. School will be starting soon, so I’ll have to increase my bread order, as well as snack foods. As the weather turns colder, I can start to change my produce order: less salads and berries, more apples, oranges, and things like squash and sweet potatoes. There are always prices to consider, and deals offered by suppliers.

There is a strange satisfaction that comes from keeping the shelves full. There is a secure feeling when you’re in the warehouse with seven feet of flour and sugar towering over either side of you. It reminds me of the fall, when the firewood is stacked. And fall is coming. They say it comes early here. Last night was the darkest I’d seen it in months. I had to stay up until midnight to see it, but it was pitch black, and cold too. We came to Tulita after the ice had broken in the river. We’ll soon see how idyllic this town is when it’s forty below.