Dog's in the Cradle

Mac the dog turned one on the 13 (last Sunday). I was at work that day, preparing for yet another visit from the bigwigs.







My dog turned one just the other day.
She said "Thanks for the ball Dad,
C'mon lets play!
Can you teach me to fetch?"
I said "Not today,
I got a lot to do."
She said, "Thats ok."

But I swear I heard her say As I walked away,
she said, "I'm gonna eat your shoe
Dad, you know I'm gonna eat your shoe..."

With apologies to Harry Chapin.

Breakup

Friday, May 4

There are different signs of spring in the north than what we are used to in the south. We still look for the familiar “v” of geese in the sky, but instead of robins, we look for the first seagull at the dump. The first day the temperature rose above minus twenty was a big milestone. That was back near the end of march. The days are now much longer than they are short. We go to bed with light peaking in from behind the blinds. The snow is all gone, here in the first of may, except in the shaded areas on the edge of the woods. But until today, the river was still a solid mass of ice.

Last Monday I took the dog for our first walk down on the beach in a year. The ice along the banks of the river was breaking up. Mac was wading into the water for drinks, and she was trying to get up onto the unbroken sheet of ice that covered the river. There were several skidoos parked on the edge of this ice. People who were camping on the far side of the river had traveled home to Tulita, only to find the edge of the ice gone. Danny, one of the fellows I work with, saw people racing their skidoos across this open stretch of water and up onto the rocky beach. If you get a skidoo moving fast enough, it will stay on top of the water for a while. I guess it’s better to run your skidoo on to the shore than have it carried away on an ice floe.

Today, Nicole and I ate our lunch, unaware that the frozen river outside our window was about to break free. As soon as I went in the store after lunch, the boss and his wife took the truck down to “the point” to see the ice breaking. The Point is at the southern end of town. It is where most people launch their boats, and where the barge lands to unload. They came back a half hour later, saying that the ice was cracking and the water rising a bit.

By two o’clock, there was open water in front of our hose. Big pans of ice were slowly drifting past. Everyone came down to blueberry hill, at the corner of our company’s property, to watch the ice drifting. Trucks were roaring back and forth towards the point, and teachers led screaming kids down for the show. We watched as the remnants of the ice road drifted past on a single pan of ice, like some tiny tectonic plate.



























I didn’t get off work until eight thirty, but as soon as we finished supper, Nicole and I took the dog for a walk down by the river. It was a very different scene from what we had seen at lunch. The river was flowing much faster, and the large pans of ice had been replaced by a mishmash of smaller (although still large) chunks. The water had risen again to the point where the beach was covered in ice and tree trunks.



















We stood by the edge of the ice and watched the river rise and fall in quick spurts. Jams miles downriver were causing the water level to rise and fall, sometimes as much as a foot or more. I've uploaded an AVI file to show how fast the ice was flowing. (7mb, 21 seconds)

Sunday, May 6
The elders are right. Within three days of the river breaking, there is always a snowstorm. Ours came . Fat wet flakes. It piled up fast. We got about five centimeters. By suppertime the sun was out and water was dripping off the roof. At times the ice was flowing by amazingly fast. Other times, it slowed to a crawl.

Today we took another walk down to the point. Even more ice had been pushed up onto the shore. Places where we had stood on Friday night were now covered in massive chunks of ice. There had been a large piece of scrap metal down at the point on Friday night. It probably weighed more than a ton. Today it lay twisted among the burgs.





Each piece of ice was unique. most were dirty. Other pieces were bright blue, and stood out among the white and brown. Still other piece were almost crystal clear, with tiny flaws littered throughout.







Now, as I get ready for bed, I can say that there is more water than ice visible in the Mackenzie. In a few days there will be boats in the water where skidoos traveled only a week before.

Salvatore and Giovanni

On Thursday night I was paged to the front of the store just after closing time. Two men were standing by the till and talking to Lina. One of them was wearing a brightly colored ski jacket, the other was in a coat much too thin for this weather. Lina looked at me and mouthed the words “say no” as I approached the counter. I greeted them and Lina said that they wanted to exchange euros for Canadian dollars. I told the men that there was no way for us to do that. I could smell the faint hint of an expensive cologne.
“No bank here?”
“No. There is a bank in Norman Wells. I‘m sure they could do it.”
“How far away is it?”
“About an hour away.”
“One hour?”
“An hour or an hour and a half.”
“One hour?”
“One hundred kilometers.”
This registered with the man.
“Okay. There is bus there?”
“No, no buses. You can fly or drive. Rent a truck.”
“Fly? Too expensive.”

I wondered how two men could get to Tulita from somewhere in Europe (I couldn’t place the accent) without stopping to exchange their money. And if they had come this far, why wouldn’t they pay a few hundred extra dollars to get to the next town? A town with finer hotels and a few restaurants.
Meanwhile, the man’s friend noticed our bank machine in the corner. He called out to him. The man looked at me.
“Your machine work?”
“It may work for you,” I said, not knowing if our humble little cash machine could exchange euros in some European account for Canadian dollars.
They consulted with the machine and seemed satisfied after a while. They then left the store. I would have struck up a conversation with them and asked them what brought them to Tulita, but they seemed fairly mad and unfriendly, so I just let them go.

On Friday morning there was a truck waiting for us outside the store. It was only half a load, but we spilled a pallet of pepsi as it was coming off the truck. It turned a one hour job into a two hour job. A can of pepsi will freeze fairly quickly when it is 20 below.
Nicole called me around 11:00. She was laughing.
“There’s these two guys at the hotel. You’ll never believe this. They’re from Italy and their spiritual advisor told them they have to be in Tulita on Monday morning to receive some good luck!”

If ever there was a story for CBC radio, this was it. I asked Nicole to invite them over for dinner if she saw them. But she didn’t have to, because I saw them first. As soon as I waked out into the store, there were the Italians in their ugly ski-suit glory. I ran over to introduce myself. The man said his name was Giovanni.
“How about you come to our house tonight for supper? Chicken?”
“Yes, chicken? Good. Come here,” he gestured towards the front door. We went over and he pointed at a snowmobile.
“We want to rent one of these?”
I knew locals would rent their snowmobiles to oil companies. I asked a few people, and I got a few names, but after a few phone calls I had no luck in locating a skidoo for them. I told them I would try later.

Nicole, being the saint that she is, cooked dinner for four that night. I left work a bit early, and a few minutes before eight, I walked over to the hotel to get them. Giovanni introduced me to his friend, Salvatore. Salvatore spoke almost no English, Giovanni later explained to us. Giovanni had traveled throughout Europe when he was younger, and had spent several months in England. So his English was ok. Giovanni had asked him along on this trip for that very reason.
Cooking dinner for Italians is probably difficult enough when you have access to fresh vegetables and meat. We apologized for the quality of our humble salad, with its wilted lettuce and mushy tomatoes. The two men puzzled over the Kraft Italian dressing on our table. Salvatore eventually came up with a name for it that Giovanni agreed with. In broken English Salvatore spoke about the high quality of food and fashion that all Italians enjoy.
We learned that the two men work at a car dealership on the island of Sicily. Salvatore was the owner. Giovanni a salesman. He produced a business card that showed logos of everything from Ford to Jaguar and Porsche.
At times, the two men would argue for five minutes at a time in Italian. Nicole and I sat in awkward silence as they gestured and spoke over each other, only to calm down. Sometimes there was an explanation of what they were arguing about, other times, the subject was changed.
Eventually the subject changed to what had brought the meant here. Salvatore spoke while Giovanni translated, sentence by sentence. Salvatore had been consulting an astrologer for many years now. This particular astrologer was highly regarded, and even consulted with Prime Minister Berlusconi himself. His method was different from most. He was able to pinpoint the exact location on earth one should be on their Birthday in order to achieve the best influence from the stars and planets. In past years, Salvatore had traveled to New Orleans, Africa, and Australia to celebrate his birthday. This year, the Astronomer had told him Tulita, Northwest Territories, Canada.
It was clear that Salvatore believed this without a doubt. He was not embarrassed or shy to share this information with us. He had just dropped thousands of dollars to jump on a plane and fly to the middle of nowhere in order to have good luck. This made perfect sense to him.
The two never did get to go for a skidoo ride. I tired calling a few more people over the next few days, but without any luck. Salvatore mostly stayed in his warm hotel room. I dropped by to see them on Sunday. He had managed to find a soccer game on Fox Sports. One of the teams was Italian.
Giovanni ventured out throughout the weekend in his conspicuous snowsuit, but found the -40 windchill too much for his face and hands. The locals were more or less ambivalent to these strange visitors. I would have thought that someone else would have taken an interest in their story and invited them out for some traditional northern food.
Because of their broken English and my own lack of time, I decided not to bother with a radio piece and instead submitted a story about the men to the News North. Apparently they didn’t like my story because they never replied.
They flew out on Monday morning: Salvatore’s 53rd birthday. He only needed to be present in the very early morning, the time which corresponded with his birth in Italy in order to receive good luck. I soon have to write them a letter and let them know that their story didn’t make the cut. They promised Nicole and I that if we ever come to Sicily, we are welcome to stay at their homes. I told them I’d be happy with a test drive in a Porsche.

Bulletin Board

Stop calling me Shirley!

Last Thursday, a plane carrying Leslie Nielsen landed at Tulita’s humble airport. I wasn’t there to greet him because I had to work. Even with the day off, I probably wouldn’t have walked up to the airport to greet him. It’s a long way to go at thirty below.

My boss came up to me just before lunch. He had just been talking to the RCMP officer, who was on his way to the airport to pick up Mr. Neilsen and escort him around town. Neilsen’s father had been an RCMP officer stationed in the town when Leslie was a baby. He was transferred out of Tulita (then called Ft. Norman) when Neilsen was three years old, so the actor has no memories of Tulita. The afternoon radio host on CKLB Yellowknife (your First Nation radio station) interviewed Neilsen days before he arrived in Yellowknife.

“Surely you must have some memories of Tulita.”

“No I don’t! And stop calling me Shirley!”

Keeping that in mind, it was all the more nice of him to come. I made a point of hanging around the front of the store that afternoon, just in case he came in to buy a coffee. But there was no sign of him.

Darren the produce guy came in to start work around five.

“I saw him getting off the plane. He was just shuffling like an old man! I almost called out to him and told him it’s time to retire.”

“You went up to the airport to see him arrive?” I asked. This seemed out of character with Darren.

“No way! I was seeing my kids off. They’re going to Fort Simpson. His plane just happened to get in at the same time.”

About half an hour before closing, my boss and his wife grabbed their camera and ran over to the School. People coming in the store said he had given a speech and was sticking around for the feast. They returned within fifteen minutes, digital camera in hand.

“You saw him?”

He turned on his camera and showed me the picture. The two of them were posing on either side of that familiar face. Although Leslie Neilsen has always looked old, he looked REALLY old in this picture.

“What did you say to him?”

“Not much really. We just waited in line to get our picture taken with him.”

I waited all the next day for him to come in the store. He didn’t.

He didn’t come in the store on Saturday either. Rob, one of the employees at the store, left work a half hour early to go play in the “Neilsen Invitational Hockey Tournament.” Leslie was scheduled to drop the puck at the game (that’s like throwing out the first pitch at a baseball game for all you American readers).

In a way, I’m glad I didn’t meet him. Meeting a celebrity is almost always a let down. I could have gone over to the feast if I had really wanted, and had my picture taken with some movie star. But it would have been weird. It would have been as if I was treating him like a movie prop rather than a person. He wouldn’t want to talk to me, so why would I want to talk to him.

Still, I would have settled for missing him on my lunch break. Then I could have at least said “I almost met Leslie Neilson except I was on my lunch break when he came in the store.”

Leslie Nielson is Coming to Tulita!

Leslie Nielson is coming to Tulita!

What more needs to be said?

(Okay, he used to live here when he was a kid and his father was in the RCMP)

Ice Caps

I will admit that at many times I have been an ignorant country bumpkin when it comes to matters of food and culture. I’m still not sure which fork I should use first when I’m given the choice of more than one. But there are times when I am reminded just how far away from civilization I really am up here.

We have, at the entrance to our store, a counter that offers coffee, cappuccino, and kool-aid slushies. Of course it isn’t real cappuccino. It’s the same stuff you get at Tim Hortons: a form of glorified hot chocolate that is 98% sugar and 2% water. The slushies are even worse. They are so sweet that the kids in town complain if we don’t water down the mix.

Just before Christmas, the company sent us iced cappuccino mix. Once again, coffee flavored sugar, only this one was designed to go in our slushie machine. Now here is a tip for all you future entrepreneurs reading this blog. There is no worse time to launch an iced drink product than when the temperature is 20 below. Sales were sluggish to say the least.

One night, just before close, a woman approached me while I was working at the till.

“How much are your ice caps?”

I told her the price and she paid for a large. Five minutes later she came back to the till with two large paper coffee cups in hand.

“I wanted to get one for my husband too. I’ll pay for another.”

“Are we out of slushie cups?” I asked. Most people get slushies in clear plastic cups. The woman looked confused.

“No, I just want to pay for another large.”

I smiled politely and reached for her paper cup. It was warm.

“Those are cappuccinos,” I said. “They’re cheaper.”

“Yes, Ice cappuccinos. That’s another large.”

“No, what I mean is… ice caps are cold. Ice. They come from that machine over there. These are hot cappuccinos.”

I was trying to be polite as possible. Ice caps cost twice as much as regular cappuccinos, and she had already paid for one. But the woman was loosing her patience.

“Oh whatever!” She snapped. “Just ring it in.”

So I bit my tongue and rang in her drink.

The next day she came in again with some other people. I was on till again. I watched as she dispensed two “hot” cappuccinos from the machine. She came to the till. I smiled and said hello. She smiled back.

“Two hot ice caps please.”

“Anything else with that?”

“No, that’s everything.”

I wish I could say I took this one, but it was taken by Nicole through our living room window. Those are trucks driving southward along the winter road on the Mackenzie.