As I mentioned in a previous post (here), I had the chance to make a drum at this year's Great Northern Arts Festival. 

Last Saturday I took the "Gourd Ocean Drum" class - see description below.  We took a wide shallow canteen gourd, stretched a goat skin across it, and filled it with pellets.  The pellets create the sound of waves when you
roll them across the skin side.  You can also use a stick to make a traditional drum sound. 

We then had a choice about how to decorate it - either by painting it, using fur or hide, or using the wood burning technique, which is what I tried.

The class was taught by Elizabeth Gordon, who is originally from Nunavut but who now lives in Bowman, Ontario. She specializes in making art out of gourds - this is another one of her pieces that was on display at the festival.

In the photos below I have shown the step-by-step process.  It was a lot of fun and not nearly as hard as I thought
it would be!

Every year for the past 25 years, artists, musicians and performers have gathered in Inuvik in July along with hundreds of visitors and art collectors from all over the country and around the world to celebrate the beauty and diversity of northern art and culture.
 
This year was my second year attending the Arts Festival, and I could not resist buying some more art work for my walls, which I will show you in another post.  I also made a gourd drum, which I will tell you about later this
week (see here)!
 
For today I will show you some pictures of the gallery and some of the art on display.

You can read more on the website www.gnaf.org, but this year, the Great Northern Arts Festival celebrated its 25 year anniversary (it started in 1989). The artists are Inuit, Inuvialuit, Gwich'in, Dene, Métis and many of Canada's other First Nations, as well as non-Aboriginal artists.

The festival lasts 10 days, and includes concerts, dance performances, the gallery where the art is on display, a carving area where you can watch carvers at work, a fashion show, and my favourite - workshops to teach participants how to make pieces of art.  Last year I took a bead course with my Mum and a drawing class with my Dad.   And this year I made a drum, as mentioned. 
 
It’s definitely worth timing a visit to the North during the arts festival.  And now I will let the pieces of art speak for themselves.   Enjoy! 

It's getting close to the end of winter in the North, although you'd never know it by the cold temperatures (still in the -20C range) and the snow on the ground.  We get lots of sun (about 15 hours a day), but not much warmth yet.

Fortunately, Spring means it's jamboree time in our local communities.  Last year I posted about the Muskrat Jamboree in Inuvik - it's hard to believe a whole year has passed and it has rolled around again.  This year I got to participate more, as the weather was slightly improved (by that I mean it was still cold but at least it was bright and sunny and the wind wasn't blowing snow and ice into your face the whole time!)

The funds raised during the 4-day event (April 5-8) were donated to the NWT Council for Disabilities.

Below are some photos I took of the skidoo races, dog-sled races, log-sawing contests, and "honey bag hockey" which I got roped into playing!  The other activities that I didn't get pictures of were the harpoon throw, plank walking, nail driving, egg tosses, jigging contests, tug of war, drum dancing, pancake breakfasts, talent show, and my favourite, the trapper skills contest - including boring a hole in the ice for fishing, building a fire on the ice (yes, it's possible!) and making tea and bannock - see last year's post for pictures of that.

There aren't a lot of shopping opportunities in Inuvik, as we have no malls and very few stores, so it's easy to avoid the temptation to spend money.  However, our downfall is that there are so many amazing handicrafts to buy- mukluks, carvings, muskox wool scarves, fur mitts (rabbit, seal, wolf, beaver), you name it.   And because these items are unique, hand-crafted, and use very expensive materials, you have to be prepared to dish out $hundreds or $thousands for a one-of-a-kind item.  Sticker shock is just part of the experience!

Case in point -- my new moccasins (generally just called "slippers" by the Inuit).  After a year of looking for the perfect pair, I was thrilled to see these beauties below in our craft shop for the bargain price of $250 including tax.   The reason they are not in the $300+ range is because the bottoms are cowhide rather than moosehide.  But as I will only use them indoors at the office most of the time, I didn't mind that they weren't made of moosehide.

The slippers are made of sealskin, trimmed with Arctic hare, with embroidered uppers.  They were made by Martha Kudlak of Sachs Harbour, a community of about 100 people in an area even more remote than Inuvik!

On Friday January 11, marking the end of the week-long festival to welcome back the sun to the north, Canadian indie-pop singer Lights gave a concert in Inuvik in the Igloo church (see blog about the church here).

It was a great evening, and the audience was mostly filled with young fans, although there were a lot of us "adults" as well.  Below are some rather blurry pictures (I was in the back row and didn't have my good camera with me).

In case you're not familiar with Lights, here are a couple of youtube videos of her songs - I had heard these on the radio but didn't know who sang them.  What an amazing voice! 
Drive my Soul:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7_ucPlzaiA
Toes:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4JABTb6v7k

Lights kept up a steady twitter feed during her visit.  My favorite was: "The awkward moment your hair freezes when you breathe on it."   Yeah, we all know how that goes!

There was also a lot of twitter discussion about the fact that the promotional poster put up around town had been "modified" to make her outfit more modest.  Maybe whoever did it was afraid she would get cold!  See the two pictures below of the poster.

Here is a news article about her visit if you're really interested!  http://nnsl.com/northern-news-services/stories/papers/jan17_13con.html

Another one of the joys of living in the North...  How many offices have you visited with moose hide laid out for sale on the floor of the reception area?  Gotta love it!

I will be honest, though, the smell of the smoked hide was pretty pungent, so we weren't too sad to see them wrapped up again... after getting pictures of course.

A couple of weeks ago I went berry-picking with some friends in the hills just outside of Inuvik.  Although the blueberry season had passed, we were in perfect time for cranberries.  It was a warm clear Saturday in September, and there was no place we'd rather be!

I got a little nervous when we saw fresh bear prints, but the other girls had bear spray and bear banger, so we didn't let a wild animal deter us!  He didn't seem that big anyway...  :)

I got the berries home and washed them, and ended up with about 7 cups of berries, which I threw in the freezer for future use.

Jump forward to Thanksgiving (Canadian Thanksgiving weekend - Oct 6-8!), and I pulled a few cups of berries out of the freezer and made my very first home-made cranberry sauce by boiling the berries in orange juice and sugar.

Round it off with a turkey dinner with good friends, and overall it was a great first Thanksgiving in the North.

During the long days of beautiful weather we had last weekend (when it got over 30C / 86F), I had the chance to get out on the land and pick some berries in a couple of spots.  Berry picking is an almost sacred activity for the people of this region, and they take advantage of the long days to stock up on healthy berries to last through the winter.  (At the risk of sounding overly sappy) ... being outside, soaking up the sun, and harvesting fruit from the land makes me understand why they say Arctic summers are the world's best-kept secret.

Of course, we were always on the lookout for bears.  We didn't see any in the flesh, but we did spot a few paw tracks, some of which were too fresh for comfort, so we didn't wander far...

Below are pictures of the berries and other plant-life that we found.  The only ones we ate were the ones we could safely identify, which were the blueberries and cloudberries.  The others are a mystery, and I'm waiting to ask my botanist friend before eating them. :)

Nonetheless, between Google images and myself, I have taken a stab at identifying all of my findings except one, so if I'm right, yey to me!

(Warning - photos in this post will be disturbing to all readers) 

Once thing you need to get used to when working in the Arctic is that you never know what you may encounter around the office.  Several times in the last few months I have walked into our office kitchen and been greeted by giant frozen char (really big fish), dried reindeer, muktuk (whale skin and blubber), frozen muskox, and (my personal favorite), skinned muskrat!

Below is the most disturbing picture.  Skinned muskrats.  Yes... those are furry feet!  Sorry for the picture, but this is honestly what I saw in our office kitchen a couple of weeks ago!  Apparently muskrat meat is delicious.  I can't wait to try it. Really... I'll just have to wait until the memory of this photo fades.

We have a steady supply of reindeer meat in the office - both dried and frozen.  Below are some frozen packages that are for sale.  As I have mentioned in previous posts , I love reindeer meat!

Today marks another anniversary.  It's hard to believe it's been three months since I arrived in Inuvik!  I have no deep words of wisdom today, except to say it's amazing how fast that living in the Arctic has felt like "normal life".  And I'm loving it!

I don't have much time for a meaningful post today, as I'm getting ready for a trip over the Easter weekend to Dawson City and Whitehorse (woo hoo!), but I felt it was fitting to post some pictures of the mukluk-making course I took the weekend before last, as it was a great way of learning a traditional handicraft and ending up with something really useful!  These mukluks can be worn outside in minus 40 degree weather.  Amazing!