Life here in the Yukon has been rolling past.. this year is going pretty quickly.

My students are still students, and they still drive me bananas from times to time … but I am also their hero, especially when I bring their iPods back to life.

Life here in RR has been going pretty well.. we’ve been under a deep freeze for the last couple of weeks and we seem (crossing finger) to be coming out of it (it’s -25 today instead of -52!). The fall was a rather chilly one with the threat of snow on Halloween … and an early freeze taking root in November … Christmas was spent here in RR hoping from house to house eating more goodies than any one should … and that brings us to now, January, where I promise (ok, not promise, as I know I will break it) to try to make at least one good post a week. Really, I will try.

This morning, I was up bright and early (inhumanely early for a teacher) so I could get some time in on the bike [as it's now too nippy in the morning here, my bike has moved inside and is attached to a trainer ... pretty nice being able to have a little bike ride in the morning while watching tv]. After I finished my ride, I realized that maybe waking up that early wasn’t such a good idea .. but I pushed through and accepted that it was just the lack of coffee in my hand.

School was pretty quiet in the morning, with most of the staff in a zombie like trance for the first little bit before students started making their way inside. This year, I am teaching grade 5/6 again (full time) and have quite an energetic group of 11 tweens … I’m hoping I’ll be able to harness some of that energy so I can channel it into learning … thus far, they are testing the rules (little do they know).

The morning went really well with the kids. I managed to get most of them organized for the first term – duo-tangs are labeled (after we had along discussion about duo-tangs and their function), notebooks are labeled and I have collected in all extra materials… some of my students are still waiting for their supplies, so I’m not too sure what I’m going to do there as I have to start teaching my curriculum (hopefully someone in the school will have some extra duo-tangs and notebooks I can snag).

At lunch we all (staff) went over to the restaurant for a nice ‘welcome back to school lunch’ (tab picked up by the school)… and then it was the afternoon of meetings (yippie!). I had the privilege of kicking off the meeting with a presentation (er rambling?) about the available technology resources (hardware and software) that we have available to us here in Ross. I get pretty excited about this stuff, but I could tell that some weren’t quite as entertained … Afterwards, we all shifted to the staff room and got down to the nitty gritty elements of school life – scheduling, long range plans, school growth plans …. it wasn’t too soon after that we all began to realize (when we were looking at scheduling and PD days) that we have almost a whole week in September where we’re not in the classroom at all (great for the kids who would like to head into the bush for a little hunting trip … little odd for teachers trying to figure out what to cover in September). And as an added bonus, I get to travel into Whitehorse next week as well for DART training, so that’s three days I’ll be out of the classroom … and then travel back into Whitehorse the following week for our territorial conference … I think I might have to call Ford to add on an oil change when I get my tires changed on the 23rd.

After school / staff meeting I headed out for a nice run around town to enjoy some of the great weather that has arrived in Ross (of course sunny weather has to arrive when we all go back to school .. it’s a rule right?). About halfway through my run, I realized just how tired I was … must sleep in more tomorrow .. or at least every other day.

Spent most of the night planning for the rest of the week and abusing the photocopier at school (I didn’t want to fight for it in the AM … although, I’m going to have to anyway as I have a tons of photocopying to do for ICT (policy and permission forms).

Anyhoo … it’s off to the land of nodd for me now… with any luck I will actually sleep a solid 6 rather than an on and off again 6 … oh the joys of getting back onto a normal sleep pattern after summer vacation

Just a quick note to say that I am back in the Yukon …

It’s been a pretty busy week back up here – between organizing farewell gatherings, putting my house back in order, unpacking and setting up my classroom (again – along with all of the added joys of long range planning, hunting down text books and power pointing new content) I’ve been pretty busy with little time to update this blog!

Once things calm down and school begins, I am sure I’ll have plenty to post … but for now, just know that I am alive and well in the Yukon.

And while in Dawson, I came across this beautiful giclée by Nathalie Parenteau

These two prints will be added to the art box waiting to be framed and matted … someday.

As I had a bunch of free time on Friday (as my traveling buddy had meetings) I got to play tourist for the day in Dawson. I walked around the whole downtown area checking out various shops and historic sites along the way.

I spent a great afternoon at the Dänojà Zho Cultural Center learning about the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in (the First Nations group up in the Dawson area) and learning about the traditional medicinal and non-medicinal uses of teas (and having a nice afternoon tea with some members of the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in).

After visiting the cultural center I headed down along the main drag in Dawson and ran into some canoeists just coming off of the water. We had a great chat about our time on the mighty Yukon (rain plagued them too). Soon, I wandered over to Max’s, picked up a book and then headed out to the cafe down the street and enjoyed some quiet time with a cup of coffee.

During the late afternoon (after my quiet time with coffee) I managed to get myself to the gazebo downtown to catch part of Shotgun Jimmie‘s and Coole & Downes‘ set lists before it was time to head off to meet up for supper. As Dawson was turning into a rather busy location with all of the festival goers arriving it was a challenge to find a spot for supper. With a bit of waiting we managed to get into the Drunken Goat (really good Greek cuisine).

We weren’t too sure when the rest of the road-trippers were going to make it to Dawson (as we had no idea when they were planning on leaving Ross). Just as we were finishing up supper the rest of the crew arrived so we set off to find another place for them to grab some food… which took us down the street to Klondike Kate’s.

After Kate’s we headed down to the main stage grounds of the DCMF and hung out at the ‘refreshments’ tent (as we didn’t have passes to get into the main tent) [as a side note, not that we would have wanted weekend – or even day passes to be truthful as much of the time, concerts that you wanted to see you couldn’t get into as the venue was at capacity, so there was a lot of standing outside of venues listening to music, but not seeing live performances. This was especially true of any of the events taking place at the Palace Grande).

While hanging out with all of the music goers we had the opportunity to listen to Sarah MacDougall, Denis Allen & the Hellhounds andShotgun Jimmie before we decided to head back out to downtown Dawson. We eventually wound up at Bombay Peggy’s for a little bit then decided to call it a night.

Saturday morning was pretty lazy – we headed out (well, those of us that were awake) for coffee and breakfast on the riverfront and to check out the Farmer’s Market. Once we were all awake and caffeinated we took a drive up The Dome (The Midnight Dome Road).

View of Dawson from the top of The Dome

The mighty Yukon River

Wood bench at The Dome

In the afternoon we all went our separate ways and headed off to whatever shows were of interest to us. I headed down to the cultural center to check out Etran Finatawa a group from Niger, Africa.

After the outdoor performance we (myself and Carmen as every one else was already in the Palace Grande for the jazz session) headed back over to the Palace Grande to check out the next performance. Unfortunately for us, the venue was at capacity and there was a huge snaking line up to get in. So, we headed back to the coffee shop for another java hit and then went back over to the main stage grounds and browsed the vendor tents.

Soon we were all hitting that wonderful brick wall and it was nap time … we were all sitting around our accommodations talking and then poof .. we were all asleep.. and probably would have stayed that way for much longer had not one of our crew returned from a drive up the Top of the World Highway. Once we were all awake again we headed downtown to Sourdough Joe’s for supper, where we wound up waiting for almost an hour for a table. The food was pretty good there and we left with fully happy bellies.

Saturday night we kept hoping back and forth between downtown Dawson and the main tent area as we wanted to catch the shows at Diamond Tooth Gerties.

We caught some of the sets put on by Fish & Bird, Chic Gamine and Mr. Something Something as we floated between the downtown area and the main stage.

At one point we took the crew to the Downtown to do the ‘toe’. It was quite a funny time trying to get these two to do the toe (as they never had before). After the toe we went back to Diamond Tooth Gerties to catch the late show then back downtown to the Pit for a bit.

Sunday was another lazy day in Dawson. We headed downtown for breakfast (lunch by the time we got there) and coffee and settled down at the gazebo to see what bands were playing. We were just in time for the sound check for Fish & Bird vs. David Essig – who put on an excellent show.

Between concerts I went for a walk back down to the main stage area and came across some interesting piano moving:

I’m not really too sure where they were moving the piano too … but at least they didn’t drop it!

Back at the gazebo, with ice cream / frozen yogurt, we caught a great fiddle-jam workshop with Jesse Zubot, Adam Iredale-Gray (Fish & Bird), Willie Gordon (Willie Gordon Trio), Chris Coole (Coole & Downes), Miriah Phelps (Carlyle & the Sugar Strings), and Patrick and Sarah Hamilton (Done Gone Trio).

After the fiddle jam we headed across the Yukon River for a quick spin up the Top of the World Highway. We had a rather long ferry wait as everyone was trying to get back across the river to start packing up their campsites. Once we finally got across the river we went up the highway about 40 minutes, nabbed several photos and then headed back across the river to start the journey back to Ross River.

It was a great weekend out road-tripping … now I get to begin cleaning and packing once again as I head back East soon!

Just a little video of our flightseeing tour over the east and west arms of Glacier Bay.
Music is by Moby.

This past weekend Rachel and I went down to Alaska for a whirl wind tour of Skagway-Haines-Juneau and she came up with a rough sketch of what our tattoo for the Yukon River trip should look like. This afternoon, we went down to Triple J’s in Whitehorse (as we couldn’t get in with the tattoo artist in Juneau – which in the end was probably a good thing) and got out Yukon River tattoos.

I’ve been tossing around the idea of getting a small tattoo for a while now. I was thinking of getting a small fireweed, polar bear/inuksuk and a fiddle head on the back of my shoulder (for the three places that I have called home) [don't worry mom, I'm not planning on any full body tattooing here] but was always afraid to do so due to horror stories from friends who have had tattoos (the pain – oh the pain!). But I figured the pain couldn’t be that bad, and it would only last for a little bit (well, the duration of the process).

And you know what – the pain wasn’t that bad. At times it stung and was a tad uncomfortable, but it was no worse than getting dental work done – it was more the noise of the tattoo gun that got to me than anything. Our tattoo artist was great though (and for the life of me I can’t remember his name!) – took his time, gave us little breaks while tattooing so our nerves could stop firing for a moment and kept us chatting the whole time about anything and everything (to keep our .. well, mine, minds off of the sounds / pain of getting the tattoo).

Now that I kinda know what to expect and how it feels and what to expect, I don’t feel too freaked about the other tattoo (fireweed-polar bear/inuksuk-fiddle head) idea. But, I also don’t think I’ll be getting it any time soon either…

We hopped aboard one of the Haines-Skagway fast ferries around 7:45am and made it into Haines about 30 minutes later. Our kayaking tour guide, Robert, arrived shortly after we landed and shuttled us to Chilkoot Lake where we had almost two hours on the lake touring around.

The lake was amazing. It was a calm day (wind wise) so the lake was smooth as glass and the sun was shining high up in the sky (which according to locals, is pretty rare in Haines as it tends to rain a lot during the summer months). We grabbed our gear and cameras and got settled into our tandem kayak. Luckily for me, all of my kayaking skills came back and there was nothing to worry about.

Chilkoot Lake

Robert our kayaking guide and the kayaks

My view of the lake from the front of the kayak

Halfway around the lake we decided to see if we could shuffle our return ticket to Skagway to the next day as we wanted more time to walk around Haines. Robert worked his magic and was able to get our return ticket to Skagway swapped to tomorrow at 1:00 pm. Whoo-hoo!

Snow-melt waterfall

We continued our paddle of Chilkoot Lake. Chilkoot Lake is glacially fed (glacier melt run off) by the Chilkoot Glacier (which was too far back for us to see) as well as by snow melt from the surrounding mountains, giving it’s emerald green color (due to glacial silt at the bottom of the lake).

Soon our time on the lake was coming to an end and we had to head back into shore. Although I could have stayed out there much longer paddling around basking in the sun, the wind was beginning to pick up and the water was quickly loosing it’s calm, glassy look.

We performed an A+ landing at the dock (one of the best that our guide has seen) and more or less elegantly skooched out of the kayak… it was at this time that my kayaking skills failed me and I almost wound up in the lake with my less than elegant but skooch out of the kayak.

Once out we helped Robert gather up gear and float the boats over to the loading ramp. At this point he felt that we had gone above and beyond the call of duty and handed us our lunches and told us to go relax while he loaded the kayaks onto the trailer.

We sat back at one of the picnic tables by the lake and enjoyed our lunch bag of goodies enjoying the sunshine discussing what we were now going to be doing in Haines since our plans changed on the fly. We figured we’d just play it by ear and see where the day took us. After lunch, we headed back into town and got dropped off at the visitors center to continue our now ‘see-what-happens-next’ adventure.

Haines Alaska sign at the docks

As the visitors center was closed for lunch when we arrived we went across the street to one of the many camping stores to browse around. Although there was many goodies available for camping (gear and other odds and ends) I restrained myself and only looked (now I need to cross my fingers that MEC will eventually carry some of the items).

We headed back over to the visitors center to get an idea about what there as to do in town. There is plenty to do and see in town, however, it was Sunday and many places (art centers, museums and galleries) were closed. Our main goal was to go see the glaciers – however we could. In Haines there is two main flying tour guides that will take you to the Glaciers: Mountain Flying or Fly Drake. We checked out both of the tours and decided to go with Mountain Flying as a) they were open b) they were cheaper and c) we’re getting some raving reviews from others who have gone on the flying tour of the glaciers. Then came the fun part – playing phone tag.

While we played phone tag we went on the self-guided tour of Ft. Seward, walked around town a little more, checked out some local art work in stores that were open and eventually found ourselves a place to crash for the night… and of course, we continued to play phone tag.

We were beginning to think that our chances of getting on a flightseeing tour at the last minute were pretty bleak until Paul (the pilot) called back and asked us how 7:00pm sounded. We were game!

Around 6:40pm we were picked up at our hotel and shuttled out to the Haines Airport were we met up with Paul. By this time I was just giddy with excitement. Last summer when I was down in Haines Junction I thought of going on one of the glacial flightseeing tours offered out of their airport but was unable to get booked on a flight as a single person (they tend to prefer groups of two or more to help with the costs).

The Bush plane that would take us on our amazing tour

The view from the Haines Airport

After the mandatory safety speech and the turning off of all cell phones we were up in the air. By this point, my eyes were huge saucers and I was vibrating with excitement. The tour that we were on takes us up and over and near the east and west arms of the glaciers located in Glacier Bay National Park.

I don’t know about you, but I think glaciers are just one of the most amazing things on Earth (right up there with northern lights, the midnight sun / 24 hour dark).

For the next hour and a half, I sat there, eyes wide open soaking it all in and madly snapping photos and video. I can’t even explain what I was thinking and feeling at that point other than the experience was mind blowing.

All throughout the night, after our flightseeing tour was done, all that I saw when I closed my eyes was that amazing landscape high up in the mountains that only a fraction of the world will ever see.