Dog team racing and a talent show

The second day of the Return of the Sun celebrations saw a dog team race on the sea ice, followed by an ice sculpture competition and a talent show in the evening.  I arrived down on the ice just in time for the race to begin.  As with the sled ride I went on the other day, the start was quite low key and a bit of a scrabble.  At least two of the teams headed off purposefully in the right direction!  Some of the others got a bit tangled, but eventually everything was straightened out and they all headed off into the distance.  Meanwhile, there was a caribou outdoor clothing competition.  

Some of the furs that were being worn for this were incredible.  Beautiful shades of greys and browns, some garments were little more than pelts sewn together although others had been cut and sewn to create distinctive geometric patterns.  Yesterday a large igloo had been built on the ice and the little kids in their furs looked incredibly cute playing in its entrance.  The end of the dog team race was quite exciting.  Two teams were neck and neck.  Unfortunately one of the teams swerved towards some other dogs that were chained nearby, the komatik overturned and by the time the driver had righted it, the competing team had sailed in smoothly to the finish.  It turned out to be Simon, the dog team driver who had taken us out the other day.  In the evening he proved that he could do much more than just run dogs with an impressive performance on the accordian.  The talent show went on for much longer than I expected as there were so many people performing.  Acts ranged from an entertaining demonstration of the traditional bone game to teenage boys playing rock music on electric guitars.  The bone game is the same as the traditional british ball and cup toy.  In this case a slim, long pointed bone is held in the hand and a section of vertebrae attached to it by a piece of string.  The aim is to swing the vertebrae and try to catch and impale it on the stick.  Needless to say, the elderly woman was far better at it than her grandson!  Quite a few of the women did throat singing which was amazing.  One of the throat singers was at the leaving party Jenn and Ian held here last weekend.  She and her partner were just incredible.  They stand close together, faces about a foot apart and make, what to my unaccustomed ear are very strange, rhythmic, huffing yet resonating sounds.  I can't describe it very well at all but I'm sure there are recordings online somewhere!  These two were particularly expert and did three short songs.  One entitled "River", the second "Dog Sledding" and the third "Mosquito" - and yes, it really did sound like a whole cloud of mosquitoes were descending upon us!  There were quite a few accordian players and their pieces all sounded scarily Scottish.  The evening ended in spectacular fashion with a tall teenage boy demonstrating the Alaskan and two-footed high kicks.  Somehow he propelled himself into the air and managed to kick a dangling ball suspended at least 9ft high.  It was quite incredible.  The kids I was sat next to provided continuous distraction from the events on stage.  A new face in town is unusual I suppose!   I ended up with double the number of photos as I let quite a few of them use my camera to take pictures of the various acts.  One girl looked back through all my 300 odd photos, including the ones of Christmas back in Scotland.  I was told I looked like my mum and asked whether the baby in the photo of me in an amouti was mine (I carried a baby belonging to a friend of Jenn's across town to help out.)  I think they were a bit disappointed and surprised (possibly even pitying) to hear that I didn't have any children of my own.  Babies seem to be the most important thing around here!