Back in the UK!

My journey home went incredibly smoothly, in complete contrast to the outward leg. At least, it was smooth right up to the last half hour or so of our descent through the cloud layer into Glasgow. I enjoyed the bumpy ride although I'm not sure that many of my fellow passengers shared my sentiments! Grey, wet and windy... anything else just wouldn't have felt like arriving in Glasgow. Despite disapproval from the more sensible souls around me I'm heading off in a few minutes to chat to a man about a postdoc. (Yes, my paid for gallivanting is now at an end and in order to fund future escapades I really am going to have to get a job!) Hence the reason for blogging right now - I'm studiously avoiding reading any guides on how to succeed at interview. I suspect that getting a good night's sleep the night before is fairly high on the priority list. How many hours ago did I last sleep? I really have no idea! Hopefully I'll be updating, uploading and finally signing off from this blog in the next few days. Thank you Winston Churchill for a marvelous adventure... www.wcmt.org.uk ... applications close at the end of October, so you've got lots of time to dream up a project!

Canadian culture - hockey and hortons

So this is my last night in Newfoundland. Well, to be perfectly honest it is a half night. For some reason flights to and from the airport of Deer Lake are scheduled in the wee hours. I arrived here at ten to one in the morning. I'm leaving at twenty past 6....am. Which means that the "limo" is coming to collect me from my B&B at twenty past four. It's called the "limo service" none of that prosaic "airport shuttle" malarky. I am curious. Will it really be a stretch limo? I find that hard to believe. Probably I'm doomed to disappointment - it's bound to be a people carrier or something equally unremarkable. Right now I'm just praying that the weather gods are on my side. I've seen (and experienced!) far too many cancelled/delayed flights on this trip. It's not just the flight that concerns me - what about the drive to the airport? I was assured by my taxi driver yesterday that the "limo always gets through". Yep, they know how to drive in snow here! This point was forcibly illustrated last night after a hockey game in Deer Lake. No need to put the word "ice" in front of "hockey"... in Canada there is only the one sort of hockey! It was a semi-final playoff between the local Deer Lake Red Wings and another Newfoundland team - the Cataracts. We hadn't realised that it was such a serious match and were lucky to get tickets. Only the front row was left (and the guys at the ticket office were quite apologetic about selling them to us) as these are the less desirable seats - the ones that everyone walks past to get to the toilets and refreshments. In fact - front row seats are the perfect place to become acquainted with the ritualised violence that is Canadian hockey. Crack - we wince as the puck ricochetes off the clear plastic shield mere feet from our faces. Thud - the shield shudders as two hockey players collide and crash. One shakes off his gloves onto the ice. This is the signal for a fight... there's quite a lot of fighting in hockey it seems. Definitely after every goal and quite often in between. The action happened so fast I could barely keep up. The puck flys from end to end of the arena within seconds, and the players skate faster than I could believe possible. One moment "lawtons' drugs ... got milk" is defending his own goal... the next moment he's at the opposite end of the arena battling with "moose and crown pub". The Cataracts sponsors' names were printed relatively small, whereas the Deer Lake businesses definitely got their moneys worth. "DL HIRE... WEED FREE LAWN... JJs CHILDCARE". I strongly approved of the emblazoning of sponsors across the back of their shirts... it was so much more entertaining to think about "Dormodies Financial Services" doing battle with "Pizza Delight" than to think about number 4 jersey tackling number 22. There are only five players plus a goalie for each team allowed on at any one time, but there are continual substitutions. Players skate up and through a swing door into the sub box, while their waiting teammates vault over the side of the box and wade into the fray. The referees wear black and white vertically striped shirts which are, possibly unfortunately, very distinctive. Whether their brightly patterned shirts caused them to look like targets or not, the referees appeared to come in for far more than their fair share of injuries! When we left the game snow was falling and my friends were glad that they had booked into my B&B in Corner Brook rather than face driving back to Norris Point through the South East Hills. Once in the car we began to wonder if we were even going to get out of Deer Lake. I don't know how Mark managed to drive. Not only was snow falling, but it was blowing... great powdery swirling updrafts that reflected the headlights and made it impossible to see. Where was the road? Which side of it were we on? It was a slow, slow drive but finally we made it to Corner Brook. More than ever I was thankful that I hadn't rented a car! Canada is definitely a car based culture. It's very difficult, if not impossible, to get around without one. There isn't even a bus service for the ten minute journey between Corner Brook and the ski hill which seems ridiculous...but then again, everyone (apart from me!) has a car! At times it has been a pain not having my own set of wheels and I've felt quite bad about imposing on people for lifts. On the other hand, it has been lovely meeting so many new and generous people...most of whom I would never have got to know if I had independent transport. So yet again, thank goodness that I ran out of credit at the crucial moment! Who would have guessed that my lack of good money management skills could have been so fortuitous? Not only have I saved quite a lot of cash (spot the Scottish streak coming out!) but I've made lots of new friends because of it - perfect! Well, I thought I'd got to the end of this post, but I still had to think of a title for it and a nice bit of alliteration sprang to mind "hockey and hortons". As in "Tim Hortons" - a coffee and donut fast food cafe which seems to be deeply embedded in the Canadian psyche. There is a connection between those two "h"s. Tim Horton was a famous hockey player, and to this day the company sponsrs junior hockey and summer camps for kids. I think one has to actually be Canadian to understand the significance of Tim Hortons - I'm not even going to pretend that I appreciate its true importance! I'll restrict myself to the far less mentally challenging task of appreciating the donuts (not doughnuts) and coffee.

Newfoundland reminds me more and more of home

Today it is raining. I'm in Canada, in the winter - and it is raining. What's going on? I could have stayed in Scotland! I arrived in Newfoundland at ten to one on a Monday morning after being up since 6:30am on Sunday and skiing nearly 50km. Then my credit card was refused - entirely due to my own mismanagement of bank transfers - so instead of hiring a car I ended up being a passenger and driven first to a B&B and then the following morning to Norris Point, in the heart of Newfoundland's Gros Morne National Park. The photo below is of Norris Point, while the one at the top of this post is a view of Gros Morne mountain itself.

To be perfectly honest I was quite happy not to be driving after seeing the condition of the roads! Especially as I was only offered all season rather than proper winter tyres. On my first afternoon I met up with Shane Fleming who is the marketing manager for Gros Morne Gatherings - an organisation that is trying to extend the tourism season for Western Newfoundland businesses by promoting corporate functions. He is also involved with the Gros Morne Institute for Sustainable Tourism who run courses in innovation and sustainability for tourism employees. Over the last few days I've met up with other people involved in tourism here. Sue and Bob started Gros Morne Adventures (www.grosmorneadventures.com/ )in 1990 and are very well respected guides. Their names had been mentioned by other people I've met on this trip so it was wonderful to finally meet them in person. Peter Ollerhead of CycleSolutions (www.cyclesolutions.ca/) in Corner Brook only started his business 6 years ago but it has grown exponentially so it was great for him and Colin to take time to share their experiences with me over a coffee. The coffee was from the very nice coffee shop that Peter opened last year next door to his bike shop... there's an interconnecting door so he and his customers can take advantage of freshly brewed coffee at any time of day. What a great idea! Yesterday was an absolutely glorious day. I was out of the house at 7am, just as the sky was lightening, to take advantage of a lift down to Corner Brook. We drove past Gros Morne mountain as it was bathed in early morning sun. The hills here with their rounded tops and craggy sides remind me of the Cairngorms. In the afternoon I was taken for a snowmachine ride out to the back of Gros Morne. This is a truly beautiful place and well deserving of being a National Park and UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Canadian Ski Marathon

This morning I took my ski boots out of my bag... and remembered that I'd broken one of the eyelets on the Ski with the Cree trip. Considering I've rented skis and poles for this marathon would it have been so hard to rent a pair of boots as well? No. So why did my memory not inform me of my slightly damaged boots while I was in the gear shop? Reminds me of last summer when I put my yeti gaiters onto my boots while my dad was driving me to the airport, just as I was putting them on I remembered that the zip was completely knackered. Still, the gaiters lasted the summer... and today my boots carried me through 52km of ski marathon. The Canadian Ski Marathon is cunningly designed so that one can do as much or as little as one desires. Today there were 5 sections. The ladies I was with decided to miss out the first section and planned to do the middle three. So we were conveyed to our starting checkpoint by one of those quintessentially North American yellow school buses. The scenery was some of the prettiest I've seen thus far in Canada. We weaved through trees, leafless, rimed in frost, some with shrivelled leaves from last autumn still clinging to their boughs. Maybe I preferred it because finally Canada showed me some topology. We skied in valleys through rounded hills, past lakes, through undulating farmland. One section found us in single file through a tunnel of conifers, their dark branches laden with snow. "Isn't this amazing! Straight out of the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe!" cried a loud voice from behind me. The checkpoints were a hive of activity. I heard, rather than saw, the first one. "God only knows... God only knows how you feel about me" blaring through the trees alerted me to the prospect of food and drink. Bits of flapjack, cookies, banana, chocolate covered peanuts... honey water (which I wasn't very keen on) and a luminous liquid known as Gatorade... pass me the plain hot water please! The third section was long. By this time I had pretty much figured out how to cross country ski properly... but was getting to the point of being too tired to try! I was slightly irritated to find that I reached the checkpoint 20 minutes too late to carry on to the fourth and final section. If only I hadn't dillied and dallied at previous checkpoints! If only I'd pushed myself that little bit harder. As I disconsolately stood in the food queue and munched my peanuts I noticed that the volunteer behind the table was getting overwhelmed by the number of incoming hands snatching every morsel... almost before she had them on the table. "Can I help?" Moments later I was on the other side, breaking up flapjack, snapping cookies and chatting away happily to the lovely lady volunteer who, it turned out, had been on Baffin Island quite recently. She'd had an opportunity to go up there to do a survey of people's health in that region. Not great apparently... as I know from my own experience. So we had quite a good time, until the torrent of people ebbed into a trickle, at which point I went off to get another school bus back to Le Chateau. I have to confess, I really am staying in the lap of luxury here. I'm told it's the largest log constructed chalet in the world... and I can well believe it! Tomorrow... more skiing!


The second day of the ski marathon involved rather more uphill! The trail twisted and turned its way through some lovely countryside and by this time I had finally figured out how to ski. Although I ended up skiing alone most of the time I did have quite a fun race down to one of the checkpoints following another guy who seemed to be going at a similar pace to myself. Without speaking we somehow reached a tacit agreement to up the speed and gradually went faster and faster, passing other skiers and swooped down the final hill to the checkpoint with a flourish! The last section also involved quite a lot of downhill with plenty of opportunity for calamity. Fortunately luck was on my side and I made it to the finish on my feet!

Temagami - Ottawa - Montreal - North Hatley

The last few days have taken me rather a long way from a region labelled by its inhabitants Northern Ontario (despite the fact that geographically it is well south of the halfway point!) to southern Quebec. Romeo (his real name) picked me up in his taxi at Smoothwater and drove me to the gas station where I waited for the bus. It arrived on time, I hopped aboard and we arrived at the terminus in North Bay a couple of hours later. Compared to Britain, public transport here (where it exists!) seems to be cheaper and much less hassle. I couldn't just turn up at a bus or train station in Britain and buy a ticket to travel several hundred miles for less than 40 quid! After changing onto the Ottawa bus I spent a pleasant journey dozing and gazing out of the window at the changing scenery. To my eyes the shop fronts and advertising look old fashioned, like something out of an 80s American movie. Although I thought exactly the same when I visited New York last year so it isn't that Canada is behind the times! Arriving in Ottawa just before 9pm I was lazy and took a cab to the hostel, Ottawa Backpackers. I had deliberately chosen an independent hostel rather than Hostelling International and in the morning I quizzed the owner, Martin, about how he had got started. It turned out that his parents run the independent hostel in Thunder Bay so he grew up in the business. At first they ran the HI hostel, then there were some political shenanigans and they got chucked out of the organisation. So they decided to start up independently. Martin's father put an advert in national papers asking if there was anyone else out there who wanted to run an independent hostel. The response was phenomenal and so Canada's independent hostel network was born. Martin reckons that HI must have come to regret falling out with his parents...there are now twice as many independents as HI hostels in Canada! Yesterday morning (Wednesday 6th) I borrowed some ice skates from the hostel and went skating (slowly and not very gracefully) on the frozen Rideau canal - the longest ice rink in the world. In the afternoon I took a bus to Montreal Trudeau airport where I met up with the friends I'm now staying with in North Hatley. I also bought flights to Deer Lake, Newfoundland. I thought of going there a long time ago, during one of the many iterations of planning this trip. Now it seems that it is going to happen! The plan is to fly there on Sunday evening and hire a car. Over the weekend I'm taking part in the Canadian Ski Marathon... whether this is a good idea remains to be seen...I haven't been doing much exercise this trip so I'm more than a little bit apprehensive. It will be an experience!

Temagami - Smoothwater Ecolodge

I was collected from the train station by Francis and we drove for about quarter of an hour along the highway before turning into the Smoothwater drive. The scenery here is dramatically different to further north. Gradually on my journey south the landscape changed from a seemingly endless flatness of pines to meandering frozen lakes coralled by rolling wooded hills. Deciduous and conifers all muddled up together and, in this season, all festooned in fluffy white snow. We stopped first at a two storey building, the upper floor of which was to be my home for the next short while. Three small bedrooms, a living area and a bathroom. Next stop was to meet Caryn at the main lodge. This is also their family home - quite an amazing place centred around a large room with a high pitched ceiling and enormous picture windows looking out onto the lake and a wooded island. There was also an accommodation block with several rooms ranging from dorms to double beds, a sauna, and the Gathering Hall - yet another opportunity for picture windows! There was to be a yoga retreat over the weekend and so guests began to arrive on the Friday. First came a couple of sisters who were snowshoeing out to spend a couple of nights in one of the cabins on the trail system. Then a group of four ladies who were coming for a girls weekend away. They planned to stay in the accommodation block, partake of Caryn's delicious meals and try to work off that calorific intake by skiing during the day. The yoga instructor arrived and was installed in one of the other bedrooms in the staff house. During the day she works for a bank and on top of that she teaches yoga in the evenings and does a few weekends away like this. She turned out to be a marvellous instructor. I've taken a few yoga classes before and, to be perfectly honest, never really thought of it as something I'd like to pursue. I joined in with the classes at Smoothwater purely because it would be foolish not to take advantage of such an opportunity and was very impressed by the excellence of her instruction. (http://carasutrayoga.com/) It was a small class as two of the participants had been deterred from driving by a Toronto snowstorm. A mother and daughter (actually there were really three generations in attendence as the daughter was 7 weeks pregnant), both teachers from North Bay, arrived just in time for the first yoga class on Friday afternoon. So over the weekend there were nine of us for breakfast and dinner. Caryn likes to offer additional activities so that first evening we all had what she calls "great, great grandmother facials". This involves using natural ingredients...just like those our forebears might have used. Caryn works with the seasons - in summer she might have used a fruit puree to dab onto the skin. This time we mixed a concoction of natural yoghurt, honey, almond oil and apple cider vinegar. This we dabbed onto our faces using cotton wool. Then wiped our skin clean with a flannel dipped in balsalm infused hot water. Steaming over the same bowl of scented water was a great feeling. Then we dabbed honey onto our faces, patting and patting as it became sticker and sticker... the ladies called this a gomage (I have undoubtedly spelt that wrong!) Finally, we washed this off and wiped our faces with a cool slice of cucumber peel. My skin did feel rather good afterwards. What a contrast in experiences: one day I'm tree cutting and sled hauling with the Cree menfolk, almost the next I am in an exclusively female environment doing yoga and having facials! Other activities Caryn offered over the weekend included a cross country ski lesson, breadmaking (I had no idea one could cut up pine needles and make pine scented bread!) and watercolour painting. It's this range of activities and interests that makes Smoothwater special I think. Caryn is an artist, a self taught chef, a wonderfully creative person and she manages to combine and communicate her enthusiasm for all these different things to her guests. She cooks the way she paints, using colour and flavour in vibrant and exciting combinations just as an artist mixes and contrasts pigments on a canvas. In addition to helping around the lodge and participating in yoga classes and all the other activities I found a bit of time to explore a few of the trails. During the winter Caryn and Francis keep these groomed for skiers and I had lots of fun borrowing skis and heading off by myself or with Cara, the yoga instructor. The trails twist their way through narrow wooded tunnels, past expanses of frozen lake, on the edge of small patches of open flowing streams. Snow softly fell for much of my time there and so the trees were draped in white flakes that had settled lightly on their dark branches. It is a very beautiful place. Must be quite different in the summer time though when the lodge is busy with canoe trippers!

... with the Cree (minus the ski bit)

Saturday 26th January
I was walking along the snowy street during a wander round the southern point of Moose Factory Island when a big four wheel drive pulled up next to me. Philip motioned me into the passenger seat, told me that we'd get me and my bags checked out of the ecolodge and go to his camp, returning on Monday in time for him to take me to my train. Ungrateful girl that I am, my immediate reaction was "but I wanted to learn more about the ecolodge and that schedule doesn't give me any time there at all!" So I postponed my departure for yet another day, to give me a little bit more time to learn about the particular brand of tourism represented by the Cree Village Eco Lodge. Phil drove me back to his house where I met his wife Frances and the rest of his family. Then I was driven back to the ecolodge, my laundry rescued from the depths of the building (mmm, clean clothes!) and me and my bags piled back into the car and back to Phil's. They were busy loading up a sled. Without giving me any opportunity to question the rapidity of the events I was given a thick parka (my own down jacket had obviously been deemed unsuitable) a thick pair of gloves (again, my own were apparently not substantial enough) and then, walking outside, "there's your snowmachine". I was shocked! Me, drive my own snowmachine? Frances was already putting on her helmet and without time to do anything other than comply I was aboard that snowmachine, revving the engine and carefully - but with a certain lack of control - manoevreing round the back of the house and out onto the road. After a brief stop at the gas station we were off again, down the road and then, scarily for me, down a (not very) steep embankment onto the Moose River. We followed the same route as I'd skied earlier in the week. The same expanse of flat white ice, fringed with a dark trim of trees. But this time I was going at speed! I tried to remember the brief snowmachine instructions I'd been given the week before by Jeff during my first ever attempt at driving one of these beasts. Let it run in the tracks, don't try to fight it... The surface was lumpy and at various points I started to feel sea sick. But I couldn't afford to let Frances get too far ahead. The camp was not nearly as far by skidoo as by ski! Frances drove confidently up the steep embankment and through the narrow gap between the trees to get into the camp. I was much less confident - especially as there were two little girls standing right at the top on either side of the gap. If I got it wrong - the consequences just didn't bear thinking about. I squeezed the throttle, the engine roared and up I went. Naturally, it wasn't just a case of holding the thing straight. It was essential to make a sharp turn to the right just as one came over the sharp brow of the hill in order to avoid some looming trees. Feeling slightly shaky I switched off the engine. And everything was quiet...no more roaring machines. Just the crackling of the campfire and the excited voices of the children as they unpacked their bags from the sled and ran to grab the best bunk beds.

Wehad all gone to bed when outside we heard a raw voice screaming "Frances!" I was sleeping in the cabin with Phil's daughter, her boyfriend and their two daughters. The children didn't wake but the three of us adults roused and looked at each other. Richard got up, went outside and came back, pulling on his thick trousers and parka. The man from the next cabin had gone out for a snowmachine ride and was now overdue. He'd left about 4 and it was now nearly 10pm, long after dark. His wife had walked, run, stumbled and fallen to reach us on a narrow twisty trail through the dark woods from her cabin half an hour's walk away. She hadn't known what to do. Should she wait. Or go to fetch help. What had happened to him. Her imagination was conjuring up all sorts of disasters. Phil, his daughter and her boyfriend each took a snowmachine and roared off in search. I sat by the fire with Frances, not knowing what I could possibly say to Shirley that wouldn't sound trivial and trite. Luckily we didn't have to wait long before engines were heard and the snowmachines roared back into camp. There he was - the cause of all this upset. Turned out he'd got his machine stuck on a snowcovered tree. Singlehandedly he'd been unable to move the heavy vehicle, so, tired out, he had simply fallen asleep. Phil said it gave him quite a fright to glimpse the reflective flashes on the man's parka in the glow of his headlights, and then, on coming closer, to see him slumped on the seat of the machine. Thankfully he was perfectly alright and all ended happily!

Sunday 27th January

Being out at the camp with Phil and his family was quite different to being there with Ski with the Cree. Before, a couple of curious whicky jacks (which look similar to British jays) visited, but didn't linger. This time, they were an almost constant presence, softly chattering in the trees and darting down when crumbs were thrown for them. They were fearless- one landed on my knee- but very quick...I tried and tried to get a decent photo but to no avail. Tiny red squirrels scurried around the woodpile and picked up the crumbs we scattered around our feet. The family had given them all names. The one we saw most of was called Roger - he was content to sit and pose, nibbling a crumb, while I fussed with my camera and finally got a good picture. I spent my time there sitting by the fire, just being able to sit happily outside was such a wonderful and relaxing feeling. Or I would try to help Phil and Richard gather wood, rolling cut sections of tree trunk down a snowy slope, trying to lift the logs into the sled. I was just amazed at the size and weight of the logs that they were able to shift. My helpfulness was pretty much limited to being a snowmachine driver. They would load up my sled and I would drive it back to camp. Even then I managed to lose a couple on the way due to going too fast over a bumpy section!

Monday 28th January
Staying out at Phil's camp was wonderful. But I did start feeling a little bit guilty - after all, the purpose of my time in Canada is to learn as much as I can about different sorts of tourism - not to wander around in the bush, sit by fires and cut down trees, pleasant as that might be. So on Monday I took myself in to Clarence Trapper's office and asked the poor, patient guy questions for most of the morning. There are two First nation communities in the Moose Factory Area. Moose River First Nation, to which Clarence, Philip and the other guides belong, and MoCreebec, which is the community that has built the Ecolodge. Cree Village Eco Lodge was built because the MoCreebec council realised that they either needed to fully embrace tourism or reject it altogether. Having decided to embrace it they identified a need for accommodation in the area. They wanted this accommodation to be in tune with their traditional values and hence the idea of the idea of the ecolodge was born. Greg told me that there was a long process of distilling down and expressing previously inarticulated feelings, values and traditional concepts. The simple phrase they eventually found which captures the essentials of what their culture and the ecolodge hopes to represent is "living lightly on the earth". Call it what you will, a motto, a mission statement, a creed... it expresses the Cree way of life. They speak of harvesting rather than hunting, gathering rather than picking. I was surprised by how few animals the people I met had killed during their lives rather than by how many. Cree Village Eco Lodge has been built beautifully, with great attention to detail. Organic linens, environmentally friendly paint, beautiful hickory furniture from a sustainable forest in the US. I liked the raw cedar panelling in the rooms - apparently all they do is spray it with water every so often and it releases fresh cedar scent into the room. Much the same as I will do with my tamarack goose when it loses its scent. Clarence said simply to soak it in water, and as it dries out the scent will be invigorated. I can't wait.

Tuesday 29th January
I finally left Moose Factory. What a wonderful place, what wonderful people. I feel humbled by their generosity and the magnitude of their welcome to this foolish visitor from Scotland. It's hard to pinpoint exactly why my stay affected me so deeply, but it's an experience I'm going to remember with happiness for a long time to come. Maybe I'll go back, one never knows, but somehow I doubt it. Maybe someday I'll be able to show some of my new Cree friends my home country and repay their hospitality. Maybe that will never happen and I'll repay their hospitality by giving hospitality to others...what goes around comes around.

I spent Tuesday night in Cochrane at the Station Hotel. In the morning I chatted with the manager, James Pereira, who is absolutely lovely and I thoroughly recommend staying there just because he's such a friendly, chatty guy. Then I caught another train to Temagami. Travelling on these Canadian trains is how I imagine travel in Britain would have been long before I was born. The carriages are incredibly spacious and not crowded at all. The conductor was really attentive. He marked our destination with a card above our seats and about ten minutes before arrival came along the coach to personally inform each of us that our stop was coming up. I helped a man with his disabled wife. Not only was I profusely thanked by the lady in question and by her husband, but later the conductor came along the carriage to proffer his thanks as well! All a bit unecessary for a small bit of aid that no-one could have refused to give! But that experience just about sums up the extraordinary niceness (there's no other word for it) of northern Canadians.

Ski with the Cree - part 2

Wednesday 23rd January

Surprise – it’s cold again. Although I don’t think the temperature quite dipped to the predicted –47C. After breakfast we put our skis on and headed south of the camp through a system of frozen beaver dammed lakes. Tall dark spruce trees lined the glades through which we skied and ever so often we had to fight our way up, over and through the shrubs growing on the long disused beaver dams. Skiing was easy and we all reached the lake where our guides had started a roaring fire long before the cook reached us on his snow machine. He brought with him ready cooked sausages which we reheated on the fire and they disappeared pretty fast. It’s amazing how good hot food tastes outside. Lots of people were rather cold by this stage and most headed straight back to the camp. A few of us stayed and braved the headwind for another few hundred yards to reach the intersection of the creek we were skiing on with the main river. Here our guides had drilled several holes in the ice and were baiting them with chicken drumsticks impaled on hooks the size of my fist.

They were not aiming to catch tiddlers! It was interesting watching Clarence set these night lines. He took two sticks – one with a fork, which rested on top of the second stick – which was more of a branch laid on the ice across the hole. The blue nylon line was tied onto the forked stick. Wrapping the line around his hand several times he tied the bundle in a quick release knot before poking the end of the stick, with its attached line underwater so that the bait rested on the river floor. The idea behind the coil was to provide an easy way of checking if the bait had been taken, and the stick was poked into the water so that the hole wouldn’t freeze up onto our fishing line. After the line was set, we all kicked snow into a large mound over the hole to insulate it and prevent freezing. All in all, we were left with four mounds of snow marked by branches sticking out the sides…we’d return in the morning to see what we’d caught. During the afternoon we were shown how to erect a tipi. The guides had already gathered about twenty tall, thin tree trunks, stripped of branches and bark. All the trees here grow very tall and slim – I can’t see tipi contruction working in Britain where the trees tend to be stockier and twisted. First Clarence laid two poles side by side on the ground and tied them together about a foot from their tips. Then a third pole was placed at right angles and tied on at the same place. A corner of the tent canvas was also attached and with the help of a few southerners the three poles were raised to form a tripod. Then the rest of us got in on the act, bringing the remaining poles and leaning them all the way around the tripod to form a cone. The poles were lashed tightly at the top by simply running round the outside of the circle with an unravelling coil of rope which was then pulled tight. The canvas was wrapped around with the help of another two poles and the opening pegged together with short sticks. Reaching the higher closures became the source of much merriment as it involved our illustrious leader climbing on the shoulders’ belonging to our tall American woodcutter. Their first attempt didn’t seem to be particularly successful, but either they tried again or the guides patiently corrected things as by the time I cuddled up in the tipi to sleep the opening was smoothly pegged, a wood burning stove had been installed and we had a plentiful supply of logs to keep us going until morning. (At this point I ought to admit that I slept right through and didn’t play any role in restocking the stove. I’m glad some of the others slept more lightly otherwise getting out of my sleeping bag would have been less inviting in the morning!)
After dinner we all gathered in the tipi and Clarence told us a bit about the Cree people. How their society functioned in the days before Europeans arrived. The changes that happened during and after “contact”. And how their society is trying to forge its way into the future. He also told us the Cree version of the Garden of Eden story. (The similarities between the myths of completely different cultures continues to amaze me.) I’ll probably get various aspects of this story wrong but here is the general gist as far as I can remember. In his story Man and Woman lived in the sky, but one day through a hole in the clouds they saw Earth – they saw trees and water and animals walking around…and naturally were curious. They persuaded a spider to weave a basket and let them down on a silken thread. He agreed but with one proviso. That on no account were they to look down during their descent. Well, off they went in their basket, down and down, closer and closer to the Earth. Finally, the suspense was too much for the woman and she looked down. (Why is it always the woman who ends up being the guilty party?!) The basket stopped just above the treetops and would go not further. What were they to do? Man and Woman called out to Moose who was walking below “Moose, Moose. Help us” they cried. Moose looked up at them and shrugged… “How can I help you with these hooves?” He replied. They asked various other animals and eventually Bear came walking by. He took pity on them and climbed up a nearby tree. The Woman jumped down from the basket onto Bear’s back and he carried her down the tree. Then he returned for Man. And that is why Bear is so highly respected by the Cree people – because Bear helped bring people to the Land. (Many apologies to Clarence for such a botched version of his eloquent telling of this particular legend! If you want to hear the proper tale you’ll just have to visit Moose Factory yourself!) 

Thursday 24th January

Yet again I slept well in the super warm sleeping bag. This time in the tipi with three of the other skiers. After yet another hearty breakfast we all set off and skied the same route through the lakes as the previous day. Stopping to check the night lines we were disappointed to find that no fish had thought our chicken drumsticks worthy of nibbling on. We continued to completely circumnavigate the island that our camp was located upon. Coming back along its western side we skied on a trail through some fasting lodges. Colourful rags, their once vibrant colours weather faded into subtler hues were tied round the trunks of nearby trees. On a later snowmachine journey Jeff explained to me that the cloths (in one’s favourite or a meaningful colour) were tied onto the trees after completing the fast. It reminded me of the way that in Britain ribbons are tied to trees in fairy places. (Like that small hillock in the Trossachs near Aberfoyle that I can’t remember the name of. Dunmyre?) Again we arrived back at the camp in time for a leisurely lunch. Then I succumbed to a suggestion that we repeat the same route in the afternoon – but backwards. Just four of us went and it was great fun ducking and diving along the twisting trail through the conifers to return to the fasting area. After dinner there were more legends, tall tales and stories. Throughout the trip people gathered either in the kitchen or, on warmer evenings, around the campfire to trade jokes and stories. So many stories. So many fascinating people with interesting tales to tell. I tried to be a sponge – sitting in silence and soaking up every word (sadly my brain resembles a sieve more than a sponge…but it was all fascinating at the time!) While I’d been away skiing during the afternoon some of the others had laid a spruce bough floor in the tipi. It smelt heavenly – guess what I slept on that night?! 

Friday 25th January

Robbie Burns Day. Sadly no haggis or ceilidh for me this year. To compensate I skied the 14km back to Moose Factory singing almost all the way. Unfortunately my repertoire of Burn’s songs is limited to the first few lines of each and I branched out into the songs we used to sing during long journeys in the car while I was little. I’ll have to get those songbooks out again as my memory of words past the first few lines is competely pathetic! This time we skied to the Cree Village Eco Lodge where we were served lunch. This building is stunning. We ate in a spacious hall with an incredibly high pitched ceiling. Greg Williams, the manager told me that it was modelled after the Shabatwon – literally translated as “tipi with doors at each end” - which is a traditional winter dwelling for large families. Before the trip (but after I left Scotland!) Bill had sent an email asking us all to bring a gift representative of our region to give to the Cree. He had particularly requested that we didn’t bring any alcohol on the trip. But what could be more representative of Scotland than one of the whisky miniatures I’d brought with me for just such an eventuality. I really wanted to give them a present and as I didn’t have anything else to offer I discreetly wrapped up my bottle in a plastic bag and gave it anyway hoping that they would appreciate the gesture. For each of us there was a tamarack goose.

These were small versions of decoys that would be made from thin branches of the tamarack tree and placed in the marshes during spring and fall to attract migrating geese. By using such decoys and by calling (Clarence demonstrated the calls of several types of goose) the Cree hunters could bring the birds almost to within armslength. It was a wonderful thought and a gift I will treasure – especially as tamarack smells amazing. Just closing my eyes and breathing in the scent will revive the memory of my visit to Moose Factory long after I get back to the UK. Earlier in the trip the guides had mentioned that they’d been discussing us – as one would I suppose – and comparing our various personalities to animals. While we were all still seated Philip walked round the table, placing his hands on our shoulders and telling us our Cree animal name. I turned out to be mihcheshuu – young fox - I’m not entirely sure what a fox symbolises to the Cree (and was foolishly too embarrassed to enquire further at the time) but I think it should be interpreted as a compliment (as opposed to the sly, thieving British fox which I’m a bit dubious about being associated with.) I’d had a wonderful time getting to know our guides and beginning to learn about their culture. Greg, the manager of the Ecolodge seemed to be really friendly, the Lodge itself was amazing, I didn’t want to leave. So I didn’t. I asked if I could stay – no problem – I blithely handed over my credit card, took my bags upstairs and went to the train station with the others to document their departure… theirs, but not mine. It was quite a liberating moment!

Ski with the Cree - part 1

Saturday 19th January

Today I was collected just after lunch in Ottawa by one of the other ski trippers and he drove me up through Ontario and into Quebec to Bill Pollock’s house. Canada really is very flat! Eventually we got into some small and rounded, although quite steep sided, forested hills. These were the Laurentians. It seemed that there was a ski slope on every hill. Bill lived a long way down a remote snowy road in the middle of the forest. An entirely appropriate location for an ex-forester who runs ski trips. (www.tuckamor.ca)

Sunday 20th January

By the morning most of the other trip members had arrived and eleven of us piled into the minibus and drove north. We stopped at Val d’Or for a short ski on some groomed trails and a spot of lunch. I was relieved to find that I didn’t get completely left behind by the two guys I skied with! We continued driving and long after it got dark we drew up at the train station in Cochrane. The architects of the station (which was also the hotel) definitely drew upon the train theme for inspiration and the building was essentially a single long corridor, upstairs and downstairs. 

Monday 21st January

After breakfast we piled all our luggage into the baggage car of the Polar Bear Express and settled ourselves in the largest train seats I’ve ever seen. The carriages were remarkably roomy – a British train would have crammed in twice as many seats. Each pair of seats could even be swung round to face the opposite direction if you wanted to be more sociable with your friends. The train’s whistle blew and we set off into a landscape of white snow and black spruce. For mile, after mile, after mile… All 193 of them. I don’t think I’ve ever been anywhere so uncompromisingly flat. We arrived in Moosonee six hours later to be met by our guides from Moose Cree Outdoor Discoveries and Adventures (www.creeadventures.com). Originally the plan had been to ski straight from the train to a camp on the other side of the river. Unfortunately the rapids section wasn’t frozen enough and so instead we were driven to the Moose River Cree Cultural Centre where we spent the night among exhibits of snowshoes, fur clothing, bearskins and other trappings of Cree life (spot the obvious pun in that last sentence!) Given that the temperature over the last few days had been in the minus thirties and was predicted to be –47C on Wednesday I decided to take up the guides’ offer of a “winter” sleeping bag. It was much more substantial than my own! 

Clarence Trapper runs the company and was in charge of organising our trip. After we’d all had dinner he gave us a welcoming speech emphasising that this was to be a cross cultural experience and much more than just an ordinary ski trip. To make his point he gave us a list of cultural differences which we should be aware of between ourselves and the Cree. "To a native, making eye contact means either that you're in love with them or that you are hostile." Immediately all our eyes darted to the floor, to the ceiling, to anywhere that was not a continuation of our attentive gaze directly into Clarence's eyes. For me, not looking at someone in the eyes as I talked to them was surprisingly difficult. Before this I wasn't really aware of how much eye contact I must make during conversation. I have to confess that I was no better at avoiding eye contact by the end of the trip than I was at the beginning. Clarence laughed at me when I said this and told me that I must be sending out all sorts of signals. Quite possibly, but as I definitely wasn't hostile I suppose I must have been in love, and that wouldn't be too far wrong. It would have been impossible (and terribly rude) not have fallen a little bit in love when welcomed with such friendliness and generosity. 

Tuesday 22nd January

I woke up to a view of snowshoes after a very comfortable night's sleep in my own sleeping bag - on top of my karrimat, thermarest AND the most enormous sleeping bag I've ever seen in my life. Who needs a bed when you've got that many layers underneath? Clarence arrived just after 8 - remarkably prompt considering that he'd been telling us the evening before that watches and clocks were for white men and Cree Time is a wholly different (not to mention flexible) concept. Breakfast was ready and waiting for us in the Moose Cree Compex which houses administative offices, the post office, the daycare, the supermarket and other community services. I quite like this Canadian idea of pancakes for breakfast, especially when accompanied by syrup and bacon. After we'd all been fed it was back to the Cultural Centre and time to wrap ourselves up warmly for the ski upriver to Philip Sutherland's camp.
 
All I had to carry was my daypack as everything else was being transported by snowmachine. How luxurious - I don't get this kind of treatment at home! The temperature wasn't nearly as low as in Igloolik but it was still bitterly cold. There were several points where I worried about my cheeks and pulled my neck gaiter well up over my nose, just leaving a slit for my eyes. This meant that my cheeks were cosy, heated up nicely by all that warm, moist air I was breathing out. The downside was that the aforementioned warm, moist air was funnelled up out the top of the neck gaiter and promptly froze onto my eyelashes. This created a white mascara effect so clumpy it would never get past even the most lax cosmetic testers! We skied on the frozen river itself, fairly close to the western bank. At this point the channel must be a few km wide and so we appeared to be skiing in a vast expanse of white, trimmed by a fringe of dark, scraggy spruce trees. Due to the cold we rarely stopped on our way upriver and the group spread out over quite a large distance. To the guides waiting at the camp our arrival seemed like a scene out of Lawrence of Arabia - a file of dark figures marching steadily towards them out of a flat desert of ice and snow. The camp was perched on the northernmost tip of an island. Tall birch trees surrounded a clearing with a lit bonfire and several cabins. Technically, I believe they were frame tents- each roofed with tarpaulins and with the walls clad inside and out by plywood. Inside were either wood or oil burning stoves. These had been lit by the guides and so when we arrived smoke was billowing out in a welcoming fashion and we walked straight into warnth - such luxury! Inside the cook tent the kettle was boiling and so we all happily sat down to eat our sandwiches and unpack our bags in this new home from home.    As we'd skied so fast there was still plenty of daylight left and that afternoon Elizabeth and I found a convenient snowbank and excavated a "quincy" also known as a "quinchee", or more prosaically, as a "snowhole". I believe that we cheated somewhat. To make an authentic quincy (that is, without utilising the conveniently situated snowbank) one would pile up a huge mound of snow, let it settle and consolidate for several hours and then excavate. By breaking sticks into 6-8 inch lengths and poking these into the snow surface we made sure that we didn't excavate too close to the roof and cause a collapse. It was quite a lot of fun, especially considering that we didn't have a suitable shovel and to substitute I'd purloined a metal bucket, a dustpan and a baking tray from the kitchen. I was nice and cosy in my super duper enormous sleeping bag, although we could have done with a bit more head room to prevent snow showers every time we tried to manouevre in and out of the hole. Next time I'll make some design improvements!