Top Stories of the Day in Iqaluit

I suppose the top story on this, Clean-Up Day, the 19th of June 2015 is that it snowed making for a cold and wet experience for the wonderful volunteers who came out to brave the weather and hard work.  It already looks much better on the beach in front of Baha’i House.  We can see more tidy piles waiting for the dump trucks to swing by and carry off the mess to wherever it goes.

 You can see the growing pile made by the wet workers.  Michael offered them to come 

in to warm up and have a coffee.  They gratefully declined.  They were holding out 

for the bbq being held at the newly renovated museum just down the way.  

I’m learning many things about this capital city of Nunavut which includes how much Iqaluit has grown and is continually expanding.  Apparently this rare capital city, void of stop lights, has doubled its size since being capitalized April 1, 1999.  And, for the estimated population of 7,000 there are 4,000 vehicles with 400 more arriving when the ships come in this July.  

Part of the aforementioned clean-up needs to be derelict cars.  Dead cars can be seen about the place simply lying where the fell.  Once every three years the city brings in the car crusher to deal with the rusting and ruined wrecks.  This is the year.  Hopefully we get to see a little of the action.  Apparently cars will be towed away to meet the crusher.  I have no idea where they go after being squished, perhaps back on an outgoing ship to be melted and made into something new? 

It was mentioned in one of my story postings (either here in a blog or, on my Facebook photo stories … ‘friend’ me at Marlene Turner Russell to follow those) that most houses are built on stilts.  That’s because of rock, the permafrost and the fact that the ground shifts and moves about when it freezes and then again when melting occurs.  So, I guess it goes without saying there are no basements in Iqaluit.  There is a sewer system in the roads that carries waste away from the homes which leaves the premises through insulated piping which is above ground.

Here you can see an example of the stilts and the insulated pipes.  

It’s different seeing houses sitting on legs, especially those built on the edge of the many hills in Iqaluit.  It might be said that the higher up the hills one goes, the more expensive and fancier the houses become.  Have I mentioned Baha’i House is at the lowest bay level?  We look out on Koojesse Inlet which is a part of Frobisher Bay.  Currently the seascape changes with each tide.  The size of the enormous chunks of ice that are breaking up and being rearranged is quite amazing to this inland girl.  Well, we do live on a pond in our hometown of Erin, Ontario but never see this kind of action.  It’s truly fascinating.  

When this house was built over 40 years ago it was not in the poorer area of town but in the years since, the lower-priced housing has been built up around us.  Living here has it’s own kind of news events.  Take last Saturday, for example. 

I should preface this story by saying that I found a lovely painted rock a few weeks back while organizing.  I picked it up to take a closer look and noticed this message, “Rock thrown at Baha’i House”.  My heart was touched by the wisdom and peaceful reaction to an act that could not be considered either peaceful or wise.  

On Saturday I was home alone and just drifting off for a nap when I heard crashing and thumping.  At first I thought it might be my husband returning early from a walk.  “He sure is making a heck of a noise getting in”, was my thought.  I called.  Michael?  No answer.  I yelled … MICHAEL?  MICHAEL!  Still no answer.  I got up to investigate while whispering a prayer for protection.  

I found rocks coming through a back bedroom window.  An immediate call was placed to the RCMP.  “Do you have any descriptors”, came the question over the line.  I responded that I wasn’t about to get close to any window in the house.  

It didn’t take long for two officers to arrive but, alas, the many kids I could glimpse, from a safe distance, had disbursed.  It was explained that kids are sometimes alone, hungry and angry after the cheques come in and get spent in a way that definitely does not benefit their well-being.  They sometimes, in their fear and anger, lash out and try to hurt something or someone else.  I’d like to believe they were trying to help … that window was already damaged and needed replacing.

Later, when our housemate returned home, she sympathized with my eventful afternoon and added, “We have more to add to our painted-rock collection”.  

Exactly right!  Thanks, I needed that.  I’m going to Zentangle mine.

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Thanks for following along.  Please feel free to leave a comment below.  What would you like to ask about this journey I've undertaken?  

Dizzy Gillespie Has a Strong Connection with Baha’i House in Iqaluit

There are so many delightful little facts I’m learning while living here.  For example, Beth McKenty (we need a book just about her time here and I sure hope she’s writing it) lived here more that a decade and was instrumental, if you’ll pardon the expression, in helping this famous trumpet player to become a Baha’i.  I would never have learned this and so many other little snippets of Baha’i history if I’d remained in my Erin home. 

Oddly, I’ve had two other encounters with Dizzy in my travels.  On one of my trips to Cuba when I visited the Baha’i Centre in Havana, the lovely Cuban Baha’is asked me to sign the Centre’s guest book.  Dizzy Gillespie had been there before me and so our names sit side-by-side in that record book.  I know, a very small claim to fame indeed.

I found the cutest photo of Dizzy on the internet.  Of course,

it would not allow me to copy it here.  It was from an episode

of The Cosby Show.  He was bulging out his famously puffy 

cheeks for the youngest Cosby child.  So cute and funny!   

I don’t know if Dizzy ever made it to Iqaluit to visit Beth but, I expect if he did I’ll find his name in one of the Guest Books here.  I’ll be going through those books and trying to make contact with any who have been fortunate enough to have passed through these welcoming doors.  I’ve agreed to help start compiling a time-line of visitors in order to obtain their Baha’i House memories and stories.  

Meanwhile back at my third encounter with Dizzy.  In January of 1993 I visited the Gardner family while they were living in Ljubljana, Slovenia.  Daddy, Dave was in Canada on business so Grandma Helen thought it a good idea for me to go to be with Sylvie to help herd the kids.  Daniel, my young friend who got me here, would have been five at the time and his sister Julie, our current housemate, was just two years old.  During my precious and all-too-short two weeks there, I picked up a newspaper.  I couldn’t read Slovene but I was able to understand enough to know that Dizzy Gillespie had died.  It was one of those ‘moments’ for me that I knew I’d remember for a very long time.  Dizzy was only seventy-five when he died.  I say only because I'll get there myself in just over three years.  Yikes, I'd better get cracking, I've got a lot I still want to write about and do.  

A lovely lady, also famous to Baha’is, is Dorothy Baker.  I have no idea how or if she has a connection with this house.  What I do know is she did make her presence or, perhaps I should say her absence here known.   

Knowing how she loved to travel why did it surprise me when Dorothy recently took the strangest little junket to Michigan?  I used an envelope I found in the over-stocked supply in the house to mail an Iqaluit Visitor’s Guide to my sister.  She and her husband are coming for a visit later in the summer.  When my sister thanked me for the brochure she asked, “Who’s the pretty lady in the picture?” 

“What pretty lady?” was my response.  I then received this photo via email.   

Dorothy’s photograph must have been in that envelope.  I did not know of my mistake and I can tell you it made my job of sorting through the huge supply of envelopes here very labour-intensive.  I held each one up to the light to make certain no other archival photos or since-departed Baha’is would accidentally be tripping off hither and yon. 

The photo of Dorothy will be making the return trip to Iqaluit along with my sister.  In the meantime if anyone knows how or why her photo came to this house, please let me know.  Would you look at that mischievous smile on Dorothy’s beautiful face?  Her eyes seem to twinkle.  

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Just so you know, Michael passed his RCMP check.  Another thing you should know.  A message is NOT sent to you each time I post to my blog when you've clicked on 'follow'.  However, please click 'follow' anyway.  It helps get my blog postings more 'out there'.  Thanks, see you next time.  

     

Michael Gets Fingerprinted by the RCMP in Iqaluit (and other updates)

Before you start raising bail relax, it’s not as bad as it sounds.  Sometimes we writers just like to grab your attention.  

We have many local Inuit children who come to Baha’i House in Iqaluit for Arts & Crafts classes and sometimes just to visit with us and have a snack.  Our housemate, Julie Gardner, is a Grade 8 teacher in the middle school here and thought it a good idea that the custodians of Baha’i House take up the practice of having a police check.  We agreed so, off to the RCMP shop we went. 

 Iqaluit's RCMP building with an Innukshuk made from metal.

It’s quite a hike for me but not for Michael, not to mention that the journey takes us into unpaved roads that raise a lot of dust so, off I go in a cab and end up in a conversation with the cab driver about what brought us to Iqaluit.  He was visibly excited to learn I was a Baha’i and wanted to know more about it.  Any Baha’i reading this just started to tingle.  We love being asked about our Faith.  I reached into my bag to give him one of my cards so I could write the number of Baha’i House on the back while voicing my concern about not having a pen.  I pulled out my card case and a little pen happened to come out with it.  “Oh”, my cabby said, “I think God works with you”.  The Baha’is are tingling again.  He was an interesting fellow with a fascinating story, I do hope he makes contact.  

On the way to the Cop Shop Michael had to get a certified cheque in the amount of $50 to pay to be fingerprinted.  As it turned out he was called to do this because of his birthdate and not because of his name.  When they ran the check on him his birth day comes up as suspect.  My application passed without the added expense but, he got to tour the inside of RCMP headquarters.  Lucky him.  Yes, an expensive tour but, he liked seeing the holding tank.  We now await the call that his fingerprints checked out okay.

The photo that was to go here would NOT upload.  Go to Marlene Turner Russell on Facebook.  

A big thank you goes out to the editor of Erin’s newspaper, The Advocate.  One of my Erin friends forwarded a piece Joan Murray wrote about my adventures in the north.  I was truly moved by how Joan complimented the writing in my columns that appeared in the paper for ten and a half years.  “… unfailingly thoughtful, humourous, touching and informative”.  I’m aiming for that kind of writing in my blog posts so, please, rattle my chain if I fall short.  

Joan also mentioned my Baha’i Faith which, again, got me tingling.  It turns out the best way I can teach about my Faith in Erin is to leave town … hmmm!  

One final little snippet.  We finally made it to the Grind & Brew which is only two doors east of Baha’i House.  They are reputed to have the best pizza in Iqaluit.  Oh, my, their reputation stands.  Delicious!  We had the Grind & Brew special.  Next time we’re going for the Char pizza.  Yes, it IS expensive to eat out however, it was doubly expensive last night.  Apparently the best way to buy local arts and crafts is to sit in a restaurant and the locals offer you a better price than you might pay for in a store.  I’m delighted with what we bought and am happy to know my hands will never be cold again whether here, or in Ontario.  

There were two photos that would NOT upload.  Go to Marlene Turner Russell on Facebook. 

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I regularly upload the bulk of my photos to my Facebook page.  Please ‘friend’ Marlene Turner Russell if you’d like to follow the pictorial version of our Iqaluit experience.  I’ve been unable to do much on the internet as our month of purchase began again today and we had indeed eaten up our monthly allowance. 

Finally, if you click on ‘Follow’, as seen to your right, you’ll receive an email message when a new piece is posted to my blog page.  I invite you to take that step.  Will some kind person let me know if it actually works?  I also invite you to 'comment' and/or ask questions.  Thanks again for joining me.