Big Night on the Town

Sheila, Brian, Suzen, Steve, Eric and I went out for dinner at the Wildcat Cafe, one of Yk's earliest buildings built in 1937 and a meeting place for the area's pioneers pre-WWII. Meals cost a dollar and the menu included caribou and lake trout. The restaurant closed in 1951 and with the collective efforts of volunteers and businesses, reopened in 1979. Located in Old Town, the Wildcat is in a log cabin. Brian and I had buffalo burgers, Sheila and Eric had arctic char fettuccine, and Suzen and Steve shared Muskabou poutine (muskox and caribou).

To round the evening off we headed to the Gold Range bar, known as "The Strange Range", having housed a bar, strip joint, boarding house and cafe since it opened in 1958. The Gold Range features in Mordecai Richler's novel Solomon Gursky was Here and Aritha Van Herk's novel The Tent Peg. After a couple of beers and little dancing we head home before midnight.

Stuff I Learned

Uptik (Cloudberry, Salmonberry) - When you find an individual uptik you call out, "Uptik!".

Vehicular Traffic in Yk - You can drive a skidoo or a quad on the roads in town. They have to be licenced and you have to be a licenced driver.

Kerosene - If your firewood is really wet you can use a splash of kerosene to get the show on the road.

Tuktuk - Caribou

The Main Languages - Chippewa, Slavey, Dogrib.

NDilo - The native village over the causeway from Yk. It's on Latham Island.

Trucking Water and Hauling Waste - Fairly predominant in a lot of areas in town because of the Shield and because of people living off the grid.

Sunlight Bar Soap - You can't buy it in Yk. Available anywhere else?

Moss Bags - Used to carry babies until they were five months old. Baby girls faced forward so they could see what their mothers were doing, baby boys faced away so they could look at the world around them.

Prelude

Prelude Lake is a park and campground about 30 km outside of Yellowknife on the Ingraham Trail. After a dinner of caribou stew Sheila, Brian and I take a ride. On the site there's an abandoned Aurora Borealis viewing area with huge domed cabins and bleacher-like seating with backs that recline so that one can look up at the sky. The majority of people who come to see the northern lights are Asians, primarily Japanese honeymooners. The Japanese believe the lights to be connected to the life-giving mysteries of conception and that a child conceived in the spell of the lights will be fortunate in life.

We stop by the Lakeview Cemetery. At 9 pm and overcast the light is diffuse. Many of the graves have low wooden picket fences around them - something I've never seen before except around a child's grave. A lot of the crosses aren't angular but look more medieval - wide at the top of the lines and tapering toward the centre. Aside from real and plastic flowers and rosaries, many graves have mementos. One has a full Tim Horton's coffee cup, rolling papers and a lighter. Other offerings include a mining hard hat, a drill bit, money, a hockey puck, etc. With the profusion of rock and the frost graves are pre-prepared in the warmer weather for the future cold months.

Bush Wine

The terroir of bush wine is very distinctive. Sheila and Brian make red and white wine and bottle it in 2 litre plastic pop bottles for easy transport during every season. If bush wine had a label it would say, "You can drop it, you can freeze it and it's still good." A batch takes about a month to make and the Prudens have been making wine for about seven years.

Beet Holuptis

2 tsp yeast
1-1/2 cups warm water
1 Tbsp honey
1 Tbsp oil
3 cups whole wheat flour
3 cups white flour
36 beet leaves
4 green onions, chopped
2 - 3 Tbsp butter
1 cup whipping cream
1/4 - 1/2 cup dill, chopped

Dissolve yeast in water and honey and let stand 5 minutes. Add oil. Combine two flours and add to water to form a bread dough. Knead for 10 minutes. Place in a bowl and let rise in a warm place until doubled in size - 1 to 1-1/2 hours. Punch down and set aside.

Wash beet leaves and cut out main vein. Steam just until limp.

Pinch off pieces of dough large enough t wrap a leaf around. Roll leaves around dough, then place on greased cookie sheets and let rise until doubled in size. Bake at 350 F until golden brown - 20 to 30 minutes.

Before serving, saute onions briefly in butter. After about a minute, add the houptis. Pour cream over them and add dill. Stir over low heat until holuptis are warm and have absorbed most of the cream. Serve warm.

Makes 36 holuptis.

Town and Bush

I walked into town and met Bill Kellett and his staff at Kellett Communications. I brought Prostate Man comic books for everyone. Bill and I had lunch at the Black Knight pub and talked about the biz. Interesting to hear about what's happening north of 60.

Sheila, Brian, Suzen, Eric, Kourtney and I headed for the island after work on Friday. Orlando's spending the weekend with his grandma so there won't be so much little boy activity. The winds were forecast to be 60 kilometres an hour but the day turned out to be really warm - 35 degrees on the deck when we left town. Unloaded, built a fire and cooked dinner. Beet holuptis for apps and subs for dinner, fireworks at dark.

Brian and I are the early risers. We chop and gather wood, get the fire going, drink coffee and chat. I like to take a walk along the shore of the island. Great exercise - you have to be nimble to maneuver the rocks. The only sounds are the wind and the waves. Brunch of ham, eggs and toast from homemade bread.

Sheila and I cracked out the Scrabble board in the aft. Some good games. I got whupped as Sheila is the reigning champion of the NWT.

Suzen, Eric and Kourtney went fishing in the smaller boat. Suzen caught a 15 pound Northern Pike. During the photo op I accidently slashed my finger on the fish's teeth. Ouch!

Meal's are a collaborative effort. I like to cook packages wrapped in tin foil on the coals of the fire. For dinner I baked Sheila's Yk cauliflower with parsley to go with marinated ribs and fried rice. Dessert is baked yellow plums and cloudberries served with oatmeal and sweet cherries warmed in a frying pan. Another exceptional meal.

Sunday is windy and damp so we mostly hang out in the cabin playing Scrabble and eating. Suzen and I take a walk to fish from shore. The lichen on the rocks is super slippery. On my sole cast I get a bad snag and give up being a fisherwoman.

Mid-afternoon we pack up and head home happy and smelling like wood smoke. Good bye to Spud Island for this trip.

Mobile Barbershop

Coolest thing! Where does it go? Who are the customers? I should have looked inside.