Some one

in Quebec thinks this is a dinkyDi interview with an Australian Senator. Ho ho ho, the jokes on????????

It is dam funny, big chuckles all round.

Totally unrelated: You out there old trout? Some one here asking about you and wondering how junior Kalleo is doing.

Sequent to yesterdays post

The name of the vessel is the Avataq out of Montreal; she carries freight in the sea lift to ports north of Nain.

I know that this type of vessel would not be suitable for Labrador ports on regular runs, but it sure has other advantages over what service we have now.
Not the least being reasonably new equipment across the board.

This vessel is a self contained supply vessel serving ports that have no docks and where the tides go out a long way at low tide.
It carries small barges, tug boats and loaders equipped with fork lifts.
All the freight is well boxed or in containers, except for all the vehicles on top of the containers that is.
I think it is food for thought for Nunatsiavut Government. Labrador customers could avoid all the road transport to Newfoundland and into Goose Bay. Middle men could be eliminated, at least the piddling little shits in Goose Bay.
Get the goods straight from larger suppliers down Montreal way, ship direct to Northern Labrador is the way to go IMO.

I know there are problems with the service for some customers up north, from what I have seen I think they would be minor compared to what we get from the people who run our shipping and the wholesalers in Goose Bay.
The laughable part of all this is the power brokers in Goose Bay have designs on competing with this already established service to the north. Some think trucking into Goose Bay then loading for ports into Nunavut via Northern Labrador would be viable. Dream on Dave Hunt.

It seems that the Community Government, along with the Recreation Department and others plan some sort of do for the victorious Husky sports team.
It is scheduled for some time this week.

I have garnered some more info on grandson’s medals, only drabs and drabs. Gold for best overall male athlete, gold for monkey dance [traditional Inuit event], silver for table tennis, silver for some sort of running event, still more drabs to come.

By the by, we have some white stuff falling this AM.

Not as bad as the south coast, seems the ferry from Blanc Sablon to St. Barb could not dock on the Island portion last evening, there was a tanker at the dock who would not move to allow the ferry to dock, so ferry had to return to the mainland. WTF goes on with this crowd who run the ferry, to my knowledge all vessels bow to the ferry schedule [pun intended].

Then things were held up due to high winds [hello Kyle]. The phones and radio lines are lit up with unhappy campers down that way this morning.

Another week.

This ship is in harbour this morning.
It is speculation on my part that it contains [and is off loading] material for the New Northern Store to be built here.






What is going to happen is: the old store will be pulled down, along with he old Take Out next door, and a brand new building erected over both sites.

Northern do not plan on forgoing any revenue during the construction, they have rented several properties around town. The old Fire Hall has been refitted; this will be the temporary home for the food department.
The Old Angnatok/Ford Bakery will be the temporary home for the clothing and dry goods. Several other properties will be used for storage.

In other news: The sports ream from the JHMS have retuned home as overall winners of the fall sports meet held in Makkovik this past week.
It was not long ago that the teams from Nain did not far well overall at these meets, things have changed and lately Nain usually come out on top or near top.

Our other grandson, the one I do not mention often, returned with six medals. I’m vague on the details yet.
Brian John is a rather shy bloke; he is in his last year at school and is very accomplished in various sports. He is a representative hockey player and does well in other events as well, hence the six medals.

Imponderables of power generation.

The waters are becoming somewhat un-muddied on our Hydro plant situation.

I was reluctant to speculate before, yesterday a spokesperson for Hydro offered up some confirmation of my speculation.

Situation at moment: We have two portable generators from St. Anthony [now in Nain] and another portable on the way from southern Labrador.

Once these portable generators are up and running the Hydro plant will be shut down and work will proceed in repairing any damage to motors, generators, wiring, replacing one generator etc.
Not said is dealing with any structural damage caused by the heat of the fire.

Now here is the kicker, this work well see the plant shut down well into next summer. I’m sure some people will be taken a back by that.

The situation is what it is, but I for one am not a happy camper knowing we only have portable generators to rely on over the coming winter.

Christ, look what happened to a brand new plant, it could not be monitored and protected for Christ sake, and it was summer.

The spokesperson did say that all of the above will most likely cost as much as a new generating plant.

Best case scenario would be for this weather to last for another 6 months or so.
It was up to 19 yesterday, down to 11 overnight.

Yesterday was amazing with a warm wind, only spoilt by the wind blown dust.

The pictures show the first two portables at the dock. It should take about 2 weeks to get them up and running.

MUN Brass Ensemble, Nain Moravian Church.

The audio on these two video, and the first Posted, have the brass band playing the old German influenced Moravian music. Tom Gordon of MUN has been visiting the area for some time doing research and the like.

So if they sound different, then they are.

NWR, 1968/9 maybe.

More of the NWR series.

NWR, 1968/9 maybe.

Big John, big bad John.

I have never been an avid fan of the present Minister of Labrador Affairs.
He always rubbed me the wrong way with his bombast and aggressive style.
None the less he always used to be a strong supporter of things Labrador, and usually was not shy about waxing not so eloquently in support of Labrador.
Why as recently as when John was the Minister of WST he still had some fight left in him trying to do right by Northern Labrador.

I say used to because the big guy has lost his bark big time. I listened to an interview CBC HV-GB did with the John yesterday, the topic being the controversial postponement of the Labrador Winter Games until 2010.
John was grasping at strews in his defense of the Governments decision not to put any more funding into the games so they could be held as scheduled next year.

Rather than sounding like Captain Labrador he sounded more like a eunuch in the harem of the Danny Government.

Stuff like “from my perspective”, “Government has put in $500, 000.00 and I agree with that”. “The minister has agreed with a meeting with the games board and my self, to be held this fall”. “We need to maybe cut back on travel expenses for the games”.
“Private companies need to be encouraged to anti up” [paraphrased]. “IOC and VBNC have been making good profits over the years, time for them to give some back” [paraphrased].

Sounded all very half hearted and grasping at straws to me.

Some observations from my perspective:
The 500 grand will be devalued some what by 2010. The call for private funding is fine to a point, but does the government demand the same for similar events held in Newfoundland.
I am surprised that government has not demanded a cost sharing with the federal government, which is the usual call for any Labrador development.

Any way big John did face the music with the media so he gets points for that. Can’t say the same for the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs who does not do interviews, or press releases, or interviews to be quoted [or whatever media speak is for those types of interviews].

Just this morning the President of the last Labrador Winter Games has said that the Government is underfunding the games, and that the governments call for private funding is ill conceived. What rational is there for business to anti up monies in the hundreds of thousands of dollars he is quoted as saying.
He also went on the say that cutting events from the games will not save significant amounts of money.

More from the NWR disk.

There should be no confusion about this not being
North West River.

MUN Brass Ensemble, Nain Moravian Church.

Power outages and brass bands.

Most of the audience is at the back of the church, funny why the back always fills up first in churches.

We took in the MUN Brass Ensemble last evening. Us and the rest of the audience [who half filled the church] were not disappointed, an eclectic presentation of the new and old style music, very enjoyable indeed.

I particularly liked the couple of modern pieces, got the mojo going. I think the band would do some great jazz if time permitted.

The second half was all music from the Moravian book of worship with audience joining in.

CBC was there not missing a sound, both musical and spoken.

They do a concert at the school this morning then it is onto the Northern Ranger for the next concert in Hopedale.

As prophesized, another power outage yesterday morning, this time for just over an hour. Time for an update from those that be, if they don’t offer then they will be asked.

Lots of fast moving clouds with snow flurries too yesterday, none stuck around but fall is here.

I took several short videos of the concert, if they are reasonable then will post some later.

It is amazing that these “let the market decide” high rollers object to regulation and government involvement when the dollars are rolling in.
Then magically revert to socialists when the shit hits the fan and the ill gotten gains are threatened.

Or is it fascist not free marketers they are?

Fascism should more appropriately be called corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power.
Benito Mussolini.

The fall is sure upon us in all its force, the colors on the hills seem to be changing by the hour.

We had a little power outage yesterday morning; it lasted for only minutes, none the less I think most of us are all edgy.

I have my computer on an APC back up, I casually shut it down, soon as it was off the power came back on.

I gave it no more though until later in the day, I found out that whatever caused the mornings outage must have been more than a little glitch, extra hydro guys were called in. One, on his way to another community, was hauled off a plane when it landed in Nain. Technical guys most of them.

I am still very uncomfortable with what is happening since the fire. Not with guys on the ground, it is more to do with management, not knowing what hydro is doing to solve the long term electricity supply needs of the town.
It seems there are two portable generators on the way; some land outside the plant is being prepared for these. No news off what is planned for the long term.

The generator I ordered had a nice little trip. It was first delived to St. John’s NL, then had to revert back into Quebec. It did get to Goose Bay quickly after that diversion.
You would think UPS would know the road connections of the province by now, but that does not take into account the human error factor, lot of human error factors play a roll in shipments to Labrador it seems.
I will be a lot less edgy once the generator arrives here, not till next Wednesday now.

Pod cast

As Peter pointed out in comments CBC HV-GB has a pod cast of some of it's stories.

I was vaguely aware of the pod cast, but, as I do not use them it slipped my mind, so here are the coordinates www.cbc.ca/podcasting and one of the storey on the Labrador winter games postponement http://podcast.cbc.ca/mp3/labmorning_20080922_7689.mp3

Hmmm

The province has postponed next years holding of the Labrador Winter Games to 2010.

This article in the Labradorian does not truly reflect the true reason of the postponement.

CBC radio in HV-GB [click on live feed at right] has on going more accurate coverage; that is the provincial government refuses to up the 500 grand funding for the games by another 200 grand.

The head of the games organizing committee resign in protest at the decision by the government, and judging by the phone calls to CBC many are pissed off royally at the government’s decision.

Some people may think it is a lot of money to lay out for the games when there are so many other more pressing issues facing the province. My view is that fitness leads to good health and cultural activities lead to a healthy mind and soul.

Three voices I have not heard on this issue are the two elected members who are ministers of the government, and the other ordinary member.
I could speculate as to what they would like to say, alas I do not think we will hear that too soon.

It was a wild

windy weekend, did not bother berry picking, watched a lot of golf, bummer result.

Did take Siutik for a short run and managed to take some shots of the rapid changes to the flora.

Also one of the dog relaxing after the run.

More from NWR etc disk.

Some more pictures from June Stewart of Scotland.

Anyone know where top left is? and bottom right?

Enriques first birthday.

Enrique’s first birthday was held in the Resource Center today. By the look of these pictures all had a good time.

The staff saw Enrique coming, judging by this sign on the back of the chair.

While all this fun and frivolousness was going on I took a walk with the dog. What a walk, dam windy.
Walking across the old dam Siutik was blown off the road, twice. The second time she came back up the shoulder of the road looking quite perturbed and determines to get out of there quick, dragged me for a way until my laughing subsided and I could rein her in.

Later while walking across the old bridge she was blown awfully close to the right side, by this time she figured she would put her head into the wind [cutting down the resistance] and walk crab like the rest of the way across the bridge. After that fright the protection of the buildings made walking a little easier.

MUN school of music

is sending a Brass Ensemble on a tour of Moravian Labrador. It should be worth a visit, especially if they do some works with local brass bands and choirs.

The tour may help excite some younger people to jet involved with the retention of some the Moravian traditions, or not.

Not a lot of coverage of the removal of Minister Barbour from his portfolio on the regional media front. CBC radio had a news brief but no coverage after that.

Maybe that was the intent of the timing of the press release, and its brevity.

But, CKOK did have an in depth interview with President Lyall on the subject on yesterdays broadcast, unfortunately nothing in its news briefs.

Maybe that was intentional too. I am not criticizing, just speculating out loud.
This is a good time to repeat; what a good idea it would be for CKOK to be broadcast on the internet.

This removal of William Barbour has been a long time coming, his behavior was firstly an embarrassment for his constituents, secondly an embracement for NG and thirdly an embarrassment for himself. Let’s hope he seeks help in dealing with his addiction problems.

I think it took a lot of courage to do what Jim Lyall has done; I would think he had to battle entrenched attitudes of self indulgence and self protection within NG and its predecessor LIA.
Maybe it is a heads up to others within NG who maybe think that holding their high paying jobs is solely contingent on the voters, that their public behavior has no relevance.

From listening to the Jim Lyall interview I had no sense of any real plan for Mr. Barbour to seek intervention for his addiction. Barbour gets to keep his salary as member for Nain; it seems he will be working closely with Mr. Lyall briefing him on Mr. Barbour’s old portfolio.

Time will tell if this helps Mr. Barbour. Seeing that self regulation had not worked in the past that more extreme measures would be warranted this time, maybe something is in the works, let’s hope so.

Leats not forget the ABC

campaign people.

On the political front: CBC is reporting that William Barbour has stepped down from the cabinet of NG. His portfolio will be taken over by the president of NG, James layall.

It was reported that Mr. Lyall mentioned that he hopes Mr. Barbour can deal with his personal issues, if so he could be welcomed back into cabinet.

10 year old's blues.

A father asked his 10-year old son if he knew about the birds and the bees.

'I don't want to know,' the child said, bursting into tears. 'Promise me youwon't tell me.'

Confused, the father asked what was wrong.

The boy sobbed, 'When I was six, I got the 'There's no Easter Bunny' speech.
At seven, I got the 'There's no Tooth Fairy' speech.

When I was eight, you hit me with the 'There's no Santa' speech.

If you're going to tell me that grown-ups don't really get laid, I'll havenothing left to live for.'

They have come a long way.

Ski doos that is.

These pictures are of North West River, Labrador, circa 1968/69 or so.

June was a nurse their at the time.

Photos courtesy of June Stewart of Scotland.

MP for labradore what's is name

was in town earlier this week, or so I was told.

He did not have the big advance party [leaving aside the size of one of his entourage] but this little view by Russell Wangersky of the whole election as it pertains to the ordinary folk resonates with me.

Enough of the boring and inane.

This photo is from many years ago, early 1980's, it is of John Terriak taken in the basement of the craft council building. Back those days the craft building had many lapidary tools and lots of soap stone carving instruments.

Today the building houses the Nain Inuit Community Government offices, and John [non the worse for wear] has become one of the famous stone carvers of Labrador.

MHA what's his name

Sarah's creation.

Here is a short [8 minutes] home made video, it is of a mixed choir singing Moravian hymns in Inuttut at this years language conference held in Nain.

Sarah Townley, one of the participants, created the video.

Speaking of FUNGI.

I was just down to BigLand on a matter totally removed from fungi. I had to wait to speak to the manager, he was on the phone spitting chips to a person at Multifoods, a Goose Bay based wholesaler.
The reason for the manager’s anger was sitting on the floor in the office, a box of moldy assorted bagels just off the plane this morning.
Last week another shipment of moldy bread products sent in, this time Kaiser Rolls [hamburger buns].

It looked like some fresher packets of bagels had been put in with some not so fresh, but that is just speculation by people this end.

What the hell is wrong with these Goose Bay businesses, head up their arses or what.

This time the manager was going to send the product back to the wholesaler as proof of fungi.
I wish the stores here would send inferior products back more often, these are sent up under the ‘food by mail’ program and qualify for two subsidies. Just taking the stuff to the dump and not providing proof of shitty product is not the way to handle these arse holes. You must have a paper trail.

I hope the review being undertaken by INAC of the federal program picks up on this latest, why one must ask, did not the Canada Post inspection not pick up on the mold; it was quite obvious if one had opened the lid of the box of bread

Changing face of the landscape.

It had to happen, down to -3.3 at the house last night, 0 official. This after light snow at heights the night before, the good news is we missed most of the impact Ike had on other parts of Labrador.

I have added a link to the Canadian Animal Assistance team at right. Hopefully things can come together for the re scheduled visit to Nain next month, beside being put back a month it now looks like being shortened from 7 to 5 days, this at no fault of the local organizers.

P---ed off.

The rumor mill on the net and radio was abuzz with stories since Friday of gas prices rising today, even though the price of crude is on the wane.

That’s all fine and good; most people with the money and the savvy rushed out to their local gas station and filled up over the weekend.

Alas people on the north, and I presume some on the south, coast of Labrador do not have that luxury.

Our gas stations do not open on weekends.

So anyone who had to put gas in there pickups, cars, ATV or outboards got hit with a 11 cent rise per liter this morning, without the luxury of maybe beating the odds and filling up over the weekend.

Add to that insult is the fact the gas has been sitting in the storage tanks for months.

Add to that the fact that tax on 177.6 is higher than the 152.6 in St. John’s and the 156.6 in the Lake Melville region, and they have all the benefits of public works, we have something not much better than an outback road, the again it has been raining.

It has always puzzled me why the prices of petroleum products have a moderate differential between St. John’s and Lake Melville and the difference between Lake Melville and Nain are always in the 20 cents or more range, storage of product considered.

It does not affect me that much as others, it is more the principal, and why can’t something be done about it one wonders.

We had a balmy Saturday night, it was 14 degrees early Sunday morning.

Alas the flow has switched to the NE dropping the temperatures to fall like.

The hills are showing fall like colors now too, every day you can notice the change.

The weekend produced quite a harvest of red and blue Berry's, enough for quite a few pies and plenty for a quick snack.

Update:

Seeing it was dark when I posted here is an update. There a sprinkling of the white stuff at elevations over 1,000ft, not uncommon for this time of year.

Speaking of dark, seeing as I am a morning person I cant wait for the fall back situation with the clocks.

Blogworthy.

There is a lot of blogworthy material around but I am feeling rather relaxed and enjoying life's simple pleasures. Blogworthy, taken from Spongeworthy, one of the Seinfeld sitcoms skits.

The hills were alive with berry pickers yesterday afternoon, a nice stiff breeze made it comfortable.
The blue are starting to border on the over ripe, but boy are they sweet and juicey, the red are between near ripe and ripe, but I take the lot, love the tartness.

Northern stores had some packets of 'puffed pastry' in there freezer, I am a sucker for things in pastry so I purchased some.
Rolled one piece out, added some more butter and rolled it several times, made up some plain croissants and some filled with home made red berry jam. Yowza

Friday round up.

Took the dog for a walk in the morning.

If I arrived home, in the condition I was in, 54 years ago me mom would not have been pleased one bit. Like Fran said, you look just like a kid.

Elaborating; after letting Siutik run free for a bit we headed back to the town boundaries, put Siutik back on the leash and headed up to where the new subdivision is being constructed.
Nothing was happening as the crews were out on their ‘turn around’ [construction speak for a break at home], so we head up to where one of the new streets ends, it is on the side of a hill with great views over the harbor.

To save time [I thought] in getting to the next new street we went through some rough bush and very wet, small brook laden mossy ground.
On arrival at the street there was large mounds of earth and bits of trees and bush all pushed to the side. We went over this and onto what looked like wet but solid earth.
After several steps it was revealed that solid it was not. I went down to my knees in MUD.
Did a step forward, down again, lost a sneaker, pulled it out and headed from whence we came. Another sneaker stuck in mud, extracted it and scrabbled onto higher and solid ground.
All this time Siutik was being very cooperative and not pulling too hard on the leash, I leave it to others to speculate as to her thoughts at this time.

So we sauntered back to the house, me caked in mud from knees to toe, passing a couple of people who had sort of embarrassed grins on their faces, embarrassed for me. Sure glad it was just before the school break for lunch, all those kids. Glad I did not have my camera with me.



After school we took Matthew berry picking. He picked black, grandma picked blue and I red.
The wind had dropped so the flies made it uncomfortable.

It was quite noisy up there with some target practice going on in the sand pit. A chopper came in to land at the hydro plant and just before we fled from the flies a twin otter took off.

Can any one ID the shooters in the picture below? They are to the right.

On outside goings on, there must be an election going on. These guys must take us for chumps, then again.

I think this idea from down under [substitute province for state] is worth a look see considering the state of our health care, transport, policing, education and on and on. It’s all a big balls up in this province for sure. Eliminating one level of bureaucracy would go a long way in attempting to solve the problem. The guy with the funny ear lobes would spit chips on the idea though.