We-I attended another Xmas seniors dinner last evening. This one put on by the NG DHSD staff. Nice little do with good food, Santa could not make it this year but he sent along a small gift for all in his absence.

All these Xmas socials, and many others during the year, have had to find other venues due to the community hall being condemned due to asbestos. This one was held in the school gym.

There are plans in the works to build a new multipurpose building but that is a way down the road, maybe further down that road than expected now that the Provincial government is busted broke despite all the oil wealth these townie types keep bragging about. Oh there is money in the kitty but the bright minds have kept a couple of billion to dump into the Muskrat Falls debacle.

I digress; so the Xmas do went off rather well and the DHSD staff did a great job looking after the quests. 

As every body and his gun knows the caribou herds in Labrador are in serious decline. When I first came here the George River heard was up in the 800,000 range. Today it is down under 25,000.

Since the 1980 s it has been discovered that there are splinter groups of the Goearge River herd, plus there are smaller herds in the south west of Lbarador.
Any way long story short they are all in serious trouble.

We keep getting a lot of empty rhetoric about conservation and the provincial government and the Nunatsiavut Government have introduced smaller kills, although the NG one was a volunteer one, which by the way most people abided by.

Now this year with no word from the provincial government NG has come out with a  very blunt press release asking for a no kill of caribou for a couple of years. From NG perspective still a voluntary ask, but the province and other native groups have to come the the party as well.

A very big ask for peoples who have relied on caribou for their main source of red meat (and one time clothing) for generations, but it has to be done IMO. Lets hope the others see it the same way.

We had a clear crisp morning earlier, clouding over mid morn with snow and winds on the cards later and into tonight. At least the temps are rising from -19 to -13 as I write. -25 wind chill though.

Meanwhile out on the water: Yep, even when the shipping season is over (or so most thought) we can still relay some very funny stuff that comes out of CAI-N.

The updated mv Astron schedule going  south was confusion enough, it went from an ETA Rigolet 2:45am Saturday to a ETA Rigolet 8:30 pm Friday to  the latest ETA Rigolet 9 am today. I shit you not.

Then low and behold this is the latest screen shot of CAI-N schedule  

MV Astron (Freighter)

 

Saturday, December 15th

ETA Black Tickle 09:00 am

 

Arrival times for other ports to be advised.

 

Next port(s) of call:  Black Tickle, Cartwright, Nain and Lewisporte

 

Mind you I am not surprised she is heading back here, the lay down area at the dock has many many empty sea cans sitting there, not the usual for the long winter ahead.