Fran at the Heritage Forum show and tell, JCEM school in Makkovik.

\ Weather gray and intermittent precipitation last two days, not cold not warm.

With nasty weather forecast for today the heritage forum folk in Makkovik were extracted late last evening, Fran arrived home after 8pm. From the look of it out side we have not received any nasty stuff as predicted, looks like south of us again.

I took the two pictures from social media, one from Facebook the other from Twitter. Appropriate in these ever increasing food price times.  

They show people protesting high cost of foods at two stores in the north, one a Co-Op in Coral Habour and another at Northern store in the same community.

Buddy with bald head and camera is the Manager of the Northern store.

A link to a brief story is here. 

Update: Seems the right choice was taken, all flights [at least Air Nutatsiavut] to north coast are on hold, Wx not good south of here.

Uperty date:  Change again, flights are getting into Nain with a possibility into Natuashish. 

As of yesterday:

While all you folk down south are tending your crocuses and tulips and wondering how to green up that lawn without pesky pesticides we still have plenty of ice, dirty as it is.
I have started sowing some seeds, but this time to try growing some stuff indoors, small batches just to try things out.

The plot still continues to thicken in the aftermath of the Burton Winters tragedy. Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary the provincial leadership still insists that everything happened as it should, except the part the Feds played.
It seems clear that everything did not play out as it should on the provincial level, so the agencies involved are playing political ping pong and the blame game. Its all too ridicules for words.

 I am no expert but here is how I see how search and rescue works in Labrador from the ground up. I may miss an agency or have the ascendance out of whack, so forgive me in advance.

First responders are local GSAR with RCMP as leads.
Canadian Rangers come into play also but I am not sure when and under what protocols are in play. Rangers and GSAR can also be the same people in many cases.
 Local RCMP then report to provincial RCMP command who are the operational leads in search and rescue in the province.

Then there is the Fire and Emergency Services Newfoundland (FES-NL) followed by EMO, but in what order I am not sure.
 FES-NL has the authority to call in contracted air services.

From there it seems to go federal to assets of the Canadian Armed services and the Coast guard.

Available but not used in the province are assets by a volunteer group called CASARA. Why the province and CASARA have not come to an agreement after 20 years of trying is a mystery.

So with all these groups involved and lacking some sort of coordination and accepted protocols, at least in the Burton case, would it not be prudent and in the public's interest to call an inquiry to attempt to fix something that is clearly broken.

 

Oh yeah, just aired this morning on CBC HV-GB. Plot thickens, waters muddy, pick your own analogy.

That fixed wing contract that Aurora Energy awarded to InnuMikun not long back.

 Wellllllll, it has now been taken from Innu Mikun and given to Air Labrador, an Inuit part owned airline.

No audio link up yet but make sure you listen to it when it is, mind boggling.

So here is the audio of two interviews, one with Aurora rep and another with NG first minister.

Lots of catch phrases like, propriety information, doing what is best for Nunatsiavut, Looking after the social and economic well being of the people of Nunatsiavut.

Be good to know what is really going on, since the story broke there have been figures thrown about from the 1 million dollar mark to 200 thousand to the now claimed 400 thousand value of the contract.
On the surface it looks like an Abbot and Costello comedy skit, 'whose on first".

But the underlying thing from my point is the double standard that NG is taking. Ask them to intervene or help in dealing with the food subsidy issue and the high cost of foods and all you get is, "oh we cant intervene in the affairs of private business" . But it is OK to intervene when you have a 51% stake in a private business.

This is looking more and more like a rabies year for sure. 14 confirmed cases in Labrador, two of those on the northcoast with one pending in a domestic dog.

I have been keeping a tighter vigil on Siutik when she is tethered out back, seeing as she is usually not a barker it is hard to know when anything unusual is hanging around.

I found an article in Nunatsiaq News  very revealing. Some years back I mentioned the small invasion of scientist and researchers scrambling up here during the International Polar Year.

As predicted most have come and gone never to be seen again, unless someone opens up the purse strings again. I see many references to food insecurity, children's health, mental health yadd yadda. Everybody knows the issues but more money goes into more research than getting down and doing some thing about it. Pisses me off no end frustrating to say the least.

Some are still hanging around, mainly folks from MUN, there is a different focus towards Inuit and Labrador at MUN now, but we still have to see positive on the ground results come out of all the research.

 A fine sunshiny spring day yesterday. Took these shots while down at the airstrip seeing Fran off.

A busy full week for Fran, on the weekend she attended workshops sponsored by NG and Status of Women Canada, "Embracing the Leader in you:Inuit women's leadership workshop".

My opinion is; not sure why Fran attends these types of workshops, she has more leadership in her big toe than most of the people who give the workshops [who are invariably young go getter's from the south].
Though she does have fun and keeping her mind busy is good.

There were about 15 participants, all younger ladies. The moderator of the workshop told Fran that she should do the next workshop.

This week it is a Heritage Fair in Makkovik. Another NG sponsored workshop embracing all things structurally heritage. Preserving buildings is important, though from an Inuit perspective not so much.Again all the presenters are from the south.
There is going to be a show and tell section to be held in the school, Fran may have a surprise, more in line with Inuit thinking.

Ground caribou with duff [pastry] on top, Frans favorite, or rather favorite dish without bones. Served it up with yam/turnip mash and wilted baby spinach and mushrooms.

Weekend weather was mixed, not a bad day Saturday but Sunday was a mess with snow, wet snow, fog and drizzle into mid day clearing to quite nice. Planes got in mid afternoon.

The Burton Winters tragedy has legs, the tenacity of CBC and the MHA for Torngat Mountains and the many other people involved in the battle to have an independence inquiry has taken a dramatic turn. 

Boy the number of fish plant closures is ramping up and on a daily basis. The closure of the Burin plant is the latest. It was revealed that the raw frozen product can be brought over from China and processed at the plant cheaper than buying local raw product.

Two crab plant closures in southern Labrador bring the issue closer to home. All these recent closures are in communities with one industry, the fish plant that just closed.

Is the coinciding of this increase in closures co-incidental or what?

Thanks for the ideological re framing of Canada yous 39.6 imbeciles percentile.

The lay offs and cut backs from the Feds increases every day too. Government by Ideology is revealing its ugly head; no one can say yous weren’t warned.

Interesting comparisons of what is happening in Canada can be read in this new book “It’s even worse that it looks”.  I caught the authors in an interview on PBS news hour.

Scary stuff indeed. One particularly American trait is this bill C38, the budget bill that contains the revamping of Canada as we know it. 

At least the weather has been great since the weekend, nice sunny days, lots of people going off ice fishing, boil ups and some even scoring the odd caribou if they travel the distance. 

Nunatsiavut and outside areas are heading to the polls again. As mentioned in last post no one received the required 51%+1.

So Susan Nockasak drops out and Johannes Lamp and Sarah Leo run off, date to be decided. 

Break down of results are here.

Here are the preliminary numbers from yesterdays election for NG president.

Johannes Lamp      821
Sarah Leo              742
Susan Nochasak    569

Sub Total             2132
Spoilt                      15

Total                    2147         

CBC HV-GB is reporting that seeing as the one with the most votes did not achieve the 50% +1 total for clear victory there will have to be a run off between the top two.

The Labradorian newspaper is reporting that Johannes is the winner and will replace the outgoing president.

I'm going with CBC.

There was about a 43% voter turnout overall. Nain had the highest voter turnout with 57%. Hopedale was second with just over 50%.

I have the votes cast number for the Canadian Constituency at 431 but do not have the eligible list.

Beside dancing round the May pole today is voting day for the leadership of the Nunatsiavut Government.

Poles will be open in Nunatsiavut, Upper lake Melville and St. John's. If your confused by that then you are not alone, even beneficiaries of Nunatsiavut are confused.

Some did not know there was an election, some know but have no idea who is running, some know who is running but have not had a visit from any candidate. Still others want their perceived benefits and don't really give a hoot about being Inuit, they just think they are entitled to their entitlements.

If you don't take an interest in NG affairs and are not on Facebook, listen to CBC HV-GB or CKOK radio then there is little to indicate and election has been under way for a month.
I have not checked the whole town but I have only seen one poster in one house window. No posters around town, no noticeable poster advertising the election nor any of the candidates.

Twitter is reporting only 40 voted at advanced pole, that is .8% of 5,000 eligible voters. No numbers on the mail in ballot's from the Canadian Constituency. See, it is confusing.

After a snowy morning things cleared off nice yesterday, well it would wouldn't it, the weekend was over. It does not take much sun now to turn the snow into mush. You have to adapt to the one step forward on back, slip slide, use the slope to your advantage.

Sighted were lots of visitors walking around. They have a different approach to dealing with the conditions, more like a surf lifesaving gait, straight back, high knee lift.

It's like a winter wonderland out there this morning. Large fluffy wind blown snow flakes sticking to trees and buildings [it is 0 degrees] not a good thing at the end of April.

Yesterday was a blarh day, wet snow, light rain to wet snow all day. So to change the blarh mood I thought an Ionian theme meal of feta pizza, Greek herbed tomatoes and arugula with home made tzatziki would brighten things up.

Not so simple feta/spinach filo pie. Filo is a nice change but I think I should leave it to those professionals who have the time. This effort did turn out better than the first time I used it, but you sure have to be careful while using and follow instructions meticulously. The end result was OK I think, Fran finished off her portion so that is a good sign. The pictures depict the steps after the layering of the filo sheets on parchment paper. Plenty of olive oil is needed on the parchment as well as on every four sheets of filo x three times. After filling and folding the filo over you first cook the bottom of the pie on the stove top for 5 minutes before putting it in the oven.

This was this morning, precipitation lessened but very gray and wet and mushy on the roads.

 Silly oh daddy making carter smile.

Kaributunge.

Something so simple and plain yet so bloody delicious. Must be my foreigner chefs training.

We had some caribou tongues given us, seems some people don't like the best parts. I have cooked them before but looked up some recipes any way.

Reverted back to the tried and true, keep it simple stupid.

Chuck the tongues into a pot, add good bit of water, salt, pepper, whole cloves and couple bay leaves. Slow boil for 3 hours.

Take tongues out of water and chuck watch the splash into a bowl of cold water. Skin the tongues, slice.
Strain the liquid in the pot, drizzle liquid over tongue and your choice of accompaniment.
Sit back with satisfied look.

The social media sites of two candidates in NG presidential election have really ramped up again with much hyperbole, facts, fiction, compassion, greed, you name it. There is just no way the candidates can deal with all this so for the most part they just let others have at it.
I can understand why this is happening and for the most part it is a good thing. One wag quipped "why have TV when you have Facebook".
Well for one you would go nuts without self control, but everything in moderation is my motto.

For those wat is interested here are the first two CBC interviews with candidates for NG presidential election. The third candidate will be aired Friday.

Here is the CBC interview with the third candidate for NG president. 

What an awful day out there, light rain and fog.

The social media pages of two of the candidates for president of Nunatsiavut have made for some great reading [and occasional participation] these last seven or eight days. Things really ramped up over the weekend on both.

It highlights the closed shop mentality that NG has become and both candidates promised to open the shop with better communications on how the government operates and how it comes to many of the decisions it makes.

There will be resistance within the secrete society crowd but this is where the constituency will have to step up and support whoever becomes the president.

The plot thickened on the ‘why did you not give us the contract cause we overturned the moratorium for you' story this morning.

Aurora spokesperson [AS] responded to NG assertions of playing unfair [I will link when link is up]. AS contradicted NG assertions that the contract was worth a million dollars.

More like two hundred thousand said AS and the difference between the two bids was significant.

Here is the link to AS interview. 

If we only new what is going on behind the scenes the plot could make a good pot boiler.  The AS is a former big Pooh-Bah within LIA and former negotiator on land claims and IBA’s for LIA.

It looked like a relationship heading for consummation. Something must have happened on the way to the consummation bed.

I’m reluctantly in tax filing mode, hard to walk and chew gum when doing these mind numbing forms, and we don’t even get any money back..

But one news story this morning did attract my attention. Remember back in February when NGC announced a 51% buy out of Air Labrador. At the time I expressed quite confidence that the venture would not befall the fate of the NGC venture into marine shipping.Note: comments are closed on that announcement. Not out in the public domain though.

My quite confidence has been some what shattered with the announcement that the first big contract that the new Air Labrador sought went to the other airline in the region Provincial/Innu Mikun. 

Get this whiny presser: 

April 23, 2012
For Immediate Release

Nunatsiavut Government upset with Aurora Energy
over awarding of fixed-wing air support contract

Nunatsiavut President Jim Lyall and First Minister Darryl Shiwak have written the President of Aurora Energy, Bruce Dumville, to express their disappointment in the company’s decision to award a fixed-wing air support contract for its 2012-13 exploration program to a non-Inuit company.

“NGC Nunatsiavut Inc., the business arm of the Nunatsiavut Government, holds a 51 per cent majority interest in Air Labrador,” notes President Lyall. “As such, we would expect any company wanting to do business in our territory to make every effort to ensure goods and services are purchased from Labrador Inuit businesses.

“The Nunatsiavut Government will not support any company, or outside interest, who want to reap the benefits of our resources while we continue to struggle to address the social and economic needs of our people and our communities,” adds the President. “The development proposed by Aurora is on Labrador Inuit Lands. Given this fact, Inuit need to be assured that there will be tangible and substantial benefits coming our way in exchange for the risks associated with any exploration work or uranium mining in our territory.”

The Nunatsiavut Government, when lifting the moratorium on the mining, milling and production of uranium on Labrador Inuit Lands, had hoped to improve its relationship with Aurora and other mining interests wanting to do work in Nunatsiavut, adds Minister Shiwak.

“However, the decision to award the fixed-wing air support contract to a non-Inuit company is an insult to the Nunatsiavut Government as well as to all Beneficiaries of the Labrador Inuit Land Claims Agreement,” he says. “We certainly hope we can once again find some common ground to advance what has now become a strained relationship between the Nunatsiavut Government and Aurora Energy.”

The President and First Minister have requested a meeting with Mr. Dumville to discuss how Aurora Energy plans “to rectify the distrust” it has created.

Media contact:
Bert Pomeroy
Director of Communications
Nunatsiavut Government
(709) 896-8582

When we attended the official announcement within Nunatsiavut {it was first announced at a trade show in Ottawa] the officials of both NGC and Air Labrador said for the venture to succeed it had to operate on a business basis.

On a business basis you submit a bid on a contract, if one of the criteria in bidding is the low bidder wins then no use using dictatorship rules after the fact.

No surprise that the NG assembly who voted unanimous to lift the exploration ban within Nunatsiavut have egg on their faces. Not the first time, wont be the last, your playing with the big boys now.

Confession time; I am as happy as a pig wallowing in mud. Mining for uranium is a bad idea, especially within Nunatsiavut lands.

Further more and on the hypocritical side. NG has said in the past they can’t interfere with private enterprise when it pertains to retail and wholesalers who are involved with the Nutrition North and Provincial subsidies.

"Oh we can’t help you, the consumers of Nunatsiavut, because we can’t intervene in private enterprise".

But there is no hesitation to throw there political weight around when it comes to a private enterprise that NG has a 51% stake in, no sir ree.

Voters take heed on Tuesday.

 

Cherry smoked stuffed pork loin.

Not a bad weekend weather wise, good temperatures for the ice holding for travel, supposed to warm up and maybe rain mid week, then cool again, have to get the ice grippers ready. People bringing caribou back from north and south, but not before long trips and tens of gallons of gas.

Served at "Torngats Bistro' last evening. Cans of mushroom + celery soups spiced up with sauteed mushrooms. Multi grain bread with meat ball, mustard mayo, arugula and sauteed mushrooms. Fran had the white bread.

Friday evening we had a fine meal down at the Atsanik Lodge. Caribou soup followed by fried arctic char and vegetables. There was also blueberry cheese cake on offer, we declined but it must have been good. Noticed others having seconds and even thirds.

It was not our usual quite meal at the inn, very noisy bunch of dinners,  shows not all parents lived my the adage 'it is rude to talk with your mouth full'. But then who am I to complain, I crashed Fran asked for me to be invited, the banquette put on for a bunch of academics and their organizers.

My conscious was reasonably clear, Fran had attended every day and every session and took lots of notes, unlike most other local participants.

Following on with the Nunatsiavut presidential elections:

One of the elected members of the assembly asked of all the candidates-

Dan Pottle seemingly language is an issue... I would like to see a presidential candidate debate in Inuktitut... your thoughts please... nakummek. Was posted to the Facebook pages on the 23th April.

 

It would seem that Sarah Leo responded to Dan in person, and he seems satisfied. 

 

Another candidate, Johannes Lamp responded in writing, in Inuttut:  

 

InoKatiget Inuktitut uKâlaKatigeligamik Kuviasukatigedlutik tusannidlasongummata. Sivulliviniptinut taimailiuligapta ataKattagapta ikKaumadlugit Kanuk uKâlakaktalaunningit sugusiudluta tukisiadlugit, inosuktodluta nâlagasuakaktadlugit, inummagiuligakta uKausigiKaktalauktangit ikKaumajâgikaktadlugit puiguniangitavut inosivut nâllugu. Taimaiktusaugaluagivugut Kitungavut ingutavut Kimaikvigingikuktigit uKausiptnik angijualummik uggualutik kingomaksilâktut. Taimaimmat kavamavut sivukkataktiugialiugaluak uKausiptinik atuksialuni suliaKakvimi, ilinniavikmi angiggami nanituinnaugaluakpat. Ilangit uKausimminik asiujisimanigâktogaluat Kaujimavunga asiujisimalungitut uKausiminut pulautjausimatuinnatut ânnitausimanimminut, mitautigijausimanimminut, nangagijausimanimminut pijagijausimanimminut. Tamakkua saipatsataugialet Kinuiksâvigillugit pitsialugit nagligillugit. Taimâk uKausituKangit uKanginnut utigajaktut Kaujimaligutik kappiasâktauniagunnainimmik mitautigijauniagunnainimminiklu.

I took the liberty of getting the above translated, not by a professional translator so it may not be perfect, but then what is:

 

It is so good to hear Inuit talking to each other in there own language. It attaches us to our past, we remember how they spoke Inuttitut to us as children and we understood them.

And now as adults we won’t forget their words. .

We should be like them, leave our language to our children, grandchildren, and if we don’t all do that all it will be is a memory to them.

Our government should set an example by using Inuttut in the workplace, and in the schools, at home and anywhere.

Some of our people say they have lost the language, but I know it is inside them. They did or did not use it because we laughed or made fun of them.

That is why we have to encourage and support them to learn their language. If we do that it will encourage them to speak it more.