Month: October 2016

Halloween in Tulita

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Halloween is a bit different here in Tulita.

The kids came by trick-or-treating on Friday the 28th. We weren’t aware that this was happening in advance, but fortunately we had a supply of cookies on hand. Here, trick-or-treaters don’t knock or ring the bell, they just open the door walk right into your house. This seems odd when you are used to living in big cities.

There was an adult Halloween dance on the Saturday. Around 1/4 of the town was there, and there were some good costumes. There were decorations, smoke machines, strobe lights, laser lights, and chips and pop for sale. We played games like musical chairs, pop the balloons, and hot potato. It was kind of like a junior high school dance, with most people sitting around the periphery not dancing. There were some very functional door prizes:

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…and we won the grand prize: the TV!

I made us wolf & sheep costumes.

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Hunting update: squat

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I’ve been out hunting a few times now. I go with my neighbour and he pulls his two twin toddlers in a chariot behind him. It’s strapped to his waist like he’s the horse. We walk four kilometers up the winter road to “Four Mile Creek”. The snow and ice have started filling in the deep divots in the wide, cleared stretch of dirt. Pretty soon trucks will be able to drive it and bring supplies up to us again.

hunting

We look for grouse. So far I haven’t even seen any. Faye’s been out hunting too and she at least saw a couple of grouse flying away.

Or neighbour has had some luck snaring rabbits. He puts up little rings of thin copper wire in places where it looks like they’ve been. They get caught if they run through them. Maybe we should try that next?

Informal Economy

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I went around to a friend’s place to borrow a sander. He was having some trouble with his computers. He had his brother on the phone, calling from Europe, trying to fix it.

Finally I had a useful skill to offer in the local informal economy. A couple of hours later he was back up and runing and I was heading home with a gift of moose meat.

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We’ll be spending a few years here. Hopefully we’ll get ever more entangled in a web of gift and skill exchange and grow ever fatter on delicious local game.