17 July

Heading north to Inuit community Kuujjaaq.

Only have a brief stopover in Montreal – overnight at an airport hotel. But it’s been interesting just seeing how strong the French language is here in Quebec . I guess it’s just normal for them but for me it feels wierd to be inCanada but yet the whole province has laws that say French needs to be the most prominently displayed language on all packaging, signs etc and the first language used in announcements. Every public interaction here the first question is French or English?

18 July

Kuujjaaq

Have arrived in Kuujjaaq – the administrative centre of the Inuit communities of Nunavik in Northern Quebec. Despite the arctic being a little further north of here it has a distinct arctic feel, the crisp air, the boxy architecture, the snowmobiles and ATV’s everywhere, the barren landscape…. Doesn’t exciting but there is a smell in the air that brings memories of an arctic winter in Norway flooding back and it’s a good memory. And then there is the ‘aboriginal community’ feel to the place… and that is where my heart lies. So am liking this place already. But then I realise there is more… wait… I realise I feel like I’ve landed in my favourite Netflix series Life Below Zero.

 

All really positive and good. But sadly it’s not long til it starts to feel like another TV series, like one of the many Nordic crime series on SBS.  Small remote town in the arctic, murder, no one knows who did it and it’s scary in a small town.  Yes only a few weeks ago one of the lab technicians who had been working here at the hospital for years was shot in her bed. For 48 tense frightening hours no one knew who did it or why and no one felt safe. They now know who did it but not why and the perpetrators story may be just as tragic as the victim’s.  But the hospital staff here have clearly had a very rough ride through this time and as a consequence some have left, some are on leave and those who remain are carrying the load – ‘life in a northern town.’

But despite all this these lovely people gave up so much of their time to talk to me and share their stories with me. I have had back to back interviews here giving me a real window into life in a remote Inuit community for health staff.

 

Life is tough for everyone here, especially those who call it home.  There have been 11 suicides in 3 months. Local newspapers are calling it a public health emergency.  Yet there are stories of hope. We started talking to a young Inuit girl who had left when she was young – now she was returned to reconnect with her culture and she is working at the hospital. She dreams of becoming a doctor and returning to help her people. I was able to talk to her about some of the training programs I’d observed.

It seems that there is still a lot of traditional practice and traditional foods used here. Some tell me that Nunavik was a bit ignored by the Quebec government in their early days which meant some hardship but also meant more preservation of culture.  The dentist who has been here a few years told of her bewilderment when she first came , at why children had hair in their teeth. Turned out it was from chewing caribou skin.  Chewing beluga whale skin is also an important traditional food – especially as it is super high in Vitamin C in a place where you cannot really grow anything and fruit costs a fortune!

 

This really is remote here – there is no road whatsoever into this community. There is no mobile/cell reception from major carriers – only a local one. Internet access is slow.  There are alcohol restrictions in place here with limits on how much you can buy but they have been considerably relaxed since 2013 with mixed views on how that has worked – much like Australia.

We have been made to feel very welcome though, with lots of very busy staff making time to talk with me, one of the doctors inviting us around to a group dinner at her house with other staff and being given a tour of town and meal tickets to eat at the cafeteria ( which is great as food options here are limited).

Have spent most of the time here doing solid back to back interviews so have some great rich data for my report.

However was going a bit stir crazy by the end of it and keen to get ‘out bush’. Ron hired a car for us from Friday night to Sunday morning.   We were disappointed there were none of the ‘cheap cars’ left, that is until we saw one of them driving around and realized the cheap cars were really busted up and the side windows were all busted out – not fun in a place with giant hordes of mosquitoes and biting black flies!!

Headed out Friday night after a day of work to go and look at the tundra. 10 pm sunsets meant plenty more time to explore.  It really is wild and beautiful.  The only downside is the awful bugs – they really are bad. The mozzies are crazy and the black flies try to get into every orifice and they give a nasty bite that takes a chunk out of you and leaves you bleeding – they tend to like biting around your hairline.  Thankfully we were prepared and had head nets and bug shirts!

subarctic tundra

As well as the barren beauty of the tundra it was interesting to note that Inuit also have little hunting cabins spread out around the place. Some are tiny huts that can be pulled around on sleds and are literally just a spot to hide out in winter when going out to hunt. Others are quite permanent and look more like a permanent house just with no services.  They vary a lot, some look very used with tables outside for cutting up meat, BBQ’s, swings for the kids and an array of old snowmobiles parked around whilst others look like they haven’t been used for years.   However I am starting to suspect that the large number of hunting cabins might explain why we’re not really seeing any animals??

Whilst animal skin teepees are no longer used, Inuit families still regularly use these tents to camp out in in summer.

Couldn’t believe our eyes when we saw someone had gone to the trouble of making a golf course on the rocky course – confirms my thoughts about the mental status of golf nuts!  Each hole had a 2 sqm of turf around it – not sure how they got the balls between holes.  Even more amazing is that this is all under metres of snow and ice for around 7 months of the year.   In fact there was still some snow in the background nestled against the hill right in the middle of summer… Brrr…

Evidence is everywhere of a cold harsh winter. People randomly leave their snowmobiles and sleds around everywhere and in some places Inuit sled dogs are tied up for the summer near some water until they can be used again in winter.

The sun setting over the tundra was magic and the fresh air and peace ( apart from the buzzing mozzies) helped me to understand the lure of this place for the locals and the staff I had interviewed who had come here to work.

Saturday & Sunday

Drove the other direction out of town today into completely different country which was more forest and swamp.  Was lovely.   Saw a ptarmigan hen and her chickies and got quite close to her whilst she had a dust bath…  Got some beautiful views of Koksoak river.

We kept stopping at different spots to just walk around and hopefully find some animals.  I spotted this track and I was pretty sure it looked like an animal pad. Ron thought it was a human track but we followed it and it was definitely animal tracks crisscrossing. I thought it would be caribou pads and might explain the handful of hunting cabins nearby… So we didn’t really expect to see a caribou although we did see plenty of the lichen they eat and also found this antler which may be as close as I get to seeing one…

I’m starting to think this may be like our experience in Borneo where we went on a wildlife walk to spot things like civet cat and saw nothing. Later explained by the same guide taking us to his family’s house where we were offered fried civet cat…. Hmmm.   “We eat everything” he announced.  Think it might be the same here too.

We did see a couple of squirrels but maybe they’re not so tasty..

We drove down a few tracks on the way back and one took us to the cemetary.  There was a backhoe that seemed to be parked there permanently. I hoped that wasn’t a reflection of the health issues here…

We also drove back up to a lookout we’d been to yesterday where we’d noticed some really nice rocks where they’d blasted to get the power poles in.   Did a bit of fossicking and found some nice little pieces of mica and garnets.

When we came back to the hotel there was an older Inuit guy who was hanging around the lounge bar door and he offered us a necklace he’d made. It was ok and was quite cheap but it made me sad, I got a really strong feeling it was to support a habit ( you had to be there to see him and the way it was offered)…

At one of our meals at the hospital I got talking to one of the lovely midwives I’d talked to earlier in the week. The group of three long term midwives were just gorgeous and so passionate about their work and their patients.  The first night’s dinner at the dr’s house I’d been talking to them and one of them told us a terrible story of how a disruptive local person working at the hospital was throwing her weight around i.e. her connections to Inuit leaders to really bully her and try to destroy her. It sounded very sad because this lady had worked there for 8 years and was clearly committed to caring for her patients and the community and just felt so powerless. It resonated with things I’d seen in Australia and we talked a lot about the similarities of lots of things.  Also talked about some possible ways to deal with it but wow what a tough situation. She seemed pretty shattered and actually said she had a ticket to go on leave tomorrow and hadn’t booked a return flight!

Well I was talking to the other midwife at dinner- I asked if she thought this nurse would come back. She said yes actually I do and I think the turning point for her was talking to you!  She also told me that they all felt really invigorated from our talk because it made them feel less alone – like others were working with the same situations. So wow it felt good to think I may have contributed to retaining this dedicated midwife! And to be able to share our experiences and provide some support was such a privilege.  We were then joined by a despondent social worker who had been working with one of the small remote communities in the battle against suicide which is a major epidemic here right now.  She had been trying ideas working with the kids and I told her about what Ron and I do in Australia. I simply made some suggestions about how to do a proposal to get support from her boss and she started saying how excited and inspired she was. The young midwife was then smiling and said “wow you are keeping everyone here , she was going to leave too”…   Well my work here is done then I guess.

And not wanting to reveal too many identifiable details but I was able to provide a welcome debrief and self-care advice to two burntout health professionals and even had to reach for the tissue box for us both – ended in hugs.

Was good to be able to give something as well as take all the amazing information I’ve been given for my report.

Drove down to the lake and out to the tundra again for our last morning. Was amazing how different it looked in a different light – almost like a different place. So beautiful. We were starting to despair at seeing much wildlife when I noticed a large ripple in a creek – I told Ron to pull over thinking at least we might see a big fish or something.  As we got closer and pulled out binoculars we saw it was an otter!!!  This is the animal Ron has most wanted to see  on all his travels – we both love otters but he has a real thing for them. Funny thing is we didn’t even know there were otters here so it was a total surprise!!  We saw it hunt around for a bit in the stream and then it suddenly bounded out of the creek and ran across the grass and over the hill! What a sight!!  Was very exciting except that of course after that Ron wanted to investigate every ripple we saw in every lake …

Heading back we pulled into a track down to the river. We saw another ptarmigan having a dust bath so I got out to have a closer look. He ambled into the low lying bush and I slowly followed him – as I stepped forward I got a fright because suddenly about 4 chicks jumped out of the bushes chirping away and the mother flew out from the bush and actually flew at me and was trying to attack me! I couldn’t believe this bird the size of a small hen was going to take me on – that is mother’s protective instinct alright!

Went back to the hotel to sort out the bill and I said hello to a young Inuit boy sitting on his phone playing games.  He looked up and pulled out a beautiful bone carving from his pocket.  It was of an Inuit spearing a narwhal and was a very reasonable price. But it was far too fragile for me to get it back to Australia. I told him that and congratulated him on his fine artwork and hoped someone would buy it.

Meanwhile Ron was back at the store trying to fill up the car and having a heck of a time as the locally run gas station hadn’t opened up and so everyone was lining up for this one – after lining up for ages he was told he’d followed the wrong procedure and was meant to pay first so had to line up all over again!! Aarrggh and the plane was coming soon and we had to drop the car back. I went back to pay for the car and the guy was very nice and not at all worried.  And when I asked to pay for the car in cash he offered a massive discount which was great – so worth asking about paying for things in cash.

Was a wonderful experience in the Northern Town of Kuujjaaq…