Arctic stories...

• Sarah Nangmalik

  Owen,
  I went to the post office to track down the box and they said it is already at your post office and was still there as of 11am this morning. I was going to get back to you as soon as after work but I had my grand kids until half hour ago.
• January 7
• 

  10:52am

  Owen Abrey

  Sarah! I got a cool package today, with Bumper Stickers from the Polar Bears!

  Quana
• 9:42pm

  Sarah Nangmalik

  Glad you got them now:) In my dialect we say "Qujannamiik" for thank you and "Nakurmiik" in Iqaluit dialect where I am living now. "Quana" is Central arctic dialect that I don't speak but understand:D Enjoy your book, I tried to add in most of the large marine mammals we have up here but may be missing some. I also have a poster that I will probably be sending out to you, the pictures were taken under arctic sea in high arctic Lancaster Sound area...you won't believe what we have up here:).
• January 14
• 

  7:12pm

  Sarah Nangmalik

  Hi Owen, if you have Discovery channel you can watch "Canada's Greatest Know it all" tonight at 10pm my time (eastern) I don't know about your time though. My old childhood classmate is in the group. His name is Abraham (Abe) Qamaniq, we went to school when we were growing up and I know him all my life, he will probably share something about the arctic:) He has been in "Canada's Greatest Know it all" for a while now and he has been telling us that southern people don't know anything about the arctic and it's people so I guess, him being in that group he gets to share about the north and teach southerners at the same time:)
• 

  10:01pm

  Owen Abrey

  lol, I will see if I can catch a rerun of it Sarah, thank you for the heads up. Hope this finds you well... We are having winter down here at -15 or so. don't laugh! Blessings!
• Tuesday
• 

  9:22pm

  Sarah Nangmalik

  We watched the Discovery channel last night and Many of us in Nunavut were all glued to the TV screen for an hour. He made it but one got eliminated. The Canada's Greatest know it all will be on for the next 8 weeks, every Monday night at 10pm eastern time and we are wondering how long he will be in the team before elimination:)
  -15? that is like we can walk around in spring jackets, no hats and no gloves:D When it is -30 we think it is not cold:) we can walk outdoors with no hats for a good stretch of a walk until we put on a hat or put up a hood:) -45 and -48 is normal temp. at this time of year with the wind chill it goes up to -53 or more regularly. Yesterday in one of the communities it was -63 with the wind chill it went up to -93 and that is COLD! In smaller communities where it is flat the normal temp. is - 59 or -60 with the wind chill it goes higher. It has been very cold for the past couple weeks now around Nunavut communities and I checked the weather today and most communities were from -53 and up and the coldest today was -63. It is extremely dry cold so it does not feel that cold, it only stings the face but it is only surface cold on the skin and it is often hard to feel a frost bite unless someone spots them on your face on days like we have been having. In the north we have dry cold where we feel the cold only on our face or hands and when we go in side the cold goes away pretty fast but in the south it is damp cold where it goes right to the bones and makes you shiver and the cold up here is not the same. We watch southern weather forecasts too and when they say it will be extremely weather warning winds up to 60...that is nothing to us:) Winds up here from 60 gusting to 70 is normal winter storm and we walk around and drive around, it only starts to get bad when it is gusting to 70 to 85 and more then I usually stay home because when the winds are picking up with snow falling it is very hard to see and breath to walk outdoors. We often wonder among ourselves with our extreme strong weather winds up here would it be considered hurricane like winds? Anyway, enough of my teaching...you should come up here someday and experience the land yourself:) This month especially the last couple weeks have been extremely high tide over its normal tide in the winter. One of my friends who is a CBC radio host, he said when he was out hunting with a group on the sea ice further down Frobisher Bay, the sea water underneath the ice was building up with so much pressure and they watched the water shooting up into the air really high through the ice cracks and "boom" water was shooting up really high into the sky...he said it was amazing to watch:) we get that when the high tide is strong and builds pressure underneath the sea ice. Did I ever tell you that we have ice lightening too? In mid winter during cold season when it gets really really cold like the type of cold weather we've been having ice lightening is bound to happen too. The hunters say it happens further down the bay where sea level is higher and the ice lightening is like a real lightening but with a slight shade of beautiful light blue and very bright. The ice lightening on large lakes is shade of light floresent green and makes weird loud noise. Anyway...ttyl:)
• 

  9:26pm

  Owen Abrey