Andrew Wright |
Artist |
Here's a 20-minute documentary about the embarrassment that is the town dump in Iqaluit--it's been at capacity for 5 years. It's is huge problem in the North: everything that's ever been brought up there is still there.
The silence is deafening...except when the wind picks up. Click on the image for a large version. Click download to see it in a separate window--then mouse over until you see the magnifier, then click. This will give you maximum size
Tommy is a Montrealer who works for Environment Canada as a GeoChemist (or something like that). He took me out for a late night trip into nothingness north of town. His recipe for happiness: His snowmobile, his dog Kimmiq, and the Tundra.
I was sitting beside a fascinating woman on the plane to Iqaluit. She was on her way to northern Québec to visit her Aunt who is dying of cancer. When she was 5 her family was forcibly removed from their home in Inukjuaq and relocated to Grise Fiord in an effort to populate the far north. They lived in a tent on the tundra for more than a year. She was then placed in residential school in Manitoba. Last year the NFB made a film about her life and all that she has achieved.
It was lovely to meet you Martha.
From the NFB website:
"In the mid-1950s, lured by false promises of a better life, Inuit families were displaced by the Canadian government and left to their own devices in the Far North. In this icy desert realm, Martha Flaherty and her family lived through one of Canadian history’s most sombre and little-known episodes."
You wouldn't know we're anywhere so remote: CIBC, RBC, CBC, and wireless in the rooms. Cell phone service too--not Rogers (I knew I should have waited for the iPhone on Bell/Telus).
Apart from the buildings, everything is white. Everything. Linda, you'd love it :)
It's only -4 this morning in Iqaluit. No one in the departure lounge is dressed as heavily as me. My feet are sweating.
