What I say

Fox Lake from the air. Our place is the
middle of the three tiny white marks just above the school.

Even though the last email went out after Halloween, I didn't mention
how Halloween goes down in Fox Lake. Well I'll tell you, it's a big
deal. Candy is a big thing here believe it or not as is free stuff.
Same as everywhere I guess. However, in Fox Lake, it's not just for
the kids. Some of our posse congregated at one of our members' place
with all our candy. Before Ang and I left our place, we had one knock
on the door. It was a parent with two dressed up children. They
didn't say a word, they just held out their bags. Ang played it up
with the whole "wow, look at you two! what great costumes!" and they
continued to be silent as she gave them some candy. The parent then
held out a bag in silence. This confused Ang for a second but then
realized that the parent was after candy as well. They left without
saying a word. This silent candy collection by children (young and
old) and parents (young and old) continued. Anne, who, along with
Jayne, hosted the evening, would ask every child if they could say
'trick or treat' before she gave them candy. I'd estimate she had a
20% success rate. More often the candy seeker would look at her like
she'd asked them to sing Danny Boy. The evening went on without any
real excitement. Conservative estimates placed out total number of
trick or treaters between 4 and 5 hundred. The only question that
remains is should a grade 5 student be dressing up as a pimp?

On the psuedo long weekend created by Rememberance Day, we made an
attempt at a trip to High Level. Our friends Chris and Nikki were
going in their truck and offered us two of the seats. We knew for
certain that the ice bridge that crosses the Peace River was not in
yet, however, two lesser ice bridges would allow us to make the trip
via a longer route. We needed to cross the Little Red River and the
Wabasca River. The Little Red was not a concern because it is very
shallow and many vehicles can cross it when it's not frozen. The
Wabasca is another story, some sources put it at 8 feet deep in parts.
The morning we were to leave, many people told us many different
things about the status of these ice bridges. From "oh they're fine,
you'll be fine," to "I wouldn't try the Wabasca without a raft". Two
members of our posse were not going and they were the real
fearmongers. Clearly not wanting to spend a lonely night in Fox Lake
without the fellowship of the posse they reported only the scariest
predictions of our fate. "There's a ten foot crack in the bridge,
probably caused by the fault line that runs underneath it, and on the
far side there's a 6 foot wall of ice that is guarded by wolves." We
were desperate to get out, so we decided to drive as far as we could,
and if it looked bad, we could always turn around. So we drove the 45
minutes to the Little Red River ice bridge. It looked a little
something like this.

To our very untrained eyes, it looked ok, but to play it safe, Ang,
Nikki, myself and our other traveling companion Paul walked across so
the truck would be as light as possible. No problem, no catastrophes,
no scary cracking sounds, we made it across and gained confidence. We
still weren't sure what to expect at the Wabasca and had doubt until 4
trucks loaded down with supplies passed us going the other way. The
lead truck stopped and talked to us and the diver said the Wabasca was
"fine, you'll be fine" and this claim was supported by the irrefutable
evidence that was his existence. After about an hour of driving from
the Little Red we arrived at the Wabasca and it looked like this.

Yes, that is water you see. We walked down to take a closer look, there
was about 2 inches of water on top of solid ice. The water was just
starting to freeze over so when you walked on it you'd break through
to the solid ice below. A scary feeling. My instinct told me it was
a bad idea, but having seen the trucks that had made it, we knew we'd
be fine. We went for it, this time with all of us in the truck.
Still, we went with the windows down and no seat belts on.... just in
case the trucks we saw had weakened the ice. Great. If you ever
have to drive across a water covered ice bridge, I suggest you blast
ACDC as we did. I remain convinced that had ACDC known about ice
bridges, they would find time to salute those about to cross them and
not just those about to rock. Let me tell you this, driving across an
ice bridge over enough water to cover your truck and all the way
hearing ice breaking and water splashing is a surreal experience. It
was kind of like slow motion. As we approached the far side, we
realized that the bank leading back up to the road was not exactly a
gentle slope. It looked like a sheer 2 foot wall before the gradual
incline began. "Hmm... we'll have to take this slow and decide a good
course of action". However, I wasn't driving. Chris, our worthy
pilot, gunned it. We launched into the air, landed, bounced and
cheered very loudly. The rest of the journey was smooth and happy
because we knew we were past all obstacles.

In High Level, some well funded entrepreneur built four very large
(for High Level) motels that seem very out of place. The Flamingo,
The Stardust, The Frontier and The Sahara all make up "The Vegas of
The North" or so the business card would have you believe. They all
have oversized, overly lit signs but don't offer any gambling other
than Video Lottery Terminals in the bars. We stayed at the Stardust
on the advice of Paul who, as a second year teacher, knows a lot more
about High Level than we do. We also knew to avoid the "Family Inn".
Chris and Nikki had stayed there once after missing the barge because
it was only $39.99 per night. Well it was $39.99 for a reason. There
was no bedding on the bed for one thing, but apparently the general
grunge of the place (that inspired them to wear sandals in the shower)
would have dissuaded anyone from using bedding if it was there. After
adjusting to civilization with dinner at Boston Pizza, we checked in
to our small slice of Vegas and went to The Club.

The Club offered us a place to play pool, well lit drinks,
and a bearded scary old man who was the only one dancing for the first ninety
minutes we were there (I took a picture of him but it didn't turn
out). Things picked up around 11 and The Club seemed like the place
to be in High Level. Our posse was starting to fade since it had been
a long day so we left, I was happy to escape the country music
barrage.

The next day was dedicated to shopping. Ang and I bought three
hundred dollars worth of groceries and a satellite dish. It was a
boring day, highlighted with dinner at A&W. We started back for Fox
Lake just as the sun was going down. We had talked to some people in
High Level who had made the trip from Fox Lake that day and they told
us both the bridges were fine. We arrived at the Wabasca and there
was a largish hole at the start of the ice on our side, probably
caused by someone's dealings with the 2 foot wall. We wouldn't have
known there was a hole there but some thoughtful person had stuck a
large branch in it. Once again, if we didn't know people had crossed
it that day, we wouldn't have tried it. But we did, and being more
used to the splashing water sound, crossed with less stress overall.

After we'd crossed the Wabasca on the way out of Fox Lake, Paul, the
second year wise man, told us that it's always an adventure coming to
and going from Fox Lake. Well we hadn't had too much of an adventure,
not on par with some of Paul's tales anyway. That was until we
encountered the broken down Taurus sedan on the road between the
Wabasca and the Little Red. We came around a corner to see said sedan
and a truck parked on the road. There were six or seven people
milling about and two of them were on their knees peering under the
car. Chris, who in addition to being the town's electrician, is known
to all as 'guy who fixes stuff' went out with a flashlight to take a
look. It seems six of the residents of Fox Lake had decided to make a
trip into High Level. Their first mistake was their choice of
vehicle. The Taurus, heck, any 2 wheel drive family vehicle is not a
good choice for the roads around Fox Lake. There are huge ruts and
it's 100% snow and ice. 4WD is the only way to go. Their second
mistake, one that might have contributed to the first one, was that
they were all drunk of their asses. Well, that's not totally true. I
can attest that two of them were literally drunk onto their asses.
Well it seems their fuel line had snagged on something and ripped in
half. As a line of cars formed behind us, Chris offered his jack and
flashlight to help the stranded six. He didn't hang around to help
employ them because it didn't occur to anyone but us that smoking
around a car with a broken fuel line might be a bad idea. Eventually,
someone found the break and rigged up a patch with some heater hose.
The Taurus was still leaking gas but it was good enough to get them
back to Fox Lake. All in all, it only took about a half hour and
nothing exciting took place. But if you're ever literally in the
middle of nowhere, surrounded by drunk people who are all speaking a
language other than your own and occasionally gesturing at you and
your heart rate doesn't go up a bit, you've got stronger nerves than
I.

Jean Baptiste Sewepagaham School. What a place. It is the teacher's
window to the community. I'm confident crazier things happen in the
community than at the school but I'll never hear about all of them.
The ones I do hear I often wish I hadn't. Paul will occasionally tell
one of these stories but one gets the impression he has many more but
doesn't like telling them or doesn't want us to leave this place in
fear. For example, last year a baby died of malnutrition. The
parents believed that Coffee Mate, because it was a substitute for
milk in coffee, would work as a substitute for formula in humans.
They were wrong and a child is dead. I saw what must be evidence of
this at the nursing station. They had large homemade posters
proclaiming, "Come in for your 6 month pre-natal exam and receive a
free diaper bag" and "Attend pre-natal counseling and receive your
voucher for free meat and milk. You will also be entered in the draw
for a $100 gift certificate for the Northern Store." I wish I'd taken
pictures of these but I didn't think to take my camera with me. The
school serves a hot lunch to all students and breakfast to all
students up to grade six. I'm told these meals are the reason many
students come to school. Sounds great right? A government funded and
controlled school serves meals to kids who might otherwise go without,
certainly there will be strict standards of what is served. Oh no,
you're wrong, this is Fox Lake. For eight consecutive school days all
students in the grade 2 and 3 classes (and probably others, but I only
heard tales from teachers in the posse) had pudding cups for
breakfast. This sparked a debate on whether pudding cups are better
than no breakfast at all. Is this really a debate that should have to
happen? Can't they scrounge up some granola bars or something? This
is the kind of thing that I have come to categorize as 'Fox Lake
Style' which can be defined as 'something totally ridiculous and/or
horrible happening unnecessarily'.

As you may have guessed, I was not hired at the school. I was not
interviewed nor was I contacted to be told that I wasn't going to be
interviewed. This was a surprise to Ang and I for a number of
reasons. For one thing, I have 2 years experience as a TA and have
participated in a number of very relevant workshops. Also, I have
graduated from high school. For another thing, the principal, Bill,
told Angie shortly after hiring her that my getting a job as a TA
'wouldn't be a problem'. Indeed. Those are the facts, I will now
relate the conjecture and hearsay that went along with this situation.
The school posted 5 TA jobs and had many applicants. Apparently, 40
people were not interviewed. 39 of them were known alcoholics and 1
was a white guy. Another brilliant human resources move by Bill
involved a couple of special ed TAs. In September, they were
attending the local 'college' to earn their high school diplomas.
Bill contacted them and told them to stop going to school and that
they could both have jobs for the year. Well wouldn't you know it, 2
of the 5 TA jobs posted were theirs and they were not re-hired
because, say it with me now, they didn't have their high school
diplomas. Fox Lake Style.

Two things about Fox Lake that bother me immensely are the clocks and
the water. No clocks that run on alternating current electricity are
correct. That means the microwave, oven and any plug in clock radios
are wrong. And they aren't even consistently wrong. Sometimes they
will be way ahead, other times, way behind. It's a constant annoyance
and has something to do with the generator here not being tuned
properly. It's ridiculous. However, the water situation is super
ridiculous. Back in September, something went wrong with the water
treatment system and we had to start boiling our water before we could
drink it. No problem, the Band ordered new parts. However, the Band
still hasn't paid for the last time they ordered parts which was years
ago. So no new parts. 3 months have gone by and we're still boiling
our water.

After the Remembrance Day long weekend, we had an odd string of full
weeks of school. I plan to make an accurate count of how many days of
school were scheduled and how many actually happened. The disparity
will be great. Anyway, a few Mondays back I predicted the end of this
strange run. Sure enough the school was closed that Friday and the
following Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Another death under
mysterious circumstances was the cause. A female elder was found
frozen to death outside. But it wasn't as simple as that. Word on
the street was she was covered with bruises as well. I never found
out, and I don't want to, what the cause of death was but the autopsy
kept the school closed two extra days. The teachers have hit the
point where they aren't pretending as much to care about the death of
this person they never knew or met. It can mean paid days off which
is a pretty sweet deal, so quelling the excitement when you hear of a
death in the community gets harder and harder.

I must say that through all the hardships of Fox Lake my family has
been very supportive. We had a spell in the last few weeks where it
got no warmer than -18 and once as cold as -43. Going outside was not
fun. My dad sent this email…

"How is your weather? We got a nasty surprise yesterday. We walked along the
waterfront in Sidney- the sun was really bright. I did not have my
sunglasses so had to squint all the way. Also, I had a light jacket on and
had to carry it as I was too hot. Hope you have not had to put up with such
problems."

So that was nice. Jess has been every bit as supportive. My favorite
restaurant in Vancouver is Memphis Blues. It is a BBQ house that will
serve you excellent meat in massive quantities at a reasonable price.
They sell shirts that say VEGETARIANS with the forbidding bisected red
circle stamped over it. They have salads on the menu, but they are
all meat based. My brother knows I love and miss this place and sent
me the following emails…

"Try hard to take into account all the relevant information, and use your power
of inference and logical reasoning to try to predict which of the following
people will be eating Memphis Blues tonight:
[ ] Tom
[ ] Jesse"

and then…

"hey, i got a whole ass-load of leftover memphis feast in my fridge. you can
come over and eat as much as you'd like! oh, yeah... sorry."

I will close with some interesting words from my Albertan brother.

"Fox Lake is an anagram for 'Axe Folk' or 'Ox Flake'"
- Morgan Soley