For the longest time, the hunters and elders up north would tell me to be careful with what I say. The polar bears are listening. The animals can hear you. 

It wasn't until I came across this (taken from Bill Plotkin's Soulcraft) that it made sense to me:

In the very earliest time,
when both people and animals lived on earth,
a person could become an animal if he wanted to
and an animal could become a human being.
Sometimes they were people
and sometimes animals
and there was no difference.
All spoke the same language.
That was the time when words were like magic.
The human mind had mysterious powers.
A word spoken by chance
might have strange consequences.
It would suddenly come alive
and what people wanted to happen could happen--
all you had to do was say it.
Nobody can explain this:
That's the way it was.

​- Nalungiaq

Is what you say necessary? Can you sit in the silence and be alone with your thoughts?

In our Internet-frenzied age where Google is the Pac-man for your hungry ghosts*, why not feed him this fruit** instead? 

SIKU is an Inuit knowledge and social media-style mapping platform that will improve safety for sea-ice travel, knowledge transfer and preservation, education, and environmental stewardship for Inuit and Cree in Hudson Bay and James Bay. It has been selected as a finalist for the 2017 Google Impact Challenge for its innovative use of technology. Click here to vote!

* प्रेत; Preta (Sanskrit): In Buddhism and Taoism, this refers to an aspect of human suffering associated with an insatiable thirst for (online) desires 
** Which will up your score allowing you to transcend your (virtual) life vs the ghosts which will destroy you

I have a podcast! Check it out here.

I wrote this back in February because I was stuck up north. I saved a draft, for all of you's who believe in making plans and banking on sticking to said plan. Imagine if:

On Friday, the plane you're supposed to get on flies right over you because it cannot see you amid the blowing snow. The next First Air plane is on Sunday. You panic--no wait! You can purchase a back-up flight with Calm Air for $2000. Okay. You swipe your debit card. Your card is declined. You travel across town to find internet and a payphone (when was the last time you used one of these?). You deposit more money into your account and call the bank. You're worth less than 4 figures in this graduate life. You then wait 1 hour on the phone with an Air Canada robot until you need to use the washroom. You decide not peeing your pants is more important than catching the next connecting flight home with Air Canada. You hang up, save your ego, and go back to the airport, purchase the back-up Calm Air flight, and wait 4 hours. 

4 Hours later, this expensive Calm Air plane can't see you either and you start laughing hysterically while the lady running the airport contemplates your sanity and awkwardly closes up. You spend the evening playing games with local ladies and trying raw frozen country food (beluga, caribou, and char) despite being vegan. You also get an excuse to spend another night hammering away at FF6. 

It's Saturday. -56 degrees, 0km visibility, 60km/hr winds. You go back to the airport. Today's Calm Air plane hasn't arrived yet--it will probably never come. You decide to refund your back-up ticket and go with your original, now-postponed First Air flight on Sunday. It's time to level up your FF6 team and defeat Kefka before your flight tomorrow--but wait! You meet a video game programmer and lose your confidence to a local flock of laughing-contest champions. These kids have wisdom and stories that surpass your own at your current age.

Sunday is finally here. Clear skies and the sun is shining. You get to the airport and find out your First Air flight is cancelled "due to mechanical". You have no idea what that means but know you should try flying to Rankin Inlet because the runways are larger there and there's a blizzard coming in tonight. You watch the regional hockey championship finals in Rankin. Getting stuck in a FF6 battle that you are under-qualified for gives you more anxiety than getting stuck up north.

Monday. Ublaakut Rankin. You've arrived at the airport to see every flight on the small TV screen highlighted in red. You immediately erupt a cacophony of belly-deep maniacal laughs that echo amidst the silence of the empty airport (minus the staff, who are now wondering if you and everything you represent are mentally capable of acquiring a graduate degree). You go back to your inn to find out all rooms are booked and you can't stay there for the night, but you can lug your bags down a hill across town in the blizzard to a sister inn that has lots of space. So down you go as the wind rips your face right off, and you rotundly tumble down that slope with all of your unnecessary bags of warm clothing (that you should have been wearing instead) to an audience of confused (and now fearful-of-you) locals puffing their cigarettes. You get picked up in a warm truck for a ride around Rankin Inlet to see more of it than you would ever have if you'd been home by now.

-----

I stopped writing at this point because I managed to get home and felt I had nothing else to complain about. I managed to make it home with frostbitten hands, a completed FF6 game, and several new local friends. 

My complaint now is that I wish I were still stranded up north. 

When things don't work out the way you want them to, amazing opportunities take their place, if only you take those old (what-I-want) glasses off and put the new (hey!-check-this-out) ones on.

On several of my previous trips up north hunters and community members would tell me stories that the elders would tell them growing up: Inuit descended from polar bears. Almost every community would describe their trips on the land as "hunting side-by-side with polar bears". When describing bear characteristics, they often described bears with human attributes: 

There was an elder here, that my husband grew up with…he was taught [how to hunt] by him…he was telling [me], when you go after a bear, run after it? He’s gonna tire like you…sweat like you, [he's] just like you...he wanted [me] to think just like the bear did. 

They’re the only species we know that can think…that can have weapon[s]. Like, we know that they can design a piece of ice, make it round; they can use that to smash [a] walrus head…for instance. They can think, when they’re pursuing a prey, like humans. And traditionally Inuit said they’re usually the ones that the spiritual people use to go into…and be like them.

We were just hunting side by side with them…we were after the same source of food that they were going after.

Hard to imagine polar bears are anything like humans...right?....RIGHT?...

...


This. To the man inside: kudos for, y'know, roughin' it out in the cold, beating Halloween, and having thighs like what what all night long.

On a more serious note, this photo came from this news article. However, before jumping to conclusions on who's going to win the next gold medal-worthy dive (sorry I had to post this) against climate change, consider the possibility/ incredibility (!) that bears will continue to surprise us with the rapidly changing north.

Love is unconditional.
Love is "the reality of realities, the incomprehensibly glorious truth of truths that lives and breathes at the core of everything that exists or that ever will exist" (Eben Alexander).
Love is this thing that thing's so hard it doesn't matter if it thing's you back.

When my meditation teacher prompts me to "imagine a peaceful place",

I imagine a mountain named King George.
I imagine sinew lashing cuts in my hands after sewing so hard.
I imagine cliffs painted a beautiful red with the blood of a couple who fell to their deaths. 
I imagine Arctic Bay, Ikpiarjuk---Inuktitut for "pocket"---the perfect place to fit my heart into.

What I feel, though, is love.

Save the environment---save a polar bear dick. 
Now we're killing their vibes...

This might be my most X-rated post thus far. 

How to get a thesis-worthy sample size of polar bears?

First and foremost, send telekinetic hugs to every hunter in the north who will always hold a special place in my heart. Send out thanks to the Government of Nunavut. You make this happen for me.

Logistics:
1. Purchase a same-day return flight to Ottawa to retrieve two boxes because shipping will melt those precious 400+ polar bear hearts. Play every card in the "I'm a girl" deck because those boxes feel like they carry 400+ actual polar bears.
2. Pray to the NFL gods (my only gods) that you breeze through security.
3. Thank your roommate for moving all of his Indian food so you have room in the freezer for one night.
4. Pick your favourite 24-hour playlist and start slicing and cataloguing all 400+ samples into smaller tubes so the next time that -80C freezer opens, you don't thaw everything and destroy your prospects of ever graduating.
5. Cross every limb in your body and pray to the NFL gods that AJ Green recovers and that polar bear telomeres do vary with biological senescence, or differ among muscle, heart, and skin.

Apologies for straining your neck... I'll work on my website building skills when this is all over.

An Oxford scientist analyzing alleged Yeti hair samples matched them to ancient polar bear (grizzly bear hybrid) DNA. 


More info here.

I'd elaborate more on the subject but one of my arms is too busy fist-pumping after this year's polar bear sampling success (more info on that later).

A very special someone once told me a story (I’ll try my best not to butcher it):

A polar bear noticed that his father was wearing a necklace. 
“Where did you get that?” he asked. 
“It’s not important,” his father replied. “What is, is that there are these creatures that walk on two legs. You will see them someday. And when you do, stay far away from them.”

One day, the polar bear was out catching seal. He spotted the two-legged creatures, also looking for seal. He noticed they were not very good at hunting.

“Father!” he said, running to him. “I saw the two-legged creatures! They are not strong enough to catch seal. What is there to worry about?
“Stay far away from them,” his father advised.

On another day, the polar bear was playing on the sea ice when he spotted the two-legged creatures again. This time, he walked a few steps towards them. He noticed that they were much smaller than he was.

“Father!” he said, running to him. “I saw them again! I can easily swat both their legs with only one of my mine. What is there to worry about?”
“Stay far away from them,” his father advised.

Some time later, the polar bear spotted the two-legged creatures again. He decided—just once—to see how close he could get to watch them more closely. As he approached, one of the creatures looked up and noticed him. 

Suddenly, three creatures with four legs and four eyes appeared, buzzing around him.
As humans, do you ever wonder why we are afraid of bees? It doesn’t make much sense—they’re much smaller than we are—yet when they fly and buzz around us, we try to swat them away, and sometimes even run. Polar bears often feel this way toward huskies—whose spotted fur on their faces resembles eyes.

As the polar bear became startled, he felt a prick on the side of his belly. When he looked down, he saw a few spots of blood.

He fell asleep.

When he awoke, he returned home to his father and said “Look, pa. Now I have a necklace too.”

The U.S. Geological Survey just released a video that was filmed using cameras attached to a polar bear necklace (after considerable re-design to avoid any harmful effects). Try these polar bear goggles on for size!

They play with their food (or thaw out what's too cold). They neck their girlfriends.