There's a hole in our floor

So this is an update that is long overdue. As mentioned when we were at home this Christmas, our bathroom floor has a slight hole. Actually, a place where the wood is rotten so much you can't step there. It is between our toilet and bathtub/shower. We were worried that it was under the big unit, softening the foundation underneath.

I finally went into our basement to take a look at the damage. I had told Claire about three weeks ago that there might be animals living there now to get out of the cold. Possible a snake (sorry, I mean ess) that could crawl through the hole into our bathroom. This of course freaked her out and she had trouble being in the bathroom for about a week. As the pictures below will attest though, our basement is actually quiet neat, and there are no signs of life.

Good news in regards to the hole. The wood is only rotten in a small circle between the toilet and shower. The wood is still strong and has not been rotting at all, allieving our (Claire's) nervousness.

Some exciting news too from this week. Claire and I were driving to town to drop a student off after school. He had been held back by Claire due to too many missed assignments. After dropping him off we were on our way back home when we noticed there were some cars up ahead. Most of the roads here are similar to those in Cottage country, where approaching means moving as close to the side as possible. Anyways, the road under the vehicle on the right side starting giving out and the truck was pulled into the ditch. We and the truck, were in it.

I opened the door and stepped up, out of the vehicle. I got out, looked at the situation asked Claire, "Are you alright?" I then, without missing a beat asked, "Do you have the camera?" Figured the pictures would be blog worthy. It took only a minute for someone to stop by. Of course it was the school secretary. She had a car and told us she would go ahead and try to find a truck to help pull us out. Soon after a truck stopped by and asked if we had help on the way. We told him someone was looking and he offered to come back and help. He had to go to the Northern and it was closing soon. In the meantime, another truck stopped by and pulled directly to the back of the vehicle. He didn't stop and say anything, just got out and helped.

He had a rope with hooks on the end. Of course it snapped almost immediately. While this was happening, a teacher and her husband stopped by. They are one of the few regular churchgoers. He helped and started digging some tires out. After the rope snapped, the owner of the truck was going to find a chain, but the first truck driver that had to get to the Northern had just pulled up. We spent the next 15 minutes attempting to yank the vehicle out. In the meantime, half of Deer Lake showed up, which of course made me feel less embarrassed. One of the viewers was the classic pestimist. Standing there, while everyone else is helping push, saying, "Oh, it ain't going to work. Nope, gonna wreck the car more." Yah, coulda done without him.

Eventually the car came out and we made it home. It was really nice to see so many people stop and help out. Eventually it seemed like a community task was at hand. One community member, Preston, an old Education Board member, heard about it and came walking from his house with a shovel. Good people with good hearts live here. Of course I'll never let this down, as jokes have already started. One student already asked this morning about what had happened. Apparently her uncle told her about it last night. Oh well, lifes not worth living if you can't laugh at yourself.
A picture of the wood that has fallen from the floor board into a pile in the basement.

Our hole.

Our spacious basement. No esses.

Deer Lake Cup

Yesterday, the three of us organized a floor hockey tournament for the Grade 4, 5, and 6 students. In all 20 students came and were split into three teams. It was a good day as the kids seemed to have a lot of fun. They are quite different from the older kids. Most knew our names without ever meeting us and they acted strange. They actually listened to us the first time. When everyone arrived and we were about to start, I asked them to sit or stand in front of the stage. I turned around to tell students who I thought were running around a second/third/fourth time, but every student listened right away.

The games were pretty good and there were some pretty good hockey players. The ball never really got off the ground that much, but the kids had fun.


One of the games. If you can notice, no one wanted to play goalie, so the players took turns holding the goalie stick. That boy in the white was probably the best goalie all day, but not because of skill. I don't think he ever moved his body or the stick. Every ball that came towards him just happened to hit him and not go into the net. A remarkable feat considering his head barely went over the top bar.

Claire working the Tuck Shop. That green container in front is our cash register and the container we use to transport money back and forth. It was our first coffee container, so all our money has a strong hint of decaf coffee.

More of the game play. Because of costs and lack of selection, gym shoes are a rarity. It is quite funny watching kids playing sports in stocking feet. The kids have definitely learned how to safely play as they have all mastered the art of sliding.

During a break I organized a shoot out contest for the students. Everyone seemed to like it and we had two winners.

A picture of the two winners. L to R = Kurtis, Grant (Grade 8 volunteer) Hayden.

All in a day's work

Well I had my evaluation today. It went really well. I woke up a little nervous but at the same time I had a calming sense come over me. Julia, had already told me that she wouldn't be in my room very long because she already knew what was going on in my classroom. Anyways she came in first period 9-950 and watched me teach and went through all my students work, my assessment records, my long range plans etc. While my students were in Native Language (I was on prep) we discussed what she thought of my program.

Good news, she liked it. She had many good things to say about my program and the things I am doing with my students. She even went as far to say at this time she does not have any suggestions to make. She mentioned that every other time she had a suggestion I immediately implemented it. Anyways I was pretty happy with the results.

On another note, this afternoon the grade 8 and 9's had the opportunity to go to the Nursing Station. We were given a tour and the students got to participate in some pretty cool activities. They were first shown the x-ray machine and how it works, they also got to look at some x-rays already taken of people in their community. They then went into another room and got to listen to their heart rates and was shown a defibrillator. They also shown how to do a suture and they then got to practice suturing on a dummy thing. The last activity they participated in was putting plaster casts on each other. It was a pretty cool thing for the students to be involved in.

While in the suturing room with my students I had a run in with one of my students. The students were asked not to touch anything, I had two students touching markers that belonged to the nurses. I told these students not to touch things and then took the marker. As I took the marker from the student another student grabbed the marker and then grabbed my wrist and squeezed it hard and preceded to tell me not to touch things.

I then took the student out and talked to him one on one about not touching things and not touching the teacher. He then said F*** that loudly and walked away from me. When we got back to school Greg immediately told Julia. Julia came down to my class took the student out of the class and told him he was suspended and didn't even want to hear his story.

Claire's Evaluation

Hello all. Tomorrow is Claire's evaluation. She has been preparing for quite sometime and is ready for it. We have prayed daily for it and she is confident. All will be well.

This week Scott Haines and his wife came to the school to test the students on basic movement skills. He is the Team Ontario coach for the North American Indigenious Group (NAIG) Games. They brought with them a variety of track and field indoor equipment for the students to try. As well, on Monday and Tuesday night he ran a certified coaching clinic for those interested. I was too tired to make it on Monday, but caught up with the workbook and went last night. I have completed the introductory course for Coaches of Canada. I really liked the guy and enjoyed talking with him. I am sure we will meet again at future seminars.

This is one thing that I have valued working and living up here is the many people that come through Deer Lake. It seems that on a weekly basis someone comes to the school. They all bring stories with them and sometimes advice for us Northern rookies.

Last night, Amanda's house was egged. It turned out to be three of her best students and all girls. They had dared each other to do it. Actually surprised it took this long for something like this to happen. We have heard stories about other reserves and in some the teacherages are behind fences in a compound. Further proof that we lucked out in Deer Lake.

Tomorrow the students are will be going to the Nursing station for a career fair. We will try to take some pictures (we apologize that we haven't posted any lately) of the students. I asked the students in both classes if anyone knew what they wanted to do with their life. Only 1 girl in grade 8 had a career goal. She wanted to become a writer. No one else knew. 1 girl joked in grade 9 that her goal was to work at the Northern. All joking aside, for some of them, a simple job like that will be more than some of them will ever have.

Realized too today that students haven't experienced some basic things many of use have taken for granted. I don't remember if we have written about this before but most of our students have never been in an elevator. In fact, the idea of a staircase is foreign to some of them. The Northern store has five or six to get in, but stairs inside a house is a sign for them of the rich.

We have been blessed with a warm spell the last couple of days. We had a high of plus 2 on Tuesday and 0 today. It apparently won't last, but the forecast calls for lows of -18, -19, and -20 for the next 14 days. All this warmth isn't good news for the winter road though. The transport trucks really have come yet with all the fuel and big shipments for the school. The road still isn't thick enough for the big trucks.

Winter Road

Last night Claire and I were helping at Bingo. Only 1 student and 6 players showed up, so we had to cancel. With the winter road now open, Deer Lake's population goes down by at least half. Every weekend people take the 6-7-8 hour drive to Red Lake or Sioux Lookout.

It didn't help out last night that there was a bingo at Sandy Lake, the next community over. The jackpot was $10,000. Apparently, people from all over Northern Ontario went to play. At least four staff members went right after school (3 pm) to make it in time for the game to start. The drive is roughly 3 hours. They played the two and a half hour game and then drove back here last night. I could never imagine driving all that way just for something that short. For example driving all the way to cottage country just to watch a movie and then driving home. Ridiculous.

We are sorry we never updated about Moinus, our maintenance man. He returned to the community about a week later, without having surgery. He isn't back to work, as he is taking his time at home resting.

Another staff member was faced with some bad news yesterday as his wife (now separated) is in Red Lake on life support. News travelled through the school fast and several other members were hit with the information. In such a small community, this woman had ties to almost everyone. She was someone's neice, several others' cousin, etc.

We are preparing for Valentine's Day. After surviving, no joking either, through the other holidays, we are sure it will be an eventful/long day. The school is having a dance for the students in the afternoon. Also, we were supposed to have court on Tuesday, meaning a day off, but it has been moved so it is business as usual.

Our classes were suffering late last week as students were still sick. On Thursday there were 8 grade 9s (50%) and 10 grade 8s (52%). The school is like the living dead.

Knocked Up

Let me start off by saying thank you for reading past the title. *More on that later.

The countdown is on. The gauge is lowering. The school vehicle has been filled and we have started rationing its use. Apparently one person started selling gas out of their house this afternoon. Who knows where he got it from, but this is the North.

Tonight though was an experience. Crystal, the Grade 7 TA, is having a baby in April and is having a surprise baby shower next week at school. Tonight we went to the Northern and while there, Claire bought some baby clothes. Let me set the scene though. I am standing at the register putting our groceries on the conveyer belt, when Claire comes up and throws the clothes in our cart exclaiming, "Oh don't worry they aren't for us." Everyone at the front of the store started laughing.

A couple minutes later, while I was paying for the groceries and Claire was outside, Rodney came behind me and was waiting. He is one of the grade 8 girls step-fathers and someone I play badminton with on Sunday nights at the school. He noticed the clothes and asked if we had any baby girls. I said no not yet. He then said, "You know it's alright if you knock her up." I couldn't believe it. He then went further and said, "It would be legal, nothing wrong about it."

Well tonight at the store we spent $177. Defintely the most ever, but with the vehicle running out of gas, we knew we had to load up. Funny though, you'd think with that much money there would be a lot of bags to show for it, but they all fit inside five ordinarily packed grocery bags.

Spring Melt?

Today we had the day off school, as it was closed due to a large percentage of sick students and staff. Overall, 46% of staff were either off sick or came to work sick and 44% of students were sick. The maintenance men disinfected the school today by using a hospital disinfectant that they had left over from last year's H1N1 scare. Hallways, desks, chairs, etc. were wiped clean. We used the day to relax and refuel for next week.

Today, RJ and I went to the store. While we were there, the worker at the Post Office (a cubicle and part of the Northern Store) asked if Amanda was there. I told him no, so he gave her package without signature or anything. One thing that we have loved about being up here is the closeness. Everyone is on a first name basis.

A couple of weeks ago, I came across something about my Grade 9s. I realized that from September-December few students mentioned celebrating their birthday, so I looked on my class roster and found this out (number of birthdays listed per month):

January - 6
February - 4
March - 1
April - 1
May - 1
June - 1
July - 2
August - 0
September - 2
October - 1
November - 0
December 1

Overall, 50% of the grade 9 students were born in the first two months (and February is the shortest month). And, for those of you who like numbers you'll really like this: The last birthday in February is the 15th. So 50% of the students are born in the first 46 days, or the first 13% of the year.



This picture was taken today at 1:07 pm. And no, it wasn't doctored at all. It was indeed 0 degrees today.

The temperature rise has been nice, but locals are worried as it means the winter road won't be open as long as usual. As it stands now, the winter road is open to vehicles, but is still too small for big trucks. The community ran out of gas today at 4:30 pm today. The planes won't fly in fuel because it is too much money while the winter road is open, and the forecasts aren't looking good for the ice to thicken even more. Early prognosis is that we will be without fuel for 3 weeks. Rough guess, and I am sure one that will be moved forward.

An alert of our own

So, reading the St. Catharines Standard and watching CHCH we witnessed the Blizzard Warning in effect for all of Southern Ontario. While we didn't get any snow, albeit an inch or so after school today, we did have an alert as well. A big, black wolf was seen about 75 m from school and directly in front of our teacherages. An alert means that all students MUST go on the bus and staff find rides home.



Last week we were driving to the store and I noticed that a vehicle coming my way was a student's father. As we got closer, I soon realized that it wasn't his dad driving, but just him. Definitely took me by surprise.



We have now finished our Midterms and Final Exams for two classes: Greg - Science, Claire - Visual Arts. Only 1 student, the same boy, failed both courses. The school is having him come in on weekends and catch up and improve his mark so he can pass. The school is paying us to do this on weekends, which is pretty nice. Since we usually are at the school on Saturday, it works out. We had a meeting with Julia and him and his attitude has changed. He is now working during classes and willing to put forth the effort. During the meeting Julia told him that if he continued and chose not to work hard he would end up failing high school, not getting his diploma and sitting on welfare his entire life. He then asked if he would end up like his dad. Man, it's a different world up here.



Found out this week that our fundraising total is at $17,100, with three cars already purchased. Pretty amazing that in a community the size of 800-1,000 people, that much money can be raised. Although disappointing it is from welfare/child tax cheques.



Either tomorrow or Friday the Grade 8/9s are having a rabbit soup fundraiser, which will apparently make a ton of money. We'll try to post pictures of it later.