Welcome to Old Crow, Yukon

I have been in Old Crow for almost a month now and have been meaning to get a blog going to show photos and tell stories about my new home for the next few mornths. I will try to update my blog at least once a week. Thanks for reading!

For those of you who I haven't been in touch with since I arrived here, it is a teaching job that has brought me to Old Crow, Yukon. I am teaching Grades 7,8 and 9. Old Crow is the only fly-in community in the Yukon and is located 73 km North of the Arctic Circle and only 110km South of the Beaufort Sea. The town is located on the Porcupine River and theVuntut Gwitch'in culture and way of life revolves around the Porcupine caribou herd, which migrates through the town twice a year. About 280 people live here.

Flying Into Old Crow. Air North serves homemade cranberry/white chocolate scones and the flight attendant wears a one piece snow suit. Pretty awesome.

The day before I arrived it was -57 and the plane couldn't land because parts could break at that cold of temperatures. The day I arrived it was -44. It has warmed up considerably since then. The land and the town is stunning. I get out for a walk or a ski every day and on these excursions I have realized that the Yukon has the beautiful geographical aspects of each region of Canada. It has the mountains of Western Canada, the open and amazing skies of the prairies and the massive and impressive rivers and lakes of Eastern Canada. I watched the sun rise above the horizon one morning when I first arrived at 10am from a mountain overlooking the town. I also found some (I think) lynx tracks.

Cozy hat from Nanaimo and fur-lined parka I picked up in Whitehorse.

Highlights of teaching so far include going to the Heritage Centre in town and the students learned about the hide tanning process. They helped to tan a moose hide. They were scraping the hide, but the next step would have been the really fun part. After scraping, the hide gets soaked in caribou brains, so that the fat makes the hide soften. The Heritage Centre has some really amazing mammoth tusks and bones that were found in the river bank. They also have the best fish fossil in North America. Quite amazing to see.

Fresh lynx tracks I saw on a walk

I joined a beading course at the Yukon College. It happens two evenings a week and I'm making a small wallet for myself with a beaded flower on it. I have a whole new appreciation for beaded work. Each bead is sewed down individually and you have to be really careful not to get the thread tangled (which I have done numerous times already). Perhaps I will make a vest after.  I tried dried caribou meat at my first beading class, which was something I have been looking forward to since arriving here.

Black Spruce in early morning light

I hope you all are doing well. Mashi Cho (thank you in Gwitch'in) for reading this update and thanks for all the emails, texts, calls, checks on the web cam (waved to a friend in Victoria to the web cam
the other day--fun!) I'm always happy to hear what everyone's up to, especially while so far from any of the places I have called home in the past few years.

Warm Regards from the North,

Haley