Prelude Lake, NWT

Sunset over Prelude Lake

One of the nice things about Yellowknife is that you don't have to drive far to get yourself into the wilderness. A friend of mine whom I met through the intergenerational gala in London said that I should get in touch with her daughter who has been working as a community nurse here in Yellowknife since the late '70s. After I phoned her up, she immediately invited me to spend the afternoon with her husband and her at their cabin at Prelude Lake. Since I have found that my life gets simpler if I take everything at face value, I accepted and was off with them the next day.

Myself, the couple, and their new dog Ernie drove out of Yellowknife yesterday, with them pointing out notable landmarks along the way. We passed the remains of the Giant gold mine, now the site of a giant environmental clean-up. The owners ran out of money and abandoned it, leaving piles of arsenic for someone else to deal with, that someone else being the public. That's called socialising risk.

Their cabin was apparently the first one on Prelude lake, but the land is all Crown land and is therefore all leased from the crown. "There are a lot of unresolved land claims issues around here, so the Crown won't sell you land, but gave us a 30-year lease. It will be up in a little while though."

"So, effectively, the Crown won't sell the land because they're not sure if it's theirs to sell."
"Yeah," one of my hosts laughs "that's basically it."
"So has anybody put a claim on this spot?"
"Not that I know of, but if people really got serious about this land claims thing, then somebody might."

We arrived at the base of a set of rocky hills. The landscape around here is what the locals refer to as typical "Shield country" - smooth grey hills of rock topped with shallow-rooting trees, interspersed with patches of muskeg and lots and lots of lakes and ponds. We hiked uphill towards their cabin, with Ernie the dog running around between the trees excitedly. I stipped them to go back and get my camera. It sort of spoils the spontaneity of things when one is constantly snapping photos, but I couldn't come out here and not get a few.

We go a little further until we come to their cabin. Ernie runs up to me with a stick, but when I take it from him he refuses to let go. The whole time he's been chewing on every straight piece of wood he can find. It's amazing that he doesn't have splinters in his mouth.

After hanging around the cabin for a bit, we go for another short hike along another trail, until we come to a beaver pond. Ernie runs right out on to it, and my host carefully takes a couple of steps, stamps his foot down hard, and says "Solid." There are two beaver lodges on this pond, but no breathing holes to be seen. We speculate on whether or not the beavers are even home. Ernie runs up to me with a stick again, and I give it a pull. His paws get no purchase on the smooth ice and he slides towards me. I let him out a couple of times before pulling him back in. Not the brightest animal I've ever met.

We march back up the rocks and then through the trees towards the truck. I'm impressed at how well my hosts know these woods, but then they've been here a long time.

After some tea in the truck, we head back out towards Yellowknife. Before we hit the highway (with a 70kph speed limit, enforced by the wisdom of the drivers), some white birds with fat white feet hop out on the road ahead of us.

"Ptarmigans! They're usually not so bold. Do you want a picture?" I do, but the battery on the camera gives out before I can get one. A few minutes later, they flap away, the black tail feathers contrasting sharply with the rest of their white winter plumage.

Somebody else's photo of a ptarmigan

On the drive home we talk a bit about her experiences as a nurse up here. "So do you find that the culture makes to take a different approach with aboriginals?"

"Well, I've been working with them for 30 years, so I don't really notice anymore. If anything, they've changed over the years; more of them can read and write, and more of them speak English now.

"They have a different relationship to time. If you ask them how they've been coping with their illness, they can tell you how they are feeling at that exact moment, but you really have to dig hard if you want to know how they've been feeling over the last week. And they don't understand why you need to ask them so many questions. They say 'Well, you're [. . .] supposed to know what's wrong with me.'

"Some of them are also suspicious of Western medicine. They're very selective in what they'll take and what they won't."

This didn't sound to me to be a major difference from every other patient I had met, but I didn't interrupt.

"The other thing about them, though, is that they're very forthright about herbal remedies that they are taking. A lot of them use spruce gum for wounds, for instance, as well as willow bark and ratroot as analgesics."

"Do they work?"

"I don't know. Well, willow bark is known to be analgesic." Of course, it was the original source of ASA. "As for the others, I don't know. Somebody really should study it."

My hosts dropped me at my door, and made me promise to contact them if I was ever in town again. I certainly would. Unfortunately, a lot of the photos I took aren't uploading well to blogger; I suspect I'll have to fiddle with it later.

Though the day was clear, the night was cloudy; despite the penumbra around the moon, I went out around midnight to see if I could see anything in the sky. Much to my chagrin, there was nothing of note.