I am writing this flying over a sea of melting ice. It is a beautiful sight of ever changing openings in the ice that turn ocean waters into temporary rivers, slowly cracking and forming into new works of art every minute. I am flying in a small Air Inuit plane from Kangiqsujuaq back to Kuujjuak (via a couple other small Inuit village stops). I have on my I-pod an inspiring mix of Bjork, Sigor Ros, Delerium and Catherine MacLeallan. Aside from being the only time I can ever write in this journal, flights are also a great time for me to nothing but listen to beautiful inspiring music. Watching the melting lands below to this sound track really inspires me. Inspires me to do what? I’m not sure…just live and appreciate I guess.
This has been a very valuable trip for me internally, I have had a lot of time to think, and really evaluate where I am spiritually, emotionally and existentially. That’s what the arctic does for me…it is a void, a vast landscape of white and nothingness…in the most beautiful form. This is the environment that my brain needs to clear my head of financial stress, business issues, real life. This trip was such a great experience for me it will be hard for me to put it into words. Last time I was here in July it was such a different landscape and experience. I wrote in this journal each night last time and was very specific about my day to day experiences. This time was different as we filmed late into the evening every day and hen we got home all I had the energy to do was put on my headphones and put myself to sleep listening to music, something I have denied myself of for so long.
Our first night we where welcomed by our friend Robert who drove us to one of the teacher’s house where we would be staying for 8 nights. The teacher and his family was away on vacation so it was nice to have an apartment to ourselves. We set up base camp here for the bulk of our production. A well deserved and deep sleep brought us to a new day, full of blowing winds and snow, a full white out. We bumped into our old fiend Johnny the hunter, he agreed to take us up into the tundra to go ice fishing. We rented our skidoo from Noah, followed Johnny across Wakum Bay, over massive ice chunks, up the tundra to one of the many lakes that we had flown over filming caribou last time we where here. It is so interesting being here the second time having a better grasp of the landscape.
The next day we found our friend Lukasi and his grandson. He took us to this amazing place in the ice where he dug a hole and we slid ourselves fully under the ice as it was low tide. Wakum Bay actually has higher tides than the Bay of Fundy, so when the tide goes way down there are millions of mussels…this is an old Inuit tradition when food was scarce to get under the ice and pick these rich sources of energy. I have always been intrigued by caves and tight places, this was the pinnacle experience for me. The blue light that creeps into the cracks under the ice is fantastic. Lukasi and his grandson picked a few bags of mussels for dinner, then the tide started to rise. The ice actually slowly lowers at the same pace that the tide comes up, so there is only a window of about 30 minutes that you can be down there before the tide will sweep you away, and it has happened in this town on more than one occasion. Lukasi assured us that he is the only one in town who can safely take people down under the ice…he is an incredible man.
Thursday and Friday we went out on a 2 day hunt with 3 Inuit hunters, Charlie, Tiivi, and Willie. We took the snowmobiles over land and ice for about 2 and half hours looking for polar bear, seal, fox, wolf, tarmegon etc…anything that moves they where ready to shoot! Such a different experience for me, I am the furthest thing from a hunter, I love animals, and seeing something die because of me is hard on my soul, but this is how the Inuit live and I fully respect their culture and their ways. I as a documentary filmmaker has a duty to document as I see, not get personally involved.
The coolest part of the day for me was getting out to the ice edge to find seal. The ice edge was probably 10 kms from shore, it was a long and bumpy ride over the ice to get there, but when we got there it was breathtaking. It was sunny, not a cloud in the sky and not even a whisper of wind. It was so quiet at the edge that I could hear the ringing in my ears. I have never been somewhere so peaceful in my life. There where seal, and walrus…unfortunately for our hunter guides they where too far out to shoot. Once they shoot they have a small kayak that they paddle out into the frigid water to retrieve the catch, but if its too far out it is too risky to go, so they decided not to hunt. We where literally inches from the ice edge, it is kind of creepy knowing that I am 10 kilometers into the Hudson straight on ice, only 3 inches from deathly cold water. But I know we where guided by the most experienced people around to keep an eye on our safety. We decided to try to find other water where the animals where closer, but we had no luck. At high tide the ice chunks block access to the water making it impossible to get to the edge. We missed our chance. We decided to move on for another hour and set up at the camp.
We arrived at this small little shack made from plywood with a little stove in it.; Just 3 Inuit hunters, 2 Italian men, and me…ha ha, in very tight quarters, it was like camping out in my tree house as a kid, we where all cuddled together all night in sleeping bags keeping each other warm! Ha, what a great image! Anyway at night we headed into the mountains and found a lake, they drilled a hole in the 5 foot deep ice, inserted a long piece of wood with a little claw attached to it that had a piece of rope tied to the end. They call this a jigger, once it goes down the hole, they pull the rope and the claw moves the stick in a straight line for many meters under the ice. They do this at night because to drill the hole 50 meters away and successfully find the jigger they attach a flashlight (waterproof!) to the end of it and you can literally see this glow under the snow from under the 5 foot ice creeping in a straight line, man it was so cool to see this. When it reached the destination, Charlie and Tiivi drilled another hole, grabbed the jigger and pulled it out. On the first hole they attached their fish net to the end of the rope and pulled the net through from the 2nd hole….in a matter of minutes they had a net set under the ice. Necessity is the mother of invention! The next morning we went back and we pulled the net back out of the hole and 21 very large arctic char where in the nets. The char are very similar to salmon in size and in taste even. We immediately cooked one up and had the freshest fish in the world! I can’t forget to mention the Northern Lights the night before…standing outside the small cabin in complete darkness, save for the small glow through the cracks in the cabin from the Coleman lamp on the inside, I was knocked over in awe and inspiration seeing these incredible lights. Tiivi told me about some of the mythology that explained the lights. I felt like I was the luckiest guy on earth to be witnessing this…and I was.
After catching the fish, and shooting 3 tarmagon (arctic bird) we headed back to the ice edge looking for more seal or bear. My snowmobile ran out of gas. We where stranded in the middle of the iced desert! Haha, our guides where about 5 kms ahead of us but finally realized we weren’t with them, they came back and drove us the next hour in the sled behind their skidoos back to town, what a painful ride that was! Noah went out the next day to retrieve our snowmobile.
The next few days where filled with amazing time lapse shots of sun sets, sun rises, more awe inspiring Northern Lights, I didn’t realize that they where so bright! They had the intensity of a very powerful spotlight beaming into the sky, only it was dancing all over the place with colorful trails, you couldn’t ask for a trippier psychedelic experience with a perfectly sober mind! God’s art.
We had the chance to go dog sledding. The dogs are amazing, all working together to pull so much weight, so effortlessly and so contently…huskies are amazing creatures. Sadly we met with some hunters who came back with a wolf in their sled. I shouldn’t say sadly, like I said before it is what they have been doing for ever, but to see such a beautiful animal up close with a bullet hole in its head is sad, especially knowing how few of them we have on the earth. What a great animal though, ferocious teeth, and paws the size of my head. This is why everyone travels with a gun up North, I can’t believe how many times the 3 of us went into the tundra, or the ice for miles alone without a guide or a gun, we would be helpless if we met a hungry polar bear or wolf…ha, stupid white boys we are!
Another fantastic experience was when Ussipee (Joe) built us an igloo on the side of a mountain, it took him 90 minutes with only a saw and a knife and he built a beautiful house! Ha, it was amazing! We time lapsed the sun going down as the igloo went up, then when it was completely dark the igloo was illuminated by Joe’s Coleman lamp inside, it was so cozy in there and I was amazed how quick he put this thing up! He was actually born in an igloo and lived in one for the first 8 years of his life, he had some good insights for us about life in igloo. That night as well was complimented by the most glorious northern lights yet. I can’t and won’t even try to explain. You will have to witness it for yourself.After 8 days staying at our “base camp” we moved to our friend Cathie’s house for the remaining 2 days. Cathie is an amazing woman who has devoted so much of her life to bringing inspiration and culture to the kids of Kangiqsujuaq. She is a teacher at the elementary school, but on the side she has a project that brings “animators” from the South up to teach and entertain the kids…for example when we where there in July she had this great girl named Elody who was a cirque entertainer, hula hoops, stilts, masks, parades, art, culture…everything. The purpose is to get the kids ready for a trip to the Gaspe once a year to participate in a world festival. It is here where the Inuit kids can experience the cultures of the world in a real fun and exciting environment…anyway Cathie has passionately spearheaded this initiative purely out of the love for the kids and the culture…truly commendable. This semester she brought up a real inspiring guy named Remi who is a fantastic musician and percussionist. He brought with him a whole bunch of percussion and drums to teach the community Brazilian drumming…yes it is true, global warming has happened when you hear the rhythms of Brazil in the land of the Inuit! Haha. Anyway it was so cool because on one of the real nice sunny afternoons they had a parade through town, the echo of the drums resonated through the whole community, made me want to dance! Last night was Remi’s last night as well as ours. They had a the last workshop with him until he comes back in June. We joined the workshop and I played snare and cowbell..MORE COWBELL! Truly a great example of the positive sides of intercultural meshing! Music is the unifying language of the world and it is music that can be use to bring peace, I really believe that.
I am now almost in Montreal, tomorrow I will be in Paris, then down to Cannes, then Turnio, then Rome, then back home to my beautiful woman…well kind of, it will be me sitting at home for a week alone as she will be on the road with 21 leaders at that point, but this is who we are, we love opportunity, we love life, and we love each other and support each other to live our lives according to our dreams. I always digress don’t I? I guess my writing is a mirror of how my mind works..all over the place! I think this is why it was good fro me to be up here, it has been a very stressful few months, and even though Grave Concerns is being edited as we speak, and the business is running…all without me being there…it has been real good perspective for me to wipe my mind clear of some things to re focus.
What have I learned this trip? Well without going into detail, I have had some very uncomfortable experiences the last 10 days when it comes to how people respect each other. I feel that I am so honored to be able to bring a camera into the lives and culture of another people…like the Inuit. The aboriginal communities have been so dishonored and taken advantage of throughout history that sometimes I am embarrassed to ask anything of them…I tread with much respect and honor. I lay down my rights and realize that is a privilege, not a right to be able to document and film people in their most intimate settings. I love the Inuit, I have a heart for them and pray many blessings on them. Like I said before they have been abused so much in history that they are now in a state of stripped culture. Substance abuse is huge, reliance on the system and unemployment is everywhere, young kids smoking cigarettes, and people not respecting each other the way they should is all a result of a mismanaged aid program / evangelism (conversion) of the past. Yaaka put it right when he said that they have suffered a cultural genocide…I believe it. Thanks to people like Cathie and Remi and many others I believe that there is hope for this community of beautiful people. Their heritage and traditional ways of living are disappearing, or evolving maybe? One way or the other I have learned so much from this experience being in their community and becoming friends with so many of them, buying their art, going hunting, eating country food at their table, I am truly honored and truly blessed. Thank you.
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