Hello, My Name is Tania

Hello My Name Is Tania

Let me re-introduce myself.  My name is Tania Ward and I’ve been living in Coral Harbour, Nunavut since December 17^th 2010.  I use to write regularly on this blog which many of you apparently enjoyed reading.  Some of you even used it in various presentations.  These presentations humbled me and spurred on a new excitement for continued new blog entries.  And then summer 2011 hit.  We came back from our trip down “South” to visit family and friends (and to be a part of my one and only sister’s wedding in Mexico) in early June.  As some of you may recall, I was excited to come back to Coral Harbour.  I couldn’t wait to see what my new home looked like in the summer.  I couldn’t wait to see the Sea, the lakes, the “greenery” (or whatever covered the ground), and the sights Coral Harbour had to offer (Fossil Creek, Kirchoffer Falls).  I was also excited to continue getting to know some of our friends that would “summer” the North with us.  I was surprised when one of my teacher friends asked me upon my return “Why did you come back?  Why didn’t you spend the summer in the South?” This should have been my first clue. 

Within a couple of weeks of going back North, a few things happened.  Some I had anticipated and some I had not.  I knew the teachers and a few other people were going home for the summer.  What I didn’t know is that the small handful of people that I was looking forward to spending time with also left.  June is goose egg hunting and camping season for Salliqvirmuit (people of Coral Harbour – Coral Harbour used to be called Salliq).   The people here LOVE to go on the land all year around but I think they especially love it in the spring.  Even though it was still cold-ish with snow on the ground in places, the Hamlet seemingly became a ghost town.  It seemed as though everybody was going camping or to their cabins not just for the weekend, no, sometimes for weeks or even a month.  My sister-in-law and I had a good little chuckle one day as I was telling her that Sallirmuit feel the need to leave all the hubbub of Coral Harbour to go to their cabins or camping.  It’s sounds funny but it’s true.  They love to leave the “modern” behind and go back to a simpler way of life – no electricity, no running water (well I guess it depends what you mean by “running water” because the rivers and creeks are plentiful and swollen this time of year), no noise…   Some cabins are 5 minutes from town in an area called Snafu while others are on the other side of Southampton Island.  Some locals have more than one cabin depending where they want to go or do (one cabin may be close to a really good fishing spot for example while the other may have good whale watching).  The point to all this is that I became quite lonely.

Another factor that added to my loneliness was the fact that the remaining people in Coral Harbour stayed up all night and slept all day (remember that in June, it never gets dark).  Adults and kids alike are out playing and visiting till the wee hours of the morning and would sleep till mid afternoon therefore play dates and doing "coffee" simply didn't happen...

School ended in early June, but so did all the other programs.  There were no more sewing classes, Nutrition classes, or exercise classes and no daycare.  So not only was I lonely and without friends, my boys were also lonely and without friends.  This made for bored, disgruntled and busy little boys and a disappointed mother with too few ideas.  In the winter, I had breaks from the kids here and there but in the summer, we were together morning, noon and night. I was with them even at church on Sundays since I had decided to start teaching them Sunday school (that’s a whole other blog entry).

Adding to my loneliness were the feelings of dissatisfaction and missing out.  I was dissatisfied with my short visit back home in Rockland/Ottawa.  I hadn’t been home in 2 years and one week was simply too short to do all the things I wanted to do and see all the people I wanted to see.  Out of sight, sometimes can really mean out of mind, in a good way.  You see, I realized how much I missed home only once I got to go home and then had to come back.  The ache was deep and throbbing.  I also felt jealous that we were missing out on so many things that I love, things my boys love.  Things like the summer, my favourite season.  We were missing out on the heat, the pools, the beaches, playing on playgrounds and seeing the movie Cars 2 in theatre (as a mom who’d been watching the Cars movie with her boys for 4 years, missing the sequel was a big deal).   At this point, it was hard to admit that I wasn’t happy to be back in Coral, that maybe, we should have stayed home for the summer.  This is when I started pulling away...