Thanksgiving...here we go.

So. It's thanksgiving.  Rosie and I have been in Hay River for 3 days now. One of us has a job, and neither of us have a place to live.

 Wait, back up a second. You don't know who this Rosie person is that I keep mentioning. Rosie is my travel buddy, my fellow north-lover. She and I have been trying, for the last year, to make our way to the north...together, preferably. She's working on her thesis for her master's degree in linguistics, and wants to become better acquainted with language preservation methods and efforts in the north of Canada (with indiginous languages, of course). So, she made the trip up with me in my little civic from Winnipeg (which is where she's from also, but has been studying linguistics in BC the last 2 years, and now she needs to find a job to make thesis work...sustainable. That's the short of what Rosie has to do with this story...

Rosie taking her turn to drive my overstuffed car on the leg from 

Grand Prairie to Hay River.

When Rosie and I  got to Hay River on Friday night, 3 days ago, we took a quick tour of the town, and located our stay for the weekend - a strange little bed and breakfast out in the sticks, right on the beach of Great Slave lake, 10 minutes out of town. It had been recommended to me by the lady that hired me...

 

And we're glad she did! We didn't have an appartment lined up before we got here (long story), so we knew we needed a place to stay for the weekend, at the very least. We wish we could just live here at the B&B....if it wasn't going to cost us 100 bucks every night. We're right on the lake, there's no one else around, and no other guests are staying here at the moment, so we have the entire place to ourselves! (There's not even an office here...it's managed by a hotel in town, so there is not a caretaker or owner on site). We're really digging it. So we hunkered down for the last 2 days and did...nothing! A major feat for me. I had some photos I wanted to work on, and Rosie wanted to knit some mittens, so we sat in our cosy, quiet abode and hung out and drank too much coffee. We knew we had to wait until tuesday anyway for business

 hours to be on our side, so there was not much to do in the meantime except let our new town settle in our bones a bit.

Rosie knitting mittens in our B&B, overseen by a token polar bear hung on the wall.

Me, taking a self-portrait on the beach outside the B&B. Many self-portraits are in order this year, I think.

So, anyway. Back to what I'm even doing here.  I start a job on tuesday morning (since monday, tomorrow, is a holiday). After dealing with potential employers on "northern time" all summer, I finally succeeded in landing a real job, with "L'AFCHR" - L'association Franco-Culturel de Hay River.  I will find out tuesday what that really, actually means (I'll keep you posted). My position is officially dubbed "agente de development": literally translated "development agent, or program coordinator.  I'll be working mostly on my own, planning and implementing events to engage the community in french language and culture. Right up my alley....but I can't wait to find out what I'll REALLY be doing.

Well, I'm just about caught up with where we're at today...but I'll tell you about today tomorrow. Too much for today already! I don't know much about blogs, but if I was to read one as long as mine, I would just kind of skim and not really commit to it. So...for your sake, I will put off today until tomorrow. I wonder what the Lord would think about that?