Across the Sea Ice to Siuraarjuk: Hector's Odyssey

By Nancy
Wachowich

Sunday, April 24, 2005

Finding
Hector a hood

Today was expedition day. The production is shifting from
shooting indoor scenes in sets built around the settlement to shooting outdoor
scenes at a location "away from it all". A convoy of Isuma cast and crew was to
depart at 2 pm and travel 2-3 hours by snowmobile and sled across the sea-ice
to Siuraarjuk, a traditional hunting camp on Baffin Island, where many of the
outdoor scenes for JKR would be shot. The weather was cold. Really cold. Now,
for those of you who did not read my first blog, I brought my six month old
baby Hector with me on this fieldwork trip. Hector is a sturdy, barrel-chested,
big little baby. He was born in Aberdeen, a cold and windy port-town in
Northern Scotland. Hector is used to the cold. He is used to the wind. But on a
day when it is already -25 C (the mean temperature in Igloolik that week), wind
chill while traveling on the sea ice by skidoo can make it seem like -50 C.
This was extreme. I knew Hector needed a much warmer amautiq (women's parka
with a larger hood for carrying babies) covering him on this journey than the
one I had with me. Despite my efforts to borrow one (calling on friends, the
community radio, etc. etc.), we had had no luck. Hector had no hood to ride in.

Sleeping bags rolled and duffle bag packed with polar
fleece, note-paper, and jars and jars of baby-food-- and wearing caribou fur
pants and kamiks (boots) myself-- I bundled little Hector in layer upon layer
of fleece under his snowsuit and brought him down the hill to beach road where
qamutiks (sleds) were being packed with supplies and equipment for our time out
at Siuraarjuk. The High Definition camera was being securely fastened on a sled
built particularly for its transport. Carrying my own precious cargo, I
approached Micheline Ammaq, the Isuma office administrator and crew-member in
charge of the design and production of JKR fur costumes. Micheline was not hard
to pick out among this slew of travelers. She was wearing fancy caribou-skin
kamiks with neon lemon yellow leggings, a yellow parka and hot pink leather
gloves. She could have walked a Dolce Gabbana catwalk in that outfit. I
explained my dilemma to her. The fur costumes were already at Siuraarjuk, she
told me, otherwise I could have borrowed a traditional fur amautiq for the
trip. I persisted, holding my helpless swaddled child in front of her in the
manner of a desperate, pleading mother. "Right, we will arrange something", she
said, and took off on her snowmobile in a flash of yellow and pink.

Micheline reappeared ten minutes later, this time wearing
yellow snowpants and a bright purple amautiq with green tassles. It was an
extra thick traveling amautiq that she had made for her daughter, Bonnie.
Bonnie was not traveling out to camp until Wednesday, so she would not need it
right away. "Your baby will ride with me", Micheline declared. She grabbed
Hector and directed Bonnie to follow her inside the Isuma building. I ran
behind. Inside, and with breakneck-speed efficiency, they stripped Hector of
his outer-wear, took off his touque, and slipped him inside Micheline's purple
amautiq. Hector looked up at me a little befuddled as he was slipped into her
hood. "What's going on now?" , he seemed to be asking. Once he was properly
positioned in the small of her back, the outer hood was pulled up over Hector's
head. That was the last I saw of my baby. Micheline darted outside and climbed
on to her snowmobile. No time to spare. The expedition was leaving. "Alright
then" she said to me, "we will see you somewhere on the sea ice for tea!' She
zoomed off with Hector, a lump in her amautiq hood.

Micheline
the strong

Now, many mothers might be anxious to see another woman
burn off with their baby on a snow machine across a stretch of frozen sea ice.
But, I knew Hector was in good hands. I have worked in Igloolik on and off for
eight years and one thing I know about Micheline: she is a formidable woman. A
skilled seamstress and avid hunter, her namesake is Ataguttaaluk, a celebrated
figure in Igloolik's history who makes a cameo appearance in the JKR film.
Ataguttaaluk was dubbed by the whalers " the Queen of Igloolik". In the early
1900s, Ataguttaaluk's family became stranded on the land. Her husband and
children starved to death and Ataguttaaluk survived by eating pieces of their
bodies. She was rescued by passers-by on the brink of death, eventually married
again, raised a family, and was renown throughout the region ever-afterwards
for her tremendous strength and courage. Micheline, the contemporary
reincarnation of a man named after this woman, was raised as a boy for the
first part of her life. She was taught land skills as a little girl by her
brother, her uncle, and her grandfather. She can hunt, butcher and skin
caribou, walrus, seals, wolves and polar bear. She can set fish nets, build an
igloo, pitch a tent, fix a snowmobile, and administer Isuma office affairs. She
raised her six kids in outpost camps around Igloolik. She is a fast driver and
a card shark. In a few words, she is tough. Way tougher than me, that is for
sure. As I climbed into the waiting Sila qamutiq, I decided that if anyone was
going to carry my son across the sea ice in my place, I wanted it to be her.

Hector's odyssey

The ride across the sea ice was cold, windy and very very
bumpy. With six heavily-clad Sila crew-members squished on to the qamutiq, we
found ways of accommodating and readjusting our intermingled arms and legs to
make the ride more comfortable. I was lost in thought and facing out to the
side, at one point, staring out at the expanse of ice, when a purple flash of
fabric appeared in my view. There was Micheline and Hector, overtaking us on
our left. Speed demons, both of them. She expertly absorbed a bump in the trail
by leaning forward on her snow machine and bracing herself with her legs. They
were air bound. I saw her hood bounce as the skidoo skis returned to the
ground, and thought of the wee little lad, huddled up inside. Then they were
gone.

An hour later and it was tea-break time in the middle of
the ice. Snowmobiles and qamutiks and dog teams (also being run across the ice
to Siuraarjuk) were assembled. Cups and thermoses and snacks were being pulled
out and Coleman stoves were being lit. I looked around at the gang of people
laughing and talking, but Micheline and little Hector were not part of this
glacial picnic. Instead she was off in the distance, a purple and yellow figure
on a white landscape, surrounded by a pack of snarling, enormous wolf-like
sled-dogs. She and Hector were untangling the leads of her brother's team while
he had tea.

Finally
at Siuraarjuk

We arrived at Siuraarjuk a few hours later where a base camp
of tents, a cook house, etc. had been been built to accommodate Isuma cast and
crew for three weeks of filming outdoor scenes. Our journey complete, the Sila
crew disentangled our limbs from each other and joined other "expedition"
members looking for our tent. I thought of my baby's adventures, racing across
the sea ice, battling sled-dogs. Micheline padded over to me and pulled a
sleeping Hector out of her hood. I wrapped him in his outer-gear. "Does your
baby have a cold?", she asked me. "He has been snoring the whole way".

Over and out.