Off I pranced to the post office to pick up a Christmas parcel a few years ago, and madly I tore open the box. I spotted a container of rolled oats, a packet of brown sugar, and Grandma’s carefully handwritten recipe for making oatmeal or soupane as we called it in French.  Tears flooded my cheeks as she obviously knew this was a sweet spot for me. This was, by far, one  of the most thoughtful gifts I have ever received at Christmas.

Firmly anchored in my head are childhood memories of Grandma making porridge on her woodstove. Whether it was for this reason or only because it was a treat from Grandma, that porridge was extra tasty. Of course the dark brown sugar and splash of whole milk helped.

The only problem now was finding an old woodstove to prepare it the way she did.

Similar to what my Grandma had, except the colour

I know it’s in good shape, but for half the price I can buy a new netbook, or for the same price I can get a brand new Dell (15.6″/2.2 GHz/320 GB disk/4GB RAM/Win7-64bit).

I do use a Mac at work and like the feel of it.

Whaddaya think?

Ce soir j’ai assisté à un spectacle donné par Sylvie Painchaud, et oui, mon âme n’a pas manqué de bonnes choses. Sylvie a chanté plusieurs chansons tout en jouant du piano. Mais ce n’était pas juste des chansons, c’était un narratif – une histoire – dont on peut tous faire le lien: l’amour, la mort, les enfants, les parents, la musique, et les amis. Bref, la vie.

La passion dans sa voix ainsi que l’énergie qui émanait de son corps m’a fait pleurer, rire, penser, chanter. Je trouve difficile exprimer cette expérience avec de simples mots. (En plus, je me rend compte que ça fait quand même longtemps que je n’ai pas écrit en français, ce qui rend la tâche doublement difficile).

La chanson qui m’a le plus touché était inspirée, comme toutes les autres, d’une expérience dont Sylvie a témoigné. Un jour, en allant chercher ses enfants à la garderie qui se situait près d’une rivière, elle aperçu des policiers dans la rue devant celle-ci. Évidemment, elle a perdu le souffle, mais heureusement, ses enfants étaient en train de s’amuser au sous-sol. Ils étaient sains et saufs.

Le voisin, par contre, après avoir perdu trop d’argent dans une machine casino-vidéo chez un bar pas loin, a décidé de mettre fin à ses jours dans son garage. Sylvie connaissait ce cher monsieur, qui, apparemment, avait une femme et des enfants.

Les paroles de la chanson étaient de la perspective de l’épouse, un an après cette tragédie.

Pour la première fois de ma vie, j’ai pu voir ma chère grand-mère sous un angle très différent. On a tendance à oublier que nos grands-parents ont été jeunes, comme nous, et ont aimé, versé des larmes, et vécu, comme nous. Mais tout en écoutant cette chanson triste, je ne pouvais m’empêcher de penser à ma grand-mère qui a vécu la mort de mon grand-père dans des circonstances semblables. Non, il n’avait pas perdu d’argent; il souffrait énormément d’une mauvaise santé: l’emphysème résultant du travail dans les mines, ainsi que des problèmes de cœur. Il reste que pour la première fois, je la voyait là, une jeune femme, qui perdit son amant pour la deuxième fois dans sa courte vie, le premier étant décédé avec deux enfants la couche aux fesses. Elle avait plus de vécu à l’âge de trente ans que j’en ai présentement à quarante.

Ses chansons n’étaient pas toutes tristes, mais elles touchaient toutes le plus profond de l’âme.

Donc merci, Sylvie, d’avoir nourrit mon âme en cette période difficile pour moi.

J’ai bien hâte à ton prochain spectacle.

(Désolée pour mes fautes d’orthographes.)

On a day like today, which is much better described by What He Said, this mouth-watering cake soothes and comforts me. You’d never know it was gluten-free (I said gluten-free, not guilt-free).

Here’s the other end of the above mural from Google Streetview:

View Larger Map

As the street is getting narrower, tucked away in a corner is this yellow eccentric structure with signs and odds and ends nailed to it:

Everything was painted bright yellow.

To give you an idea of just how narrow the streets are in The Battery:

Between some of the crammed houses, you can see the harbour along with some very antique-looking wharves…perfect Jim Robb fodder:

Behind all the rickety structures and ramshackle buildings are signs of life:

And here is just more of the same. Notice the curved roof:

As usual, the quirky Arctic Brotherhood building with driftwood siding greeted me like an old friend:

Arctic Brotherhood Building, Skagway, AK

Established in 1899, I wonder about the history of the shovel handle I noticed between the entrance and the windows.

Arctic Brotherhood 1899

AB - Shovel Handle

There are many nooks and crannies that provide interesting photo ops, like this old axle:

Old Axle

Yet another old faithful call-him-what-you-will:

Soapy Smith's Parlour

And what would be a visit to Skagway without checking out the old rotary snowplow used by the White Pass & Yukon Route (W.P. & Y.R.)?

W.P. & Y.R. Rotary Snowplow

A train going through after the deed is done in 1899:

Snow Trench dug in 1899 by W.P. & Y.R. Rotary Snowplow...now another train can get through - photographer H.C. Barley, courtesy of Yukon Archives

Rotary Snowplow Blades

It may be a coincidence, but just about every time I leave the Yukon, it greets my return with some smiling blue skies:

South of Carcross

As a teacher, I spend April Fools’ Day getting pokes and slaps on the back hard enough to send me into a fit, and I’m not supposed to notice. As I go about my business handing out paper and pencils for our weekly dictation, I hear little whispers, ignore muffled laughs, and notice conspiring eyes throughout the room. In keeping with the French tradition of poisson d’avril, students write notes on fish-shaped paper cut-outs and surreptitiously stick them on the backs of others, so I’m beginning to look like a human fish tree. One note read, “Made in China”.

After dictation, I hand  out a second piece of paper and tell the kids to read all the questions before starting. These are francophone students in an English class, so I tell them that these are very simple instructions designed to evaluate their ability to understand simple English directions, and even if it’s super easy, they should still complete the test.  You know where this is going, I know, but I couldn’t help myself.

It was the old classic:

#1: Read all the questions before beginning the test.

#2-6: Random instructions about drawing shapes in certain corners, underlining this or that. You know the kind.

#7: Now that you have finished reading the test, only do question #1.

In one of my high school classes, we just finished reading A Midsummer Night’s Dream, so I drew up a list of questions for an open-book pop quiz. No one caught on that I never, I repeat, never give pop quizzes, and I told them so at the beginning of the year.

Again, the first instruction was to read the whole test before beginning to write. The last question was, “Copy any verse from Act V, Scene 1, and do not complete any other question. Rather, work on your assignment that is due for next week.”

At first I wondered how long I should let this go considering we’re using precious in-class time. Then I thought to myself that the questions were good review of what we had learned, so it wasn’t a loss.

Every single student was busy answering review questions from the play.

And this was after I told them twice to read all the questions first, AND after I read the test instructions out loud to them, AND after I listed reasons why they should read it first (jogs your memory so that when you get to the question again, your brain has already been activated…easier to answer…blah blah blah). On second thought, maybe it was the monotonous blah-blah-blah that made them tune me out.

I’m not sure I’m anxious for next year’s poisson d’avril. I have the feeling I’ll get smoked. Yikes!

This one’s for Average Mom.

Les jours de la semaine

On more than one occasion, I’ve heard comments from people saying that they’re not worried about losing their mother tongue because they learned it as a kid and still use it. And that’s the key to keeping their language: they still use it.

I grew up in a French-Canadian household, and unless we had English-speaking guests, we always spoke French at home. Plus, I went to French school most of my life. Still, having grown up in Ontario, I became fluent in English at a very young age. Eventually, I married a Québécois and we moved to Toronto where I worked in a customer call centre for a mutual fund company answering incoming calls on their French line. So, as an adult, I continued to hone my French-speaking skills. In fact, it wasn’t unusual for callers from Québec to ask which part of their province I was from.

Fast forward to my move to Whitehorse where, despite the ease with which a person can live in French thanks to the surprisingly large francophone community, I mostly worked and lived in English. I also went back to school where everything was in English, and I am happily re-married to a WASP. So until recently, I only used my French on occasion. With what result?

It got to the point where, when speaking French, it seemed like I had to search for my words. I felt like I was forgetting expressions that I had always used. And the part that bothered me the most? I was developing an English accent when speaking French. This drove me insane! But more importantly, it drove home the fact that yes, it is very possible to lose your language.

Fortunately, I have had the opportunity to use and improve my French with my current job, and I am more aware of the danger of losing my language. I have never been political about such things as most franco-Ontarians aren’t, but I have a better awareness of how fast I can lose what I have if I don’t take care of it.

To use an old saying: Use it, or lose it.

Therefore, although I didn’t use my French much when I first moved to Whitehorse, I am grateful that I have many opportunities to do so. Because of the push for French language within and outside of Québec’s border, I can order French books, I can work in a French environment, and I can request French services. I don’t usually push this last one, but I do use them when they’re there. For example, when doing my First Aid – CPR courses or when I wrote my GED at Yukon College, I did them in French. For practicums in my studies to become a teacher, twice I applied to work in a French environment and was accepted both times. I figure if I don’t use these services, someday they may not be available to use because of lack of demand. But the most important reason to use your language? Ask any First Nations person in the Yukon, and they’ll tell you that yes, loss of language is very real.

I especially appreciated the humour and humility displayed when something didn’t quite go as planned:

5 stars out of 5 from me!