Kyle Kisoun Taylor Writes the 109'ers

HI KIDS. MY NAME IS KYLE KISOUN TAYLOR. I WORKED WITH DOUG IN INUVIK NORTHWEST TERRITORIES. I WAS THE ONE THAT MADE SURE THAT NONE OF THEM FROZE AND GOT THEM OUT WHEN THEY GOT STUCK. MY FAMILY HAS LIVED IN INUVIK SINCE THE BEGINING OF THE TOWN. MY GRANDMOTHER BERTHA ALLEN IS GWICHIN AND MY GRANDFATHER VICTOR ALLAN IS INUIVALUIT. THEY BOTH SPEAK THEIR NATIVE LANGUAGE. I WILL TRY TO ANWSER SOME OF YOUR QUESTIONS. WHAT TO DO IF YOU FALL THROUGH THE ICE? WELL, IF YOU FALL THROUGH THE ICE YOU MUST STAY CALM AND THINK THAT IS THE BEST WAY TO GET OUT OF THIS. YOU MUST GET YOUR SELF OUT AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE BECAUSE IT IS VERY COLD. WHEN YOU DO GET OUT IF YOU CAN MAKE IT TO SOMEPLACE WARM RIGHT AWAY GO THERE AND GET OUT OF YOU WET CLOTHES AND INTO SOME DRY ONES RIGHT AWAY. IF THERE IS NOT A WARM CABIN AROUND AND YOU HAVE A CHANGE OF CLOTHES YOU MUST CHANGE INTO THEM AS FAST AS YOU CAN BECAUSE YOUR CLOTHES WILL FREEZE ON YOU REALLY FAST AND YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO GET THEM OFF THEN START A FIRE. AFTER YOU ARE OKAY AND WARM AGAIN YOU MUST GO BACK AND MARK THE TRAIL WHERE YOU WENT THROUGH SO THAT OTHER PEOPLE KNOW THAT IT IS UNSAFE TO TRAVEL THERE. I HAVE GONE THROUGH THE ICE IN THE SPRING. LUCKILY I WAS CLOSE TO MY WARM CABIN SO I WAS ABLE TO MAKE IT THERE TO WARM UP. EVERY YEAR SOMEONE GOING THROUGH THE ICE AND DROWNS IN THE NWT. IT IS VERY DANGEROUSE UNFORTANATLEY MOST OF THE DEATHS COULD HAVE BEEN AVOIDED IF PEOPLE WOULD HAVE BEEN PREPARED AND DID NOT TAKE UNNECESSARY RISKS. I HAVE BEEN LUCKY ENOUGH TO SEE SOME POLAR BEARS WHEN I WAS ON AN ICE BREAKER CALLED THE AMUNDSEN ( HTTP://WWW.AMUNDSEN.QUEBEC-OCEAN.ULAVAL.CA/AMUNDSENENGLISH.HTM). POLAR BEARS DO NOT LIKE PEOPLE VERY MUCH SO THEY TRY TO AVOID US WHEN THEY CAN. SOMETIMES THEY WILL WANT TO SEE WHAT IS GOING ON AND COME IN CLOSE FOR A BETTER LOOK BUT FOR THE MOST PART THEY AVOID US. THEY MOSTLY EAT SEALS IN THE WINTER SO THEY ARE FAR OUT ON THE SEA ICE WHERE NOT TO MANY PEOPLE GO, SO WE DON’T SEE THEM MUCH.

Arctic Doug's Final Post from Tuk

WELL 109′ERS, THIS IS WILL BE MY LAST POST! I LEFT INUVIK THIS MORNING AND AM NOW OVERNIGHTING IN EDMONTON BEFORE RETURNING HOME TOMORROW! HERE ARE A FEW LAST PICTURES.THANK YOU FOR YOUR RECENT POSTS. I LIKED HEARING ABOUT YOUR LEGEND OF THE CLOWN-VERY CREEPY STUFF!I’VE BEEN READING A BOOK CALLED “PEOPLE OF THE DEER” BY CANADIAN AUTHOR FARLEY MOWAT. A TERRIFIC MOVIE WAS BASED ON HIS BOOK CALLED “NEVER CRY WOLF”. ANYWAY, HE WENT AND LIVED WITH THE INLAND INUIT (IHALMIUT)AND IT TURNS OUT THAT THE INUIT HAVE SOME PRETTY CREEPY LEGENDS TOO, INCLUDING PAIJA.”PAIJA IS A SHE-DEVIL WITH A SINGLE LEG AND SHE COVERS HER BODY WITH HER LONG BLACK HAIR. APPARENTLY IF YOU LOOK AT HER YOU DIE. THERE IS A FAMOUS STORY OF A MAN WHO WAS RETURNING FROM HIS TRAP LINE. HIS FAMILY HEARD HIS DOG TEAM PULL UP TO THE IGLOO. AS THEY WAITED FOR HIM TO HITCH UP THE TEAM THEY HEARD HIM SCREAM. THIS TERRIFIED EVERYONE IN THE IGLOO BECAUSE THE ONLY WORD HE SCREAMED WAS THE NAME PAIJA.FOR SEVERAL HOURS NO ONE WAS BRAVE ENOUGH TO GO OUTSIDE. EVENTUALLY THE BROTHER OF JATU, WHO WORE AN AMULET BELT AND WAS SOMETHING OF A SHAMAN, TOOK HIS SPEAR AND WENT OUT INTO THE NIGHT. HE FOUND JATU STANDING BY HIS SLED. HE WAS FROZEN SOLID AND THE SNOW, WHICH HAD BEEN DRIFTING STEADILY, WAS ALREADY UP TO HIS KNEES-AND HE WAS DEAD. WHEN HIS BROTHER LOOKED INTO HIS FROZEN BROTHER’S OPEN EYES, HE SAW THE IMAGE OF PAIJA REFLECTED THERE. THUS, THIS WAS AS CLOSE AS ANY MAN EVER CAME TO SEEING PAIJA AND LIVING TO TELL THE TALE.”THE INUIT ALSO HAVE SOME VERY BEAUTIFUL CREATION STORIES TOO, WHICH INVOLVE A WOMAN FISHING OUT EVERY LIVING ANIMAL FROM A HOLE IN THE GROUND. ALSO, ACCORDING TO THEIR LEGENDS IT WAS THE WOLF WHO UNBURIED THE SUN IN THE BACK OF A CAVE, THUS ILLUMINATING THE WORLD SO THAT HE COULD HUNT.

HERE IS A PICTURE OF KYLE, WHO HAS BEEN WORKING WITH US AND MAKING SURE WE ALL COME HOME SAFE AND SOUND. I’M PRETTY SURE HE IS PART INUIT AND PART GWICHIN. WITH ANY LUCK HE MIGHT POST FOR YOU GUYS, ALTHOUGH HE HAS BEEN WORKING VERY HARD AND IS ON HIS WAY TO GO SNOWBOARDING!THIS PICTURE WAS TAKEN ON THE 20TH WHILE WE WERE PHOTOGRAPHING THE ICE ROAD FROM UP WHERE YOU CAN ONLY GET BY SNOWMOBILE. LATER THAT NIGHT WE WERE LUCKY TO SEE A TOTAL ECLIPSE OF THE MOON!

BY THE WAY, I LIKED HEARING ABOUT YOUR DOGS AND THEIR NAMES AND FUNNY STORIES. CHARLIE’S DOG IS NAMED TESLA. SHE FANCIES HERSELF A MIGHTY HUNTER AND HAS ACTUALLY CAUGHT AT LEAST TWO BIRDS IN THE BACK YARD. SINCE WE LIKE BIRDS WE TRY NOT TO LET HER SNEAK UP ON THEM.MUKTUK, OR WHALE, TASTED TO ME LIKE A BLAND FISH DIPPED HEAVILY IN OLIVE OIL. IT WAS PRETTY GOOD BUT THE PEOPLE HERE LOVE THIS STUFF. I THINK IT IS AN AQUIRED TASTE AND RIGHT NOW IF I HAD TO CHOOSE BETWEEN MUKTUK AND ANWAAR’S STUFFED GRAPE LEAVES- WELL, IT WOULD BE THE GRAPE LEAVES FOR ME ANYDAY BUT THERE ARE MANY PEOPLE WHO WOULD BE GLAD AND GOBBLE UP THE MUKTUK FOR THEMSELVES! THE MUSKOX SOUP REMINDED ME OF A WATERY GOULASH BECAUSE IT HAD MEAT AND MACARONI. I THINK ONE OF YOU GUYS ARE POLISH? SO YOU COULD MAYBE EXPLAIN GOULASH. IT WAS VERY TASTY!I THINK YOU ARE VERY FORTUNATE TO HAVE SUCH A DIVERSE GROUP OF KIDS IN YOUR CLASS! AND ALL OF THOSE LANGUAGES!!!IT WAS ACTUALLY AMAZING THAT WE ONLY GOT THE TRUCK STUCK ONCE, AS THEY DON’T PLOW ANY ROADS AROUND TOWN. ALL OF THE ROADS ARE JUST HARD PACKED SNOW IN TUK, SO IT’S DIFFICULT TO TELL WHAT IS A ROAD AND WHAT ISN’T. THE NON ROAD AREAS HAVE HARD PACKED SNOW ON TOP, BUT SOMETHING AS HEAVY AS A TRUCK IS TOO HEAVY AND SO FALLS THROUGH INTO THE POWDER AND GETS STUCK.HERE IS ANOTHER PICTURE OF ROB -THIS TIME GETTING A SNOWMBILE STUCK! I DID THIS ALSO AND IT TOOK A LOT OF WORK TO GET IT OUT!BY THE WAY, IN CASE ANYONE IS FEELING LIKE ROB IS A BAD DRIVER HE REALLY ISN’T- HE JUST HAD TO DRIVE A LOT MORE THAN ANYONE ELSE!


WELL- I GUESS THAT’S ABOUT EVERYTHING! KYLE MIGHT BE SENDING ONE LAST POST. TELL MS. RANDOLPH TO GIVE ME A CALL OR E-MAIL TO SEE IF CHARLIE AND I CAN SCHEDULE ONE MORE VISIT TO YOUR CLASS?! IT’S BEEN REALLY FUN DOING THIS PROJECT WITH YOU ALL AND EVERYONE ON THE CREW LOVED HEARING ABOUT THE 109′ERS AND YOUR AWESOME QUESTIONS. CHARLIE REALLY LIKED IT TOO AND THOUGHT IT WOULD BE FUN TO BRING YOU GUYS A LITTLE SURPRISE.

ARCTIC(BUT QUICKLY THAWING) DOUG

Welcome Back to our Final Blog!

Hi Doug. We are glad you back. We had a good time doing this project with you. It was awesome when you came to visit. Thanks for the beautiful pictures. Speaking of beautiful, we also saw the eclipse. Jonathan, Elisabeta, Alyana, Ingrid, Matthew, Paulina, Giovanni, Manuela, and MR. Phipps and Ms Randolph saw it and loved it. It looked like a blood moon, kinda brownish red. Mr PHipps decided that the lunar eclipse was causing people to drive real weirdly!!! I agree. Of course, not me.
Last Wednesday night, Ms R and Paulina, Ingrid, and Manuela, Mr Phipps, Ms. Kopta and parents were invited to the board meeting. The principals of the schools told us about the fieldtrips, and activities that we would have because our referendum passed. People got gifts if they helped out with the referendum. Then we had CAKE… suprise! Then we got to present our movies.
We were kinda nervous. Ms R blabbed some first, then the girls presented speeches. We got up in front of the board and told them what we did in class and all about you, Doug. Then we showed our movies. Some of the people that were watching giggled over our movies because they loved it so much. Matthew says they loved it so much, they started to giggle! Hee hee…. Then we got applause which was very well deserved.

Doug Shares Language with Us from a 5th Grade Teacher

Hi Everyone. Chopper Chuck sends a special HOWDY to Charlie and the rest of the 109′ers! He was excited to hear all about our project. He was glad you liked his hat. A woman made it for him and he liked it so much he had her make a bunch of them in case he ever looses them.

Also, I asked Maureen your excellent question regarding the Inuit language. Actually, I learned that the people around here are called Inuvialuit. I think this might be because there are both Inuit and Gwichin ancestry. I’ll have to find out more about that. Anyway, Maureen is a teacher so I figured if anyone could give us the scoop she could- and she delivered!

The language is called Inuvialuktun and, as you implied with your follow up question, it is an oral language.

In the 1800’s the priests and missionaries who came here introduced a written version of the language. Actually two written versions were created; in this area they used the same alphabet that we use. In the Eastern Arctic they created a new alphabet called syllabics, which apparently looks like shapes and symbols. I’ll try to find a sign and take a picture for you.

Here are a few Inuvialuktun words:

ookpik (snowy owl)
quanani (thank you)
tuktu (caribou)
tuk (place where the caribou cross)

…and, speaking of priests and missions- check out one of the local churches from Tuktoyaktuk!


Here is a picture of Maureen’s Bed and Breakfast, where we stayed on this last trip to Tuk.

Doug's Friend Terry as Dog Sledder!

Hello 109ers.

My name is Terry Woolf and I have been working with Doug on his northern Canada video job. We have had lots of fun together but it has been very hard working in the extreme cold.

I run a team of sled dogs and it is one of my favorite things to do in the winter. Dog teams were very important to the north of Canada and America (mostly Alaska ) Until the introduction of the snow machine about 40 years ago almost all winter travel was by dog sled. The mail. lots of freight (packages) , food, policemen, people from the churches, trappers on their trap lines all traveled by dogs teams. I started doing it for fun.

When the European people first came to North America over 500 years ago there were only few types of dogs here. One of these was the Canadian Inuit Dog. They were used as sled dogs and the type that I use mostly.

I have 6 dogs in my team. Django the leader, Mojo, who sometimes leads,

Flash, and Foxy who are usually in the middle and Reggae and Shaky who are the “wheel” dogs or the dogs closest to the sled or toboggan.

The heart of a dog team is the lead dog. If you have a good lead dog then you can put other untrained dogs behind and they will learn from the lead dog.

A lead dog has to know certain things. They have to stay straight out front and keep the lines tight so the rest of the team doesn’t get tangled up. The leader should know some basic commands. “Gee” means go right, “Haw” means go left.

“Haw come” means turn all the way around and go back the way we have come.

The other command they should know is “Whoa” I “ll let you figure out what that means. Different people have different commands but these are the ones I use.

My main lead Django is very good. He listens to commands. He can find old trails when they are buried in snow. He’s very friendly.

The dogs live out side all through the winter. They have good fur coats and if they are fed well they can live well out side. At home I put straw in their houses for the cold in winter. If I am on the trail camping I will put fresh spruce boughs down for dogs to sleep on. Some times I have been camping and it has snowed at night. In the morning I look out side the tent and can’t see the dogs but when I whistle all their heads pop up out of the snow where they have been buried.

Doug said I should tell you the story of Homer, one of my old sled dogs. I first got Home as a puppy. The day I got him my wife Aggie was taking him for a walk to get to know him. In the woods near our house a big dog came along and scared him so he ran away in the trees. We got some friends and we searched all after noon but could find him. When we got back to our house there he was sitting out side the dog yard gate. This little puppy only 7 weeks old had only been to our house for one day yet he managed to find his way home so we called him Homer. Two years later I found I had too many dogs so I gave Homer to a friend for his team. Later this man had to move from Yellowknife , to Vancouver Island , way down south. He found he couldn’t keep a dog team there. So he sent them back to Yellowknife . From Yellowknife , some dogs were now sent to Tuktoyaktuk were they joined a different team. Homer was one of these dogs.

I didn’t know all of this story until last week

Doug and the crew were filming with a dog team owned by James Pokiak. Doug was right in the middle of all the dogs filming and I was doing the sound and watching to see that the dogs didn’t tangle up with Doug. One dog kept coming over to me and pushing against me wanting to be petted. He was very friendly to me. When we finished filming we were in James Pokiak’s house talking and I asked him about this big friendly dog. James said had come from Yellowknife and before that Vancouver Island . That’s when I realized that this was Homer. When I went back over to him and called his name his ears popped right up and he looked right at me. So I went over to pet and play with him. This dog had recognized me after 5 years and 2 different owners.

Well I guess that’s’ all my dog team stories for now. You can look on a map and find the different places that Homer traveled to. If you have any questions I will try to answer them.

Here are a couple of pictures of my dogs.

Thanks for being interested.

Terry Woolf

February 18- Arctic Doug Answers Many Questions

Hi Everyone! We are back in Tuktoyaktuk for a bit more filming. We are staying and James and Maureen’s B&B. I just stepped outside and saw a nice display of the Northern Lights! They were gone before I could grab a camera, but with any luck I will send you some pics before we leave. In the meantime here are some other images of some of the beautiful sites we’ve seen. The sun never gets much above three or four fingers above the horizon, and moonrises are also nice and slow!

Here are some answers to your questions from our visit a few weeks back!
Question: Are sundogs dangerous? Nope, but they can be very pretty. When ice crystals appear they create what appears to be a rainbow around the sun. Here is a little one. If you could see the whole sky you could tell this tiny rainbow is part of a sundog!
Here is another dog that is not at all dangerous:) He’s one of Judy’s leaders, but I don’t remember his name.

Today we filmed as we drove up the ice road. The ice varies in appearance. Sometimes it is covered by snow, but in my opinion once you get onto the Beaufort Sea you find the most beautiful ice.
Oh, and regaring Muskees under the ice- here’s what I learned: I guess we are too far north for Muskees, nobody has seen them up here. There are other fish, like Northern Pike, and I’m told they feed all winter rather than hybernate. They likely slow down much, but remember it is much warmer in the water than on land! It’s a bit odd to be driving down the road and pass by frozen boats, but after all the ice road is just a frozen river.
I also wanted to show you that even your eyelashes end up frozen around here.

Someone asked whether people own cars or snowmobiles. I’ve seen both but what I see most often are GIANT trucks-you’d think you were in Texas or something. They are often diesel powered, like this one that we are driving. Diesel does better in extreme cold weather, although you still have to plug your truck in at night or the engine will freeze. There are quite a few places you can’t go with these big trucks, so many families also have snowmobiles-especially up here in Tuk.
Question: Why do ice storms fly? I think this was your question, Charlie. What I’ve learned is that it is very dry here- the snow is too dry for building snowmen, or making good snowballs. So this lack of moisture makes the ice crystals very light. When it is windy, and it often is windy here, the snow and ice sail right through the air! Here’s a picture of the snow blowing and forming these little mounds.

Feburary 17- Arctic Doug Writes with New Friends and Answers

Hi Everyone! We will be leaving Tuktoyaktuk today, although we’ve met some nice people up here. Yesterday we met some kids-a few of them are 5th graders. Here they are in action!

Can you guess what their favorite thing to do is? That’s right-Hockey, Hockey, Hockey! There other favorite things to do are gym, science, and math! They do have recess at school, and they have both indoor and outdoor recess. When I asked if it was too cold to go outside for recess they looked at me like I had 3 eyes. For them 40 below zero is perfectly normal so it would be weird not to go outside for recess!

They loved the camera and I told them about Charlie and the 109′ers down in Chicago. They thought that was cool and send a big HELLO!
On the way up here we saw two fox. They were pretty far away, they like to avoid trudging through the deep snow and walk on the frozen river, but tend to stay toward the treeline so they can scram if they sense danger. We saw one of them almost get a ptarmigan, which is a type of bird found around here.
Last night was Saturday night. We decided to celebrate by getting our truck stuck in the snow!

We’ve heard of a local legend that tells of a group of people called the “little people”. Remember that Inuit means simply “the people”. Well, the little people used to live among the Inuit until they became embroiled in a bitter arguement-at which the “little people” took leave and have never come back. Most everyone around here claims to have caught a glimpse of the little people, so we decided to check in on our igloo. It sounded like a party was going on (it was Saturday night) so we decided not to disturb whatever was in there!??!