White As The Snow

Arviat - Northwest Territories (now Nunavut) - winter - mid 1990's

My sister taught school in the North for many years and had arranged for me to come and do a couple of presentations at a teachers conference.

Northwest Territories; above the tree line, middle of winter... you can imagine!

I remember looking out the window of the plane on this white desert as we landed thinking, "How do people actually live here?!?

I had to share a room in the hotel with a stranger which was a surprise!

I slept in an igloo and didn't sleep much, excitement and freezing cold can do that to you!

Did a dog sled ride and went sprawling when the dogs ran past and tripped me before I could even get on the sled!

It got dark sooo early!

I got to visit an Inuit family in their home and there was frozen meat hanging in the first entryway which I thought was kind of weird cool.

Later I thought about my reactions and perceptions and thought that yeah, I was pretty much as white as the snow in those reactions and perceptions.

But I did my presentation on dreams and a young Inuit woman came up to me after and told me a dream about an old woman and asked me if I thought it might be her grandmother.

"I would certainly think it was," I replied. She smiled and hugged me.

Maybe, in that moment, I wasn't quite as white as the snow...