Inuit in the Afternoon

On a message board I post at someone wanted to know what we do for homeschooling in the afternoon. Thankfully, we've actually been doing some semi-impressive stuff for the last couple of afternoons so I don't have to embarrass myself by saying, "Um...XBox and TV." Here goes.

It all started Sunday night when I read a Mic Mac creation story. Every Thursday we drive by a giant statue of Gloosecap and one of our friends is Mic Mac so this was sort of came up naturally.

Catherine had some questions fter the story so the next day I read from The Kids Book of Canadian History.

The first chapter deals with the nations that were here before the Europeans arrived. It was a little general but that was probably a good thing because then we scrounged around for other books I have on Native Canadians to give some more detail. Almost all were about the Inuit.

I was born in Inuvik in the Northwest Territories. My family left before I was even two so I have no memories of it but Mom and Dad had a pile of stuff they'd been given by Inuit friends or bought like a bone knife for building igloos, an Ookpik, soapstone carvings and story after story after story. Long story shortened, I've always had a bit of an interest for the North so I've picked up books on art and poetry when I've seen them. When we decided to look deeper into a native culture, that was what we had on hand.

Yesterday we read poems and looked at books of Inuit prints and sculpture. Today we read more about the Inuit and had some great discussions about hunting, insulation and what it would have been like to be an Inuit woman a hundred years ago. Tomorrow we'll continue with more reading and a visit from my parents who are bringing up some of the things they brought back from the Arctic 33 years ago.

None of this was intended but it's unraveled in a really pleasant way so I'm more then happy to go with the low.