Day Two: Sivuniksavut Students

After our afternoon down time we walked the streets of Ottawa to the Sivuniksavut students classroom about four blocks away from the hostel. We arrived and introduced each other and told each other where we were from and the range of these students was amazing! They came from everywhere from Gris Fjord which is the furthest northern community of the participants with a latitude of 76.42 degrees and a longitude of 85.92 degrees to Pangirtung which lays at 66 degrees latitude and 65 degrees longitude. After we got to know each other and had some time for some question and answer along with some brief discussions about some hot topics we ordered some pizza and traded stories with individuals. After dinner they performed some traditional as well as modern cultural dances and songs. We had the opportunity to participate in a traditional dance which represents a mothers love for her son. Then we enjoyed some traditional games! The first game we played was leg wrestling, you lay side by side with your opponent heads on opposite ends. You link legs with that person (in this case Dalen vs. Joe) and try to flip them over using only your linked legs. Next was a type of arm wrestling where you sit with your legs linked and you hook your arms at the elbow and try to pull the other person towards you and as soon as the other persons arm goes straight the match is over and you have won. We then were introduced to this one game called "Cheek Pull" a picture is worth a million words in this case... Yes that is Joe with his finger in the teachers mouth and his in Joe's. Then on the count of three we pulled on eachothers cheek and whoever gave up first lost.
After all that excitement we had some more down time to cool down and get a group piture of the students that hadn't left yet.

Tomorrow we hit the open road early in the morning, we are waking up at 4:45am to get breakfast and be at the bus stop with all our bags at 5:58am to get to the airport to depart to Iqaluit at 9:00am. We are looking forward to finally getting to Baffin Island to do more with elders and climate change!
- Joe, Allison, and Chris