Neither Maria nor I are impressed at this point
Seriously, people. Anybody got a cardboard box I can borrow for a couple of weeks?
Guess what just happened!
Category Archives: Yellowknife
Sunrise over Condorizon, Yellowknife
Sunrise over Condorizon, Yellowknife, posted with vodpod
This was two house-sits ago, out in what I called Buttfuck Nowhere, which it is if you don’t have a car, and I don’t. Also known as New Newfoundland, for the influx of Newfies: such an influx that the local grocery store carries big white plastic pails of “beef navels”. Those are actual beef navels, not some kind of seagoing bovine, because it’s a popular food in Newfoundland, or so I surmise from the fact that the bucket has a map of such on the label. I found a recipe for beef navel pastrami, but otherwise I’m not sure what you do with them.
While I was out there, housesitting at a far too nice place on a perfectly ordinary road surrounded by condos, Walmarts, and Tim Hortonses in all directions, I decided to take the garbage out. In the middle of the night. Well, normally who cares, right? Only on my way back from the dumpster I saw something move under a car, something doggish-size, and being from Vancouver and used to raccoon and skunks and coyotes and such, I just made growling “giddoudahear” kind of noises and something shot off into the brush.
A lynx.
I knew a woman from William’s Lake who used to go out hunting grizzly bears in the woods, just her and her two bear dogs (the kind they tell the white people are extinct, but aren’t). The only thing in the wilderness that scared her was the lynx: apparently they’re just as crazy and aggressive as wolverines, and will attack pretty much anything.
So yeah. Even taking out the garbage can be a bit of an adventure up here.
Oh, what does HE know?
"The only cures I have for the ills of life are to move constantly north and to sleep. But you run out of north and you wake up." ~ Bukowski—
Bukowski Quotes (@bukquotes) August 19, 2011
Big words, coming from a man who lived in Los Angeles most of his adult life.
The Strange Range Tweetup: the aftermath
The Strange Range tweetup featuring the styling talents of the late Edward Hopper!
The Strange Range Tweetup is history; the question now is, will the Strange Range be?
YOU can help answer that question by showing up at City Hall on Monday, August 22nd, 7pm sharp, when there will be a public meeting on the bylaw to buy the entire block. Here’s the sign that was hanging by the bar; once I explained what we were there for, the bartender practically begged us to take pictures.
Strange Range Hearing Monday at 7pm
I called the tweetup to hear the stories of the Range, to get a real sense of its history and what it means to the town. Unfortunately, literally everyone else who showed up showed up for the same reason, not because they had stories to share. That’s unusual, given that some of them are lifelong Knifers.
If you have a story, even an apocryphal one, about the Range, please please please PRETTY PLEASE post it in the comments (you can use a fake name: what the hell do I care, I’m not Google+) or hunt me down in person and whisper it to me, but if you do that you’re probably gonna hafta buy me a martini to calm my nerves down, and if you REALLY alarm me, probably a couple for yourself, too, besides the wound dressing for the compound fractured arm.
But where was I? Oh yes. As you can see from the slideshow below and the pix on Flickr, we didn’t exactly have to fight for space. The crowd outside was, as the bartender pointed out, about twice the size of the crowd inside; the Range has a problem like the Carnegie Centre in Vancouver: the scary throngs that block the door and hang out on the sidewalk, looking for all the world as if they’re going to pounce on you. And they might, too.
If it didn’t get down to -40, I’d suggest putting in one of those garden-misting apparatuses to keep the entranceway clear, but it does indeed get to -40 and besides, where else are these people gonna go?
If you axe me, which I note you did not, the problem isn’t the Range: the problem is that black hole of a parking lot across the street. Clean it up, make it into a park, put on some activities there so there’s something to do other than get high or drunk, and suddenly with eyes on the street and stuff happening, it’s not such a nexus of dysfunction. As for the throngs outside the door, well, does -40 not take care of that?
So ends today’s “lessons from an uppity Southerner”. See you Monday at 7?
Bastille Day at Le Frolic in Yellowknife
We ARE amused! Array of Amuses at Le Frolic on Bastille Day
Welcome to Yellowknife! Hope you brought a fork!
Bastille Day at Le Frolic in Yellowknife, posted with vodpod
It’s not all musk ox bones and walrus blubber up here, ya know! Although some of it is. Some of it is even whale:
Bowhead Whale Hunt by Glenn Williams. Didja bring yer fork?
Wanna see the Food Chart the government distributes? Well, you will just have to wait till I’ve figured out how to convert PDFs to PNGs on this damn computer!
Oh, wait! GIMP to the rescue:
Om to the nom nom! The NWT Food Guide!
BACK to the future. It looks post-apocalyptic on the NWT Food Guide
Yes, that is a rat on the food chart. And seaweed. And fish bones. And a Beluga Whale. And yes, they are endangered.
I heard they had to take the chicken leg in the grocery store packaging out of the new edition, because nobody knew what it was. They eat a lot of what is called “country foods” up here: outside of Yellowknife, something like 45% of families get 40% or more of their food off the land or from the sea. You don’t have to go to the Amazon to find hunter-gatherers, and frankly having sussed out the grocery stores here I’m thinking of trying it myself.
Anyway, not all food comes off the land or the endangered species list. Some of it comes off quite elegant presentations, as you can see from the image at the top of the post. Here`s how it all happened…
So there I was back a few months ago, minding everyone else`s business on social media, as one does (if one is this one), and I found out there was an actual, honest-to-god French chef in Yellowknife. Well, naturally I thought someone was pulling my leg; as far as I know not even Julia Child would have attempted to Frenchify a hunk o’ musk ox.
Boy, was I wrong.
Le Chef Pierre doesn`t mess around. You should see what happened to the last Top Chef in Yellowknife.
Le Chef Pierre does exist, and not only does he exist, but he Follows me on Twitter, which as far as I`m concerned is truly the only authoritative signifier of meaningful existence. Naturellement. And once I`d moved up here and he found out I`d been born in France, he went ahead and invited me and my friend MoneyCoach to the Bastille Day celebration at his very civilized French restaurant, Le Frolic.
Now, as we`ve firmly established around these parts, a lot of my favorite words start with F; I don`t need to list them, do I? But the greatest of these is “Free.” Somehow, the psychic Chef Pierre sussed this out (what are the odds, eh?) and that is how I, my camera, and my best YK pal ended up freeloading our own bodyweight in steak tartare and cab sauv under the shadow of a three-story-tall red-white-and-blue model of the Eiffel Tower (where do they keep it the rest of the year?) or maybe that was just me.
Yeah, that was just me. Nancy’s a light eater, and I’m a lifelong believer in the calorie-free nature of food which you didn’t pay for.
In related news: food is also zero calorie if eaten standing up, by the light of the fridge. Very few people know that.
Well, if you flick through the Flickr pix you can see many things: bruschetta, amuse-gueules on a very snazzy steel presentation stand, a assortment of wines the list of which I had in my backpack until it rained, so sorry wine sponsors, no names in the post! and a trayfull of desserts, of which I only tried the butter tart, being a butter tart snob of the old school. Those of you who are Canuck Foodie Purists will be relieved to know that Chef Pierre is solidly of the “no nuts in the butter tarts” school. I’m glad I could take your mind off that worry. I was equally fascinated by the butter tart, as you can tell from the what, six pictures I took of it? Well, it was an uncooperative model, so I did my best. “Look up, baby! Work it! That’s it, that’s it, gorgeous, now more animalistic!” Oh, I tried my best, but the damn tart just wasn’t having it; I felt like David Bailey before he found his mojo (I understand he found it in his other pants).
Shortly after the butter tart posing session, I decided to stumble home, sated, but not before someone took me aside and whispered, “You better eat and drink your fill before the French get here. They bring big handbags, and they leave weighted down!”
Noted.
