Happy Canada Day!

He would wish you a "Happy Canada Day!" too, but he is a little preoccupied with his cotton candy

I celebrated my first Canada Day today! It was beautiful weather here! It reached 12 degrees Celsius around noon, and several people were in short sleeves or shorts! This was great news for us at the Heritage Society, because we were in charge of all the Canada Day events, which included a barbecue at the high school baseball field with games, cotton candy and a bannock-making competition!

I began my festivities by manning the temporary tatoo table, which meant that I got to stick tatoos on just about everyone. Then, I took a turn at a grill flipping burgers, which was a lot harder than it looked due to the fact that the wind was blowing the smoke from both grills directly in my face. It felt like I was breathing fire! After that, I organized a game of Inuit baseball and we played for the rest of the afternoon. I had a blast!

Sinclair waits patiently for his tatoo. Mine says, "Canada, eh!"

Meanwhile, Brendan organized the bannock-making competition. To have a shot at winning, contestants must mix their ingredients, light a fire and fry their bread. However, the competition is judged by time and taste. At another part of the field, Lisa was working her magic with the cotton candy machine. Yum!

A watched pan never fries

Directly after the barbecue, we all headed to the Community Hall to set up for tonight's Community Dance, the second half of our Canada Day festivities. We decorated in the grandest Canadian style we could and got all the desserts ready, some of which were donated from the DEW Line station. More impressively, Brendan made us a huge Canada Day cake by himself and it was delicious!

The line for the Canada Day cake

The Community Dance should have been named "Community Celebration", because it was a conglomeration of live entertainment, food, games, awards and dancing. I got to drum dance with some of the elders and later taught Cambridge Bay some of my favorite line dances. I had a great time dancing with all of the kids, and I am sure that one of my fondest memories will be of all of the Heritage Society staff showing off their best moves.

It was the best Canada Day I have ever had! : )