Christmas Cards
Christmas 2002 showing my eight grandchildren. I now have twelve!
Christmas 2003 -- My mother and friend in the Church in Hay River, NWT
Photo by: Tracy Kovalench
Christmas 2004
Called « Netł’é » in our Dene language, cranberries are these bountiful berries that grow throughout the north, at least up to the Arctic coast. They grow on the ground, they’re tasty, sour and sweet, the riper they are. Picked in muskeg or bushes along hilly pine tree areas, they begin to turn red in late August and are good for picking throughout the fall until the leaves fall or the snow covers them. Picking berries is a favorite northern pastime usually involving friends, relatives and young children. They’re not everywhere; you have to find a good patch of them. On a good day, you can pick several pails. Once home, you clean them, boil them up with sugar and eat them on bread or bannock or with your meat and potatoes. It is a favorite sauce to go with Christmas turkey. The rest you freeze and save for the winter months. Later in the winter, you can boil up frozen berries, smell the sweet aroma and enjoy a bit of summer while you sit in your warm kitchen and look out at the - 40° weather outside.
Photo: Laurie Fichter née Sibbeston (2003)
2005
Christmas 2005
These crafts, birch bark baskets made by Roslyne Kotchea from Fort Liard and beaded moosehide mitts made in Deline, NWT are displayed in my Ottawa office. They provide a northern flair to my surroundings and provide a pleasant reminder of home when I am at work in the Senate. Visitors often comment on the beauty of these traditional Dene crafts made from the gifts of the land -- moosehide and fur, birch bark and porcupine quills.
Photo: Hayden Trenholm (2005)
2006
This Christmas nativity scene picture was taken in 1955 by Father Lesage in Fort Simpson, NWT, and used as the mission’s Christmas card for that year. I was 12 years old and played the role of Joseph. My cousins Bertha is Mary, Dolly, an angel and Joyce is baby Jesus. Dorothy Michel is the other angel standing in the back. The card was kept by my mother for many years and I came across it as I was looking through old family pictures.
It brings back many good memories. Life in Fort Simpson in the “50’s was typical of many communities in the north. Most people lived on the land along rivers and lakes, trapping and hunting and they usually came to town to attend midnight mass and visit with relatives and friends. Christmas was simple in those days. No trees with lights as we didn’t have electricity. Just candles, coal oil or gas lamps. No wrapped-up gifts and toys like we have now. Our gift might be a pair of moccasins or mitts or some other home-made clothing. We enjoyed visiting, playing outside, sliding with our cousins and friends or skating on the outside rink by the school. Everybody went to midnight mass. Some of us boys served mass and the girls sang in the choir.
2007
Santa's Message
This June, while visiting Tuktoyuktuk, I went down to the beach, when, what to my wondering eyes did appear but Santa Claus. The jolly old elf seemed less jolly than usual so I asked him what the trouble was.
He said, “I’m worried – and mad – about climate change. The reindeer can’t find enough to eat and my house at the North Pole is sinking. Last week I discovered a grizzly bear in my backyard, scaring the elves. And flying through this crazy weather is sure no picnic! Something has to be done.”
I took Santa to the schools in Tuk and Aklavik to talk to the kids. With a spark in his eye and a shake of his head, he soon told us all we had something to dread – global warming. “Too many people have been naughty and not enough nice. I’d give them all lumps of coal but it would only make things worse!”
So, as he leapt in his sleigh and flew up in the air, I heard him exclaim: “Do all you can, Senator Nick, to fight climate change! Then we can all enjoy the cold and have Merry Christmases forever!”
Photo: Nick Sibbeston 2007
2008
Take Time to Dance
Once, many years ago, a hunter and a bear met in a clearing at the edge of the woods. To the north and east lay the barren lands; to the south and west, the boreal forest. They had come together where the four points of the compass meet under the great blue arch of the darkening winter sky.
They were hungry, this man and this bear, for the hunting had not gone well. They had traveled far in search of food, the bear for her cubs sleeping in their snowy den, the man for his wife and children huddled in their small, snug cabin. Now, as they faced each other across the clearing, they feared they would never see their families again.
As darkness spread over the land, the sky began to fill with shimmering bands of dancing light and they heard the whistle and sigh of the lights like the far-off singing of the ones they loved. A single bright star shone through the curtain of colour. It lay in the East like a beacon, like the signal of a great event.
The hunter and the bear were suddenly filled with an inexpressible happiness. The bear sheathed his claws and the hunter set aside his weapons. It was as if the light and hope of the world had filled the mid-winter sky and they danced together in joy and friendship.
This story reminds us, during this Christmas season, to put aside our day-to-day troubles and express our joy and love for each other. If a hunter and a bear can set aside their differences to take time to dance, then so can all of us.
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The cover photo shows the winning entry in the 2007 National Snow Sculpture Competition held each year at the Ottawa Winterlude Festival.
The sculpture, “Take Time to Dance” was designed and built by Team Northwest Territories, Eli Nasogaluak, John Sabourin and Randy Sibbeston.
2009
This summer, Karen and I traveled from Resolute Bay to Kugluktuk on the Louis St. Laurent, a wonderful experience that we will never forget. Captain Andrew McNeill was a great and generous host. Though I have visited these Arctic communities before, traveling by sea through the Northwest Passage gave me a brand new perspective on the changing North.
It was great to see the North from this special point of view and nice to see old friends and colleagues, former MLAs Ludy Pudluk and Red Pederson, still going strong in their communities.
During one day, when the conditions were just right, we saw a dozen polar bears, hunting seals from the ice floes that drifted across our path. It was a spectacular occasion, one that I was truly happy to see. Sadly, future generations of northerners may never be able to share in this wonder. The sea ice is receding and growing thin. Soon, polar bears may not be able to survive. The scientists traveling aboard the St. Laurent with us explained the many physical changes that are occurring because of climate change. There is no question it is real and that it is already having an impact.
Perhaps we need to amend the Constitution to include in the Charter the “Right to Be Cold.” Then governments might finally take the threat of climate change seriously.