Here’s a photo of my friend Kitty. She describes her clothing as follows: I am wearing a leather jacket I picked up at a garage sale for $5 and clothes mixed and matched from various womens department stores in Montreal. This outfit probably cost altogether $45-$50. This look is kind of the-everyday-me.
This is a photo of my Uncle Danny. He says he is wearing seal skin pants and coat. Doesn’t look like it to me, but hey, he’s the one who is wearing the skins. Kuujjuaq, Nunavik. In front of his 2006 black and 2008 Harleys.
Uncle Danny wrote me a note, saying: “HI Joey, I was only joking when I said I’m wearing a seal skin pants and jacket I thought you would have noticed they were not seal skin clothing they are regular black jeans and a black Harley jacket. Sorry for the false info but just letting you know the TRUTH!!!”
Here’s a photo of my cousin Denise and her man Ches. They are wearing traditional Labrador Silapaks (the Labrador word is “dickie”) made of canvas with wolf fur around the hood. We are also wearing Chimo hats, mine as you can see has ears, while Ches’ hat, made in Pangnirtung, does not.
My cousin Tanya is an excellent artist, who painted the coke bottle you see in the photo. It was featured in the 2010 Vancouver Olympics. Here, Tanya is wearing, in her words, “beautiful custom made kamiks by Jennifer Watkins, purple dress I ordered from forever 21 and a beautiful see-through top inspired by the traditional amautik with fox fur trim made by Winnie Grey.”
This is a picture of my friend Jeannie. All she is wearing is what she calls “an Eskimo hat!” An excellent outfit for walking in a winter wonderland, don’t you think?
This is my sister, who exists. So I call her my sister-exister. She says, “I am wearing a fur hat, a North Face/Gortex winter jacket, and a pair of Lululemon pants. On my feet, I was wearing a pair of basic black winter boots and Diana brand pink nail polish.”
This is my Uncle Sandy. I was originally only going to post this photo on Friday, but I decided to post this photo now instead.
He is wearing his Krapp Dinner t-shirt and a Pirate’s hat. Our family is very grateful to have Uncle Sandy. He once had a terrible motorcycle accident which left him in a coma for weeks. Our family was not sure if he was going to live, but he came out of it. Love to you, Uncle!
Here is a photo of my Uncle Harvey. He said he is wearing a discount jacket from a garment factory from their overstock, my dominican golf cap, dickies work pants, and a harley davidson t shirt. With my shoes from payless and hoodie from zellers george collection. He adds: “With my buttons done up wrong lol!”
Behind Uncle Harvey, Inuit are butchering two beluga whales.
My friend Ida sure knows how to troll. She relates the story below.
I’ve had fun reminiscing as a result about my trip to Boston. I have to share one anecdote from that week where I gave a series of lectures on the Benign Environmental Impacts of Climate Change in Life in the Arctic (I think is what we called it) over the annual Independent Activities week at MIT.
I showed all these images of people and life with many photographs in my slide presentation. Many, many visages had popped up which prompted this one lady in the audience to ask during the question period this question, “I have always thought the people of the arctic would have very rugged looks to their faces due to the harshness of the environment they live in. The people in your pictures …many of them seem to have a very different look than that. I mean, many of the faces I saw have a very fair complexion… why is that?”
She asked in such a polite and hesitant but very ignorant manner, that I paused as I thought, “would I dare? do I dare? … aaww heck, she walked right into it so what the hey…”. I spoke like this, “Yes, …there is a reason…. it’s …… Oil (!). …. of …Olaaaaay,” as I made the gesture with my hand caressing my cheek as the woman does in the old commercial on TV.
Below is a photo of Ida with the first female president of M.I.T., Dr. Susan Hockfield.
The arnauti that I’m wearing was made for me by Sheila Gordon. I’m in my good ol’ Levi’s jeans and my good ol’ black (I believe those were Transit) shoes. I was wearing a black blouse underneath the arnauti that I’m sure I’d bought at Reitmans’. This photo was taken in Ms. Hockfield’s office by my friend, “Hank” Henry Smith.
Here’s another photo of Ida standing in a half-built Igloo in Cambridge, MA, near M.I.T. Apparently, there was a lot of snow that year!
I’m wearing my acrylic yarn hat crocheted by my friend, Lydia Saunders. We’re standing in the still partially built igloo that some engineering students had built on the campus, there was so much snow that January. Hank is wearing his beloved wolfskin hat that he’d had made for him by one of his friends from Tasiujaq. He’s also proudly wearing his ‘arctic’ down jacket that he also so loves.
In this photo, below, you see Ida preparing for one of her lectures.
“Little Eskimo-me preparing some of my work during that same week at M.I.T. I’m wearing a vest made of cotton and sealskin that was made by my colleague at the time, Ina Gordon. The ring on my index finger was a beautiful ivory whale ring that I’d bought in Greenland and I’m still sorry to this day for my careless dropping of it and then stepping on it. It broke. Besides my vest which is made of cotton and sealskin as I mentioned earlier, I was wearing my “snowflake” turtleneck sweater and black dress pants. And that was my trusty Timex watch on my wrist. I also already mentioned that which was my beautiful ivory whale ring…the one I’d bought while in Nuuk, Greenland. We were at the Nanotechnology Laboratories building of M.I.T., if I’m remembering correctly and this picture was either taken by Jean-Francois or Hank, I can’t remember which one.”
One more of Ida in Massachusetts, below:
I’m in my parka that I had made for me by a friend. The fox fur was a birthday gift from my sister and the pualuks or mitts in my pocket were made by Sapina Adams and the outer shell of cow-leather. My black dress pants and my trusty (I think they were Sorels) black winter boots. That’s my luggage with my computer bag on top and we were on campus where we were visiting for the week at M.I.T.
Here is a photo of Shannon in a pinstriped dress shirt, suit jacket, and ivory jewelry. Shannon and I have never met other than through this blog. Thanks for joining in the fun, Shannon!
