Monday – Sept Iles, Canada (Day Two)
Today, when we woke up, we were still in Sept Iles; the ropes had held fast and the ship hadn’t drifted off into the sea.
I was on tour this afternoon, so I spent the morning catching up on some online student work and publishing the newsletter (which was half a month late). Unfortunately, I had to be on the quayside by 12:30; exactly the same time that lunch would be served in Marco’s… so, no lunch, then.
As the last of the passengers climbed onto the bus, and I started to count heads, a large and rather ugly-looking bug flew in through the open window next to the front two rows of seats. It hovered around the window frame trying to find its way out as the two couples tried their hardest to help it, but it wasn’t having it. Eventually, the husband of the lady who was sat right by the second window (who was just about hyper-ventilating every time the flying monstrosity came anywhere near her), jumped up and decided to take the matter into his own hands. He tucked a sheet of paper beneath the bug and proceeded to try and lift it up to the open window. Unfortunately, the sheet of paper got stuck, and in the moment it freed itself, if flipped the bug up into the air…
As if in slow motion, everyone’s eyes followed it as it rose up in an arc and disappeared straight down the front of the hyper-ventilating lady’s v-neck top. I just wish I had a video camera running at that very moment, to capture the chaos and indignant fumbling that followed. The bug was finally evicted, much to the amusement of many, and the not-quite-so-amusement of the few…
‘Classic Sept Iles’ took us first to the Shaputuan Museum, dedicated to the indigenous natives; the Innu (not to be confused with the Innuit), and their 10,000 years of history. The Innu people were nomads who lived in tents made of animal skins and sustained themselves by hunting and trapping. An Innu guide spoke to us in French while his wife translated. It would have saved a whole lot of time if he’d written it all down and his wife just did the guiding, but hey; what do I know? We were treated to a 15 minute video showing how the Innus lived. What made the video unusual was that it was projected via 6 cameras attached to the ceiling, onto 6 curved screens set on the outside of a curved projection room, with all the passengers sat in the middle.
After our video, tea was served, along with bread and a local jam made from cloudberries; a raspberry-type fruit that grows in peat bogs. Anyone who knows me will know that I do NOT do jam… under ANY circumstances… but I was so hungry from having missed lunch that I did manage to stuff away three pieces of dry bread to tide me over.
From the museum, we made a brief stop at an observation tower for photos (although, there wasn’t really a great deal to photograph), before our final stop of the afternoon, at a Trading Post. Vieux-Poste is a reconstruction of a Fur Trading Post, built in 1967, to replicate life there in 1786. It was a lot of log cabins and guides dressed up in period costume. We spent an hour there… a very long hour…
We were back at the quayside at just gone 4pm.
And so that was Sept Iles.
Tomorrow we are due to arrive in Havre St Pierre; a half-day, so I’ll be running classes in the afternoon.
