Whapmagoostui

Our supervisor Anny covers five Cree communities including Whapmagoostui, which is farther North than Chisasibi, along the coast of Hudson Bay. It is only accessible by plane or boat. We had the opportunity to go to Whapmagoostui with Anny to be part of an interdisciplinary clinic project. The community is half Cree and half Inuit, and the Inuit name for the community is Kuujjuarapik. Both names mean “great whale”.

We had a false start on Monday when our plane to Whapmagoostui was cancelled due to the cloud ceiling. We still got some work done while waiting at the airport, including rescheduling appointments and interpreter bookings!

Since all our food and luggage was already packed, we had an opportunity to try out Pash-Moar Pizza, the only pizza place in town. We went to bed early, hoping that we would have better luck the next day.

We finally got on the plane on Tuesday and got to work as soon as we arrived in Whapmagoostui. We had a busy week trying to fit in all the clients we were supposed to see, especially since we lost a day on Monday. As well as French and English, we had the opportunity to work in Cree and Inuktitut thanks to the help of interpreters, the daycare educators, and the medical centre staff.

Even though we didn’t have much time to explore the community, we still had a beautiful walk around town and along the beach of Hudson Bay.

Great Whale River.

On Thursday we were surprised to wake up and find the whole community covered in snow. It is amazing how quickly the weather can change from day to day.

After a busy week of work, coming back to Chisasibi felt like coming home.

We managed to get up early on Saturday morning to help out at Run Chisasibi, an annual event including 1, 5, 10, and 21k races. We handed out water and oranges to the runners and chased after empty cups. It was really nice to see the community congratulate the runners at the finish line!

We spent the rest of the weekend hanging out in some friends’ michuaps eating goose and bannock around the fire. This made the feeling of being back home even stronger.