Gallant's Lounge

Hi everyone,

Yet again, I have not been too too active, but here is a post that puts together the few things I did in the past few weeks.

Have yourselves a good read, even though there is A LOT of pictures for this one!

Friday Nights

On Friday nights, after everyone finishes their shifts at work, the common thing to do is to meet up with your friends at either of the two bars in Kuujjuaq. A few drinks are shared, and memories are created, but what is common to us all, is that no one really knows where the night will lead.

I will attempt to depict these nights with a little series of pictures here.

This drink is called a Gin Swizzle, created by staff at the Lounge, one of the bars. Pretty good drink, been running it for quite a few weeks now.

That night, I got to the bar way before everyone else, pretty typical of me. People only really show up at 9 P.M., with a full house at around 10 P.M.

Shots were called in, and card games were played.

Even though I don’t personally smoke, I don’t like to miss those cigarette breaks. They are crucial because this is where most of the talking happens. This is where all friend groups meet, and talk about the night, and where it might lead. But, it is also where a lot of the action happens, the weird encounters let’s call it that.

That night, a bonfire was called. The information for bonfires usually spreads through small talks, around cigarettes, drinks or shots. No Facebook posts needed, because eventually, everyone knows where and when to show up.

This time, the bonfire was at someone’s mom’s cabin. But, fires can be called at many different places. Could be Elder’s beach, Nuvuuk Bay Beach, Barrel Beach, Three lakes, Stewart Lake, and more I am sure.

The cabin was further away than most usual bonfire locations though, and at the time I was riding on an ATV. For about 10-15 minutes, I was riding down Range Road, one of the longer roads that goes inland. In the dark with that cold snap of the North with no real protection for the eyes, the ATV ride will make you cry, because it made me shed a few tears.

The fire itself was great, had some good time with friends and a few people showed up, here are a few pictures.

The cabin itself was quite an interesting place. For many, these homes serve as what we call a Chalet down South. It’s out of town, in the middle of nature, and is a nice little sanctuary away from everyone.

This cabin was unique in that it had quite a lot of decoration, an absurd amount of decoration actually.

At around 3 A.M., light starts to peak through the sky. Yet, the fire goes on, on if its fuel is consistently used; pallets. So, trips to go get pallets are crucial to keep the fire going, as that night, not enough pallets were brought. A small crew took a truck, and went to find pallets in the middle of the night.

Trip done, piles of pallets acquired, the fire keeps on living, mission complete.

Shenanigans. This is what usually happens on every non-rainy Fridays in the summer. Bonfires are favorites in not only Kuujjuaq, but Nunavik as a whole. It is where most young people unite and hang out, no matter the friend groups.

And that night, I left at 5 A.M., which is usually where I clock out. I left with my ATV to encounter another adventure on the way home…

Sealift in Kuujjuaq

When I came back from the bonfire, I saw some colorfully dressed men on a ship on the water. At the time, I was working on a story regarding what is called the sealift in Kuujjuaq, and they were working on it at that very moment. I could not miss the opportunity to take a few pictures.

This is a much smaller ship that will eventually sail back to its mothership, the Sealift. I discuss it in my article for Nunatsiaq News, but I will add even more detail here.

The Sealifts are two cargo ships from two different companies that sail all throughout the North a couple of times a year, going deep into Nunavut and reaching all communities in Nunavik.

These ships transport some crucial cargo, from dry goods for groceries to cars for awaiting residents, everyone eagerly waits for sealift season, many calling it Christmas.

The Coop Store here receives quite a lot of containers. All of them contain household appliances, dry goods, anything really, all to be sold back to the people of Kuujjuaq.

Another crucial part of the Sealift is alcohol. Both bars here rely on the ships to come and fill up their supplies of beer and wine. And like the grocery stores, before the Sealift, much of the beer and the wine were simply unavailable, waiting for the ship.

Another peculiar aspect are the geographical problems of the sealifts. As previously mentioned, smaller rigs come to shore from the motherships. That’s because the cargo ships themselves cannot reach the shores of Kuujjuaq, as it is way to deep down the Koksoak River. The smaller rigs actually have an hour-long trip before getting to destination.

And mind you, there is still another added geographical difficulty to this whole process. The smaller rigs cannot reach shores if it is not high tide. Every day, the time for high tide changes, and it can be in the middle of the night, the day, early morning, any time in the day. I spoke to some of the guys working on sealifts, and I tried to get their point of view for the article, but they are quite literally unreachable when sealift is here. Since they are constantly on duty, no time off, it did not work out. And when they do have some time off they definitely won’t spend it talking about work to a journalist!

All in all, reporting on this event was quite a blast, and I hope you go ahead and read that article I made for Nunatsiaq, I am quite proud of it!

The virus that shall not be named

For the past week, I have not been doing much because well, I got Covid. After successfully avoiding the disease in Montreal for over two years, I got it in a small 3000-people town in Nunavik.

I got some mild flue symptoms and lost my taste and smell for a couple of days, but nothing too too bad. Still in isolation to this day, since isolation rule here is 10 days, 5 days of total isolation and 5 days of “you can go do activities but with a mask and two meter distance” isolation.

Quarantine though has not been too kind to me. Internet is not very reliable and makes it kind of difficult to stay home when most activities are done outside. And since the 7th wave is coming in full throttle, and there a no guidelines for people coming into Nunavik like last year, I have a feeling that many more people will be in isolation for the coming days.

When I say guidelines, I mean a negative PCR test before taking a flight from Montreal to Nunavik type of deal. There is a lot of back and forth due to white and blue collar workers being on a two-week on two-week off schedule. In their back-and-forth, all of them could potentially bring the virus up North.

And well, in a small town, it takes one person to spread it to everyone.

Anyhow, this is it for now. I have less than a month left in Kuujjuaq before the return to my usual school life. Will try to make the best of my time remaining here.

See you next time.