Have you ever been on
a trip where you hope for bad weather? Tonight I am writing to you from
Churchill on Hudson Bay, where the temperatures are hovering just above
freezing. They should be below the freezing mark. We are hoping for lousy snowy
arctic weather and bone-chilling wind this weekend, because that’s what the
polar bears like! Polar bears come out to play when the ponds and bay start to
ice over. If it’s -30F, we’d see a lot of happy bears, but it is still pretty
warm here.
Thursday I was out and about in Winnipeg. (or should I say… Oot and
aboot!….eh?) I had a free day to go to the Human Rights Museum (one of my
favorites) and the Winnipeg Art Gallery. One of the new policies I see all over
Canada, is to acknowledge when a building or an event is being held on the
traditional lands of one or more indigenous tribes. I was first exposed to this
at Quilt Canada in Ottawa last summer.
The city got the other end of that crazy storm we had in Boulder a week ago,
but it was a heavy wet snow in Winnipeg and there was severe damage to the
city’s tree canopy. There are branches all over town, power was out for
thousands, and in some cases I saw big old trees snapped in half.
Lately I’ve been reading history books when I travel, and on this trip I am
reading “The Woman’s Hour” which is about the struggle for Women’s
Suffrage 100 years ago. Did you know that the women who fought for the right of
women to vote, were consider radical fanatics? Did you know there were women in
the US who fought against the Women’s Vote, long after Europe’s women won the
right to vote? It is hard to imagine today, how a woman could argue against her
own right to vote. I know of 2 quilt exhibits in the next year that are
celebrating the centennial of the 19th Amendment in the US, so I want to read
up on the topic. My daughter is chomping at the bit to vote next year, and I
don’t want her to take this right for granted.
I’ve brought a pile of quilting books/magazines up here to Churchill. My friend
who works at the research center is also a quilter, and it is almost impossible
to get quilting supplies up here. However there is a long tradiiton of sewing,
beading and embroidery among the local indigenous people – the Inuit and the
Meti. At the museum here today, we heard about how precious needles were before
metal needles became available. The needles were carved from bone, and it was
not unusual for more than one village to share one precious needle. Sewing was
a utilitarian activity in these remote villages, and yet they managed to
produce artful beading and embroidery that transcended basic needs. Today we
still consider our sewing tools precious, but aren’t we lucky we have so many
choices now?
sharing your Passion for Fabric…
Luana and Paul
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