Last month I moved into my house in this small Eastern Labrador town of about 500. It will be my home for the next 10 months. In a CBC newscast in 2007, the town was referred to as “the End of the Earth.” A slight exaggeration — it is, at the very least, the end of the road: the Trans-Labrador Highway (a sometimes-paved, mostly gravel windy road that starts at the Quebec-Labrador border) ends here.  The other night, a colleague and I watched for an hour as the green and yellow northern lights danced across the sky for us. Aside from the cold (which for the record, I hate), I’m falling in love with the place.

The people I’ve met here are fantastic. The young crowd that I hang out with has a healthy appetite for the finer things in life: homemade wine from local berries (partridge berry, blueberry, bake apple), steak and caribou barbecues, and guitar sing-alongs.

And in just a month in Labrador so far, I’ve been able to get taste of the local Inuit and Innu culture. My first week here, I was invited to a traditional native sweat lodge. The three Innu men that run the sweat are part of a younger (40ish) group of cultural and spiritual leaders in their reserve. “It is a big responsibility to hold these sweats as we do. As leaders and pipe carriers, we have sworn off alcohol, drugs and violence. We must be pure of body and spirit when we lead the sweat” said one leader. They’ve also gone through difficult rituals including one where they are pierced with wooden branches and have it ripped out, leaving painful looking scars on their chests.

At the sweat we did four long, very intense rounds in the lodge, hotter and more visceral than the sweats I had done in Utah. After every round of singing, praying and chanting in the tent, I would have this weird sensation that I couldn’t remember all of the details of what had happened. I could remember seeing little flashes of light and feeling dizzy with the intense heat, but the details would start to fade as soon I exited the tent, like I was waking from a dream. I went to another sweat last night and again had a great experience, but I have trouble putting all of it into words.

At other social gatherings I’ve got to eat caribou, beaver, and recently went to a goose plucking “party”… which is really just an excuse to get your neighbors to do the dirty work of cleaning and gutting your geese. I think next on the list of things people are going to make me eat is porcupine. I’ve heard that when the Innu kill a porcupine, they blow the carcass full of air — through it’s anus — and then throw it in the fire to burn the quills off. I’ve really been trying to run with the attitude of try everything at least once, and don’t turn down any offers, but — I might skip this part.

Accountability Updates

No Complaint Challenge: after almost a dozen failed attempts and restarts I completed 21 days sans complaints in August. On the 23rd day of the challenge I was camping in southern Utah and was feeling exceptionally lazy and in a short cut taking mood. I tied one end of my tarp shelter to a propped up dead tree, and tucked the other end inside the truck door and closed it to make the shelter. Of course when the wind came, the whole thing fell down and with it the dead tree. The tree almost broke the truck side-view mirror and gave me a nice bump on the head, ending my complaint challenge in a hurry. Makes me wonder: if a tree falls in the forest, someone swears and complains — and no one is around to hear it, is it really a complaint?

The whole challenge was really an exercise in positive mental power, and I felt it made a huge difference in my mental space. Kind of like when you’re a kid and you finally do the dirty laundry you’ve been shoving under the bed. Just think about how when you’re with a friend or colleague that complains about everything the energy shifts to negative.

I’m no longer actively attempting to go “complaint free”, but I still wear the bracelet as a reminder of positive thinking.

Below are some updates of projects I’ve written about:

Accounting Accountability: Operation Cashback is in effect. I’ve spent a couple grand of work money so far and am making 2% cash back towards my next motorbike, the spectacular and sexy BMW F800 GS (see photo).

(Note to Josh: No, it is decidedly not the 1200GS. The F800 is definitely the bike for me. Don’t worry; I’ll stop once and a while to wait for you when we’re traveling off road…)

Also, I’ve knocked my student loan down from almost 5 grand to just 3 since starting work. It’s chipping away at a good pace. Though I’ll admit it’s been a little tough. I’ve spent a little less than $50 in the past two months on frivolous things (all my housing and food are covered with the job), including eating out, movies and drinks at the bars (it might have been much more, had I not put to use the infamous best bar bet ever that won’t even get you beat up to consistently get free drinks, which I may cover in a post some day…) but I know that being debt free and the rewards of Project 2010 — as I have knighted it — will be worthwhile.