DAY FOUR Thursday, July 12, 2007

We started our day taking all of our medical supplies down to the temporary veterinary clinic, situated next to the water overlooking Foxe Bay and all of the melting ice floes. Three teams consisting each of one veterinarian and two technicians were chosen while our two assistants extraordinaire, Barb and Caitlin, were assigned to bringing the dogs into the building as well as working in the recovery room. We organized our surgery tables and prep and recovery areas. Our first patient to the clinic was a little black mixed breed dog named “Smurf”. Her owners were fascinated by the entire process. Dr. Craigdallie (Uschi), Isabelle and Annette performed her spay, while Dr. Rudolf (Brigitte), Donna and Chris performed a neuter on Kairu. Kairu also had a severely fractured canine tooth and Donna and Chris extracted that after a long struggle with inadequate instruments. His owner, Marcus, is a very large German gentleman who lives and works here as a polar bear biologist. We call Marcus “the mountain man”, as he has a long red beard and is very tall and rough looking. He also owns two Persian indoor cats with runny sore eyes. Our veterinarians had a look at them and left some medication for their eyes with Marcus. For the rest of the day we spayed and neutered many more dogs and called it a day at 8:30 p.m.
Aliesha, Liz, Donna, Allison and Barb followed Simon (a sled team owner) out to where his team is tethered at about 10 pm and worked there with them until close to midnight, vaccinating and deworming each of them. The remainder of the team passed by Mosha’s home, a local carver, as they walked home, and spoke with him while he was working outside his home. They have asked him to carve different small pieces for them. He is especially talented at carving baleine, which comes from the inside of the whale’s mouth. The whale uses it to filter it’s food before swallowing. Mosha is able to create something quite beautiful out of a whale’s filter.
One thing we’ve each noticed since we have arrived in Igloolik is the large numbers of children we can hear up playing all throughout the night. They just seem to do as they please, with no adult supervision or interference. They seem to especially love to climb on top of wood crates and jump from one to the other. The wood crates are brought in by Sea Lift, a large barge which brings a variety of supplies such as building materials, food, paper goods, as well as ATV’s (quads) and even SUV’s and trucks in for the residents.