Lawrence Hill

Went to the Kwanlin Dunn Cultural Centre tonight to see Lawrence Hill.  He was to give a reading from his newest novel The Illegal.  Luckily it was held at this venue as the crowd was quite large.  Different from the last time I saw him a couple of years ago.  At that time it was held in the basement of the Museum - a much much smaller venue.

In case you cannot tell from the photo I took, here is another photo of the author.  This is the same author that wrote Book of Negroes.  I thoroughly enjoyed that novel and am expecting, especially from his readings, that I will thoroughly enjoy this one as well. 

He is also up here doing research for an as yet unwritten novel about the blacks that came north in 1942-3 to help build the Alaska Highway.    He will apparently be in Dawson City (yes I know, SR, that Dawson City is not on the Alaska Highway - and by the way, so does Lawrence as I told him what you said) for 3 months at the Pierre Burton House as resident writer, in January, February and March of next year.  That should give him an idea of the cold conditions they faced building the road.

Leaving the centre I couldn't help but stop to look at the clay cliffs on the other side of the Yukon River.  They were bathed in a golden light and looked quite stunning, so I thought I would share that with you.

May 6 & 7, 2017

The week started off with a big shake (earthquake) and ended with a big BANG.  That bang was Emerson who, early Saturday morning fell off his chair and banged his head hard on the floor - so hard that it knocked him out for a few seconds.  Brooke immediately phoned for an ambulance, then phoned me.  Luckily I was awake and jumped into some clothes and drove to their house.  By the time I arrived the ambulance was there and as I jumped out of the truck the paramedic said, "don't worry Gramma, he is up and walking".  He was just coming out of the house at that point and walked over to me.  I knelt down to hug him and he felt like a limp piece of spaghetti in my arms.   

The two paramedics were so nice.  They asked if the kids wanted go inside the ambulance.  Of course they did and they showed them a few things and gave Emerson a cold-pack for his head.  Then it was time for them to leave so they turned on the flashing lights for the kids to see and said Good-bye on the loud speaker when they were at the end of the driveway.  

Above are the kids inside the ambulance.

They did say that Emerson should be checked over by a doctor, so Brooke immediately took him to Emergency.  I stayed home with Alanna.  On their return, it was confirmed that the little one did have a concussion and had to take it easy.  He was still as pale as a sheet, a little woozy on his feet, and his body was still in shock from the trauma.  So, I packed Alanna into my truck and left Brooke to spend some quiet time with Emerson.  

Alanna and I went garage-saling.  Once in a while I wander the garage-sales looking for age appropriate toys for the twins (for my house).  Our last stop was a sale that took place at SR's old school, Hidden Valley Elementary School.  On our way out, we had to stop at the playground where Alanna enjoyed many runs on a very slippery slide.

I do have to say with all this hullaballoo going on in the USA about Obamacare etc. it is so reassuring that we have the system of health care that we have here in Canada.  There is no added worry about whether we can afford to phone an ambulance or go and see a doctor.  We just go and get the medical care we need when we need it.  And thank you to the health care people for their kind professional help.  When an emergency such as this happens we don't need any additional stress.  Thank you Canada!

All this happened when SR was out of town.  He was at the wedding of his cousin Christie-Anne down Vancouver way (Congratulations Christie-Anne!!).  On Sunday he was home again and brought Emer over to my house for the afternoon.  Alanna was with her Auntie Em at a birthday party and a baby shower.  All that was still too much for Emerson as he still needed quiet time to recover from his concussion.  At the end of the afternoon Alanna was back from the parties and joined us as well.

This was a weekend I hope we don't repeat too often .

Earthquake: May 1, 2017

From CBC News North:  

"The Yukon government is taking stock of the damage from a couple of earthquakes that shook the territory early Monday morning. At least two buildings — a school and a Whitehorse office building — will remain closed Tuesday.

A magnitude 6.2 earthquake hit Yukon and Alaska at about 5:30 a.m. local time Monday, causing power outages, damaging buildings and shaking people awake.

Then another larger quake, magnitude 6.3, hit less than two hours later, about 7:20 a.m. PT. There were also a series of aftershocks.

The first quake hit in British Columbia's far northwest, near the B.C.-Yukon border, about 85 kilometres northwest of Skagway, Alaska, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, while the second hit about 80 kilometres west of Skagway."  

The school was Elijah Smith Public School (down the road from me) and the building was the Lynn Building off 4th Avenue in downtown Whitehorse.

Magnitude 6.2 earthquake

133 km from Whitehorse, YT · May 1, 5:31 AM

My story:

I was not only awake at 5:30 AM, but was sitting in bed sipping coffee, watching the news on TV and doing a crossword puzzle on my iPad.  I heard a loud disturbance coming from the kitchen at the opposite end of the house, perked up my ears, then quickly the noise rolled into my bedroom, shaking everything gently at first then stronger and stronger.  I immediately thought - earthquake - and as it became stronger I jumped from the bed and stood in the doorframe between the bedroom and ensuite.  It soon subsided.  Although "they" say it lasted only 10 seconds, it felt like at least a minute.  I still had my iPad in my hand, so I immediately Facebooked : "Earthquake!  At 5:33 am."  Within about 5 minutes it became a breaking story on CTV National News.  I was lucky as the power went out for about an hour in the downtown area and some of the surrounding area, but didn't affect my area (although it was starting to get light outside anyway as we are nearing the approach of the longest day).  I went into the kitchen to get myself a coffee refill and quickly spotted the damage caused by the earthquake - Tiana was shaken off the window sill and was lying face down on the counter.  For a second time I was lucky as that was the total of the damages that I could see.

                              

Poor Tiana.

About an hour and a bit later sisTer (Teri) messaged me saying mom was concerned as she had heard of the quake on the news.  I phoned her to reassure her everything was good in the city as far as I knew then I phoned sisTer to thank her for letting me know Mom was worried.  As I was talking to her and explaining what I experienced in the quake, another earthquake rolled through my house, shaking my bed and rattling the dresser pulls.  It again lasted only about 10 seconds, this one it seemed to be a bit less violent than the first (although the first was recorded at a 6.2 magnitude, the second at 6.3).    It is now about 7:30 and between being shaken and having drank 2 cups of coffee, I was unable to get back to sleep.  Third time lucky for me as I then received a phone call asking if I could Twinsit.  They were just about to get into the car when they received an email saying that due to the earthquake, the daycare was closed for the day.  (Perhaps their building had to be inspected for damage???  I don't know)  So

about 20 minutes later I had two excited little people in my house.

SR told me how the shaking had awoken them.  They both jumped out of bed, ran into the twins' room,  and grabbed the kids.  By that time it was starting to subside.  I was amazed that in the period of about 10 seconds a parent could wake up, realize what was happening, jump out of bed and grab their children.  I don't know if I could react that quickly from a deep sleep.

Anyway, as I said, in came two 2 and 3/4 year olds AND two dogs.  Apparently Lily was quite freaked out by the earthquake and they didn't want to leave her alone.  I did notice that she stuck close to my side for about an hour after arriving.  

I have experienced a few quakes while in the north.  Many were very minor, such as the feeling you get when you step off a boat and it feels like the ground is rocking like the boat was or lying in bed and seeing my dresser pulls vibrating but not feeling much motion.  

The first memorable one was shortly after I arrived in 1978.  I was in a truck that had pulled over to the side of the road and stopped.  I thought someone was pushing the truck up and down and sideways to scare me ... but no one was even near the truck.

The second memorable one was while living in MacPherson subdivision.  I am pretty sure that one was the cause of the pipes going into the septic system  separating.  Thank goodness for plumbers, repairing a job I wouldn't even want to get near.  So hopefully I won't find any fault such as that.  I inspected my walls and they visually all look good.  The outside of my house in under vinyl siding so I cannot see that but so far so good.