Blogging will be light this week -- because when you come to the Labrador Creative Arts Festival, they is after workin' ya's. But I have to give a shout out to my new best friends at Peacock Primary School and Ecole Boréal here in Goose Bay.
Update, Feb 26: And the kids at Queen of Peace Middle School, who found time to talk history in the midst of their Olympic Day events. At QPMS, Belgium won the games, go figure! Also the kids from Churchill Falls, Postville and Mud Bay, all of whom I met when they came into Goose Bay to present original plays in the festival.
This week, kids of Goose Bay and the rest of Labrador are getting bombarded by an opera singer, a clown coach, an Afro-celtic reggae band (!), visual artists, actors, a relationship counsellor, a museologist, and even a writer or two. Meanwhile, the kids are giving back theatre pieces they wrote themselves, many of which grow right out of where they stand. I'm looking forward to Romeo mak Juliet, about that story as it plays out in a conflicted Innu community -- but with a happy ending, because the kids are saying to hell with those stupid old feuds.
History is close to the surface here; it's easy connecting school kids with historical themes in their lives and communities. Them Days, the famous Labrador oral history magazine, gives a taste.
Meanwhile Labrador is making some new history right now. There's less snow and ice here this winter than the oldest trapper can remember. No one can get out to their traplines or hunting grounds, or even just out snowmobiling. One guy who had to travel ended up going through the ice, and had some difficulty getting himself out. "Worst I have seen in seventy-five years," he said.
