Adapting to the snow

So, -22 is starting to seem mild and we've hitched our dog up to a sled (not that she agreed to actually pull anything - that doesn't seem to be in her genes). We've been curling.... our neighbours took us under their wings and showed us the ropes... as a scots/canadian I felt like I was fulfilling some kind of biological need.


















And we've spent our first night at the 'Pit', which is a bar with a true northern feeling to it. Some previous owner painted head and shoulder paintings of old time townies so the walls are filled with these ancient enigmatic faces staring out. There's a layer of nicotine that gives everything a warm yellow glow... it's the kind of look that ironic bars in New York pay trendy designers hundreds of thousands of dollars to create, so 20somethings from the suburbs can sit around in trucker caps and drink $18 martinis... Here they just have chilcoot on tap.....

And OK, the band surprised the hell out of me. I thought it would be late teenage thrash. But no, it's an older group of guys who start off the evening doing pretty standard covers - route 66, freebird etc etc At one point our new friend Rae Spoon got up and played her brand of country with them to the cheers of the crowd.


















- and then at about midnight one of them cracks open the fiddle and they start playing intricate little fiddle and dance tunes... and it's only then that the bar gets dancing. Then another guy turns up on guitar and harmonica and they just get better and better: the fiddle and harmonica trading licks and the bar folks dancing beside the stage. An old diamond miner decided to adopt us, or he adopted Lisa anyway, and spent the evening telling us tells of his youth in the same bar when he'd use his belt buckle as a weapon and take out anyone he disliked ... he laughed - said he'd been a 'bad guy' when he was young. He didn't seem like a bad guy anymore... but he looked like he'd been around more than a little...