Author: Ms. Collins

For our last challenge before returning to BC, we travelled to Newfoundland.  There is a tradition in Newfoundland, especially around Christmastime, of mummering.  Mummering, most common in smaller rural communities, involves dressing up in silly clothes and visiting neighbours to sing, dance, and tell jokes.  The host has to guess who is in disguise and serve them some food and drink

For our mummering we dressed up in disguise and burst into classrooms up and down the hallway, dancing and having fun.  Lots of classes thought we were crazy, but we left them a note explaining mummering, and we had lots of fun!

Well, February has been a busy month, so busy that I haven’t written updates about our challenges!

When we visited Quebec Mrs. Clark taught us how to make maple sugar candy.  It was fun to roll the heated syrup on the snow to make maple lollipops!

Then we visited Nunavut (aka Grouse Mountain).  Snowshoeing was hard work, especially with the blowing snow and ice.  Our chances to experience real winter in the Lower Mainland are few and far between, so this was a good taste of what the rest of Canada has to deal with!

Last week we headed to the Yukon and did some gold panning.  Everyone was very excited to find gold nuggets!

Today we headed back to the maritimes, to have lobster in New Brunswick.  After a great performance this afternoon, we only had time for a short stop, just long enough to see how to crack into a lobster and have a taste.  Parents, I apologize if your child has now discovered a taste for lobster, several students wanted seconds!

Only two provinces to go: Newfoundland on Thursday and then back to British Columbia next week!

We only stayed a short while in the Northwest Territories (it is cold this time of year!) before heading to Nova Scotia on Friday.  Nova Scotia is known for its Scottish heritage, in fact Nova Scotia means ‘New Scotland’ in Latin.  One of the biggest celebrations of this heritage is the Highland Games held annually in Antigonish.

Students got to participate in our own version of the Highland Games.  Teams competed in the Caber Toss (don’t worry, we used yoga mats instead of tree trunks), Farmer’s Carry (carrying a heavy ball while running), the Open Stone (similar to shot put, we used bean bags) and tug of war.  They were having so much fun with the events that I forgot to put on the stereo with fiddle music.  Maybe we can listen to it next week!

On Thursday we visited the capital of the Northwest Territories, Yellowknife.  We learned about the Aurora Borealis, or the northern lights, and created some beautiful art inspired by this amazing phenomenon.  You can read more about the science behind the northern lights or watch a spectacular time lapse video filmed in Norway.

Photo Credit – Dustin Gaffke