So Long, Farewell. Auf Wiedersehen, Goodnight.

Blogging community: we regret to inform you that this will be our last blog. Our 6 weeks spent in Webequie have flown by and we cannot believe that Saturday we will be back on the mainland of Thunder Bay, Ontario (cell phone reception?) and after a 4 hour lay-over Toronto, Ontario. The people and kids we have met here in Webequie have been so welcoming and memorable – we have so many thank you’s to give. We spent 7 hours slaving away on 27 personalized, hand-made Thank You Cards, which still do not express our gratitude.

Reflecting on our time here, we will miss the hilarious one-liners of all the kids:

1) “Do you speak British Columbian?”

2) Question box of the week: topic bullying – “does lady gaga wear makeup?”

3) A kid throws rocks, “be nice”, he responds, “be nice to your p**sy”

4) Best Jeopardy team names: Team Justin Beaver (an actual person in Webequie…), Eaglebanana, and our favourite, The Ladies Choice

As well as our personalized nicknames:

Hilary: Celery, Small (and many other height oriented terms of endearment that are not blog appropriate…)

Meagan: Sasquatch, Meagely, Big, Suzy

And Sarah: Sarily, Normal, Madame Bieber, Todd.

We also must mention our furry wolf friends, who will be greatly missed. Due to our much lighter baggage coming home, we hope to bring back some hybrid wolves, as well as some children (don’t worry, they will be checked in separate luggage).

Our project has come to a close with a few monumental events. We held a Boy’s Night this last Wednesday, in which we made dinner, cookies, played numerous rounds of pictionary, and ended with sports in the gym. Eleven boys between the ages of 11 and 13 showed up for the festivities. The night started great - highlights included: eating hot sauce covered pasta with no hands, a competitive game of soccer-baseball, and much hilarity for us as we found out the boys write their girlfriends names on the inside of their hats (Hilary + Meagan + Sarah = LOVE T.I.E).

T.I.E. = true if erased..duh

We encountered some difficulties during the end of the night, as the boys may have had a little too much fun as they refused to leave…This led to desperate clinging to anything and everything in the gym, punching bag and microphone included. 2 hours later, we sauntered home and ate our feelings.

You may be wondering folks…did we go swimming? The answer is YES. The other question…did it snow yesterday? The answer is also YES. After declaring at school that today was the day, we put on our brave faces (and our play clothes), and got ready for our icy dip. Many of the kids ended up joining us, as well as ½ the mosquitoes in Ontario. We had a large audience and several kids joined in after much coxing and borderline peer pressure. A great way to end our week, and lead into tomorrow’s Health Movie Screening, which we have been filming with the kids this past week. This movie will be shown to the entire school at the monthly Awards Ceremony.

We didn’t want to say this earlier, for fear of jinxing Mother Nature…but we have been bug free for 37 days. Today was the first day of bugs, but we are still black fly free. Our choice to not buy bug spray due to economic hardships paid off. We didn’t have the space for it on the way here anyways.

While we are really sad to leave Webequie, the project has been a great success and we are excited to announce its continuation next year. This year was a pilot initiative, and we have been so lucky with the people we have met and the relationships we have built. Two Peer Educators will be hired in Fall 2011 to visit Webequie – spread the word! (Shameless QHO Plug…).

As much as we have enjoyed being blogging bitties, we also appreciate our faithful blog followers. We hope our blog has entertained you ½ as much as it has entertained us.

Word to the Webequie Wannabes, aka all you Northern Nancy’s: your awkward alliterations can’t compare to our perfect puns and witty words.

Adieu, Adieu, to ye and ye and ye.

Thanks for stopping by,

Pungent Pilot Porkers.

(we have eaten our 300lbs)

“3 Funnest Ladies in Town”

Today the tribes merged, as new guests have arrived at the hotel - bringing with them food and preserves. They are leaving on Thursday. We may not have to start eating one another if they leave food behind. Yesterday, casually digging amongst the boxes of remnants from last Christmas, Sarah found a box of pancake mix. There was no expiry date, all systems go! On the breakfast menu: pancakes, syrup and smiles all around.

Speaking of “borrowing” food, our Girl’s Night menu consisted of a block of mozzarella found in the freezer (didn’t know you could freeze cheese?), half a gallon of PREGO (tomato sauce) we found in the fridge, and an industrialize size bag of flour used for the make shift pizzas (all 10 of them!). All of the aforementioned ingredients were courtesy of the construction company that was here at Christmas. Hopefully they don’t come back before we leave on Saturday! If they do, we will have to resort to our airport tactics of pulling the charity card.

The pizza making led into a miniature food fight consisting of flour, dough, and odds and ends left over from our gimp bracelets. Girl’s Night round two was an even bigger success than the first. Fourteen girls showed up and were keen to do all the crafts we had planned for them. Some of these included: tissue paper bowl making, beading, gimp bracelets, personalized picture frames, and an epic marathon of photo shoots and videos galore (courtesy of photobooth). As our beauty barf masks were so well received at the last Girl’s Night, we didn’t want to deny the new group of girl’s this spa experience. Problem: it’s Survivor Week, and we are out of oatmeal. Luckily, we have improved our scrounging skills and found a box of corn flakes. Mask ingredients round two: honey, sugar, and cornflakes. Yes folks, it burns. Don’t try this at home.

Something else not to try at home…trust falls off of desks. With our savvy supervision, leadership games were a huge hit among all the grades. We have never seen the grade 1’s line up so quickly and quietly. Just to paint you a picture of what the grade 1 class is usually like…we enter the class with the kids sitting quietly at their desks, casually reading their books…we leave the class with 20 screaming children clinging to our backs and the windows, feet stirring tubs of crayons, chanting our “names”: Smeg-aly, Celery, and Sarahly aka Big, Normal, Small.

Small, Normal, Big.

Speaking about normal, do you normally go on 6 hour fishing trips? WE DO! We were lucky enough to be invited fishing by a couple of the teachers at the school. We got the grand tour of Webequie island, as well as a bit of a history lesson from Norman, who has lived in the community his whole life. Sites included: eagles, loons, geese, and even patches of snow. The dynamic between best friends, Norman and Eric, cannot be put into words. They are pretty much like a happy version of the movie, “Grumpy Old Men”. They kept us entertained for the entire 6 hours. A boat full of snacks, five smiling faces, and 32 fish later, we returned with dinner, to the bright city lights of Webequie. This has been one of our best experiences so far and we are happy to have been included on their trip.

Stay Classy,

Fishing Fanatics.