On a bit of a different theme, share in your comments what type of humour you use or appreciate!

Always with a more serious approach to life, some humour I just don’t get! Think the term is “being gullible”. Tell me a story with some aspect that is out of the ordinary and my response will be “ Oh really! “

Laughter is such a good response for the body and stress reliever…. But there is a risk: laughter can be infectious.

The ability to laugh at ourselves and our situations gives perspective.

I remember at one point when I had done much hand sewing and let me tell you Inuit ladies are always laughing but in making mittens for my grand daughter, left them on the kitchen counter and then much to my dismay, discovered my husky, Mike, had nabbed them and chewed all the rabbit fur trim. I was devastated due to all the work I had done ( and at the moment making comments like BAAA…AD dog! )

However a good friend wrote to me..There will always be mothers and mitts and granddaughters and dogs and remember it is the relationship that counts!

Continuing on my arctic theme would like to share my photos of some of the traditional structures of the Inuit culture.

An igloo  (Inuit language: iglu,  or plural: igluit ) Inuit word “iglu” means means “house” and is built in a spiral shape using the snow from the inside of the circle out.  Cutting tools required to build an igloo are a snow spade and a saw, but in traditional times these implements would have been fashioned from bone. Note how the entrance is dug deep enough to allow almost standing height.  By trapping body heat, or the heat produced by even a small burning lamp, the inside of the igloo can stay much warmer than the outside...This heat starts to melt the inside of the igloo and as the inside walls of the igloo start to melt, they become more solid.

My own experience has never been to overnight in an igloo but only to visit  

( and crawl inside where they are surprisingly warm )….watching igloo building contests,  a x-c ski with a friend who had built one outside of Kugluktuk and visiting one built by an elder lady in Gjoa Haven.

An inuksuk (plural inuksuit)  inukshuk in English or inukhuk in Inuinnaqtun, is a stone landmark. These mysterious stone figures known can be found throughout the circumpolar world.  Inukshuk, the singular of inuksuit, means "in the likeness of a human" in the Inuit language. They are monuments made of unworked stones that are used by the Inuit for communication and survival, markers for travel routes, fishing places, camps, hunting grounds, places of veneration, drift fences used in hunting or to mark a food cache.

An inukshuk in the form of a human being is called an inunnguaq 

or Innunguak, the ones that are shaped like men. 

This type of structure forms the basis of the logo of the 2010 Winter Olympics, designed  by Vancouver artist Elena Rivera MacGregor. 

The flag of Nunavut 

was proclaimed on 1 April 1999, along with the territory of Nunavut in Canada. It features a red inuksuk—an Inuit land marker—and a blue star, which represents the Niqirtsuituq, the North Star, and the leadership of elders in the community.

An excellent video with Peter Irniq explains more details.