Whisler Reflections

What a great day to be in Canada.  You wake up in the trees and the views just are stunning.  As the sun rises the scenery continues to change with the different lighting on the trees and the skies have ever changing cloud patterns.  Here are a couple of pictures taken from the balcony.   The last is looking to the right at the Worldmark complex.  The property is called Sundance.  I drove up to the village to meet with vendors.  As you turn into the village, you are greeted by the stone figure that was part of the winter games held here and in Vancouver in 2010.

Called an Inuksuk, from Wikipedia here is their description of what it is:  An inuksuk (plural inuksuit) is a stone landmark or cairn built by humans, used by the Inuit, Inupiat, Kalaallit, Yupik, and other peoples of the Arctic region of North America. These structures are found from Alaska to Greenland. This region, above the Arctic Circle, is dominated by the tundra biome and has areas with few natural landmarks.

The inuksuk may have been used for navigation, as a point of reference, a marker for travel routes, fishing places, camps, hunting grounds, places of veneration, drift fences used in hunting or as a food cache.  The Inupiat in northern Alaska used inuksuit to assist in the herding of caribou into contained areas for slaughter.  Varying in shape and size, the inuksuit have longtime roots in the Inuit culture.

Historically, the most common type of inuksuk is a single stone positioned in an upright manner.  An inuksuk is often confused with an inunnguaq, a cairn representing a human figure. There is some debate as to whether the appearance of human- or cross-shaped cairns developed in the Inuit culture before the arrival of European missionaries and explorers.  The size of some innaguait suggest that the construction was often a communal effort.

At Enukso Point on Baffin Island, there are over 100 inuksuit. The site was designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 1969.

Markie decided to stay at the condo and was quite domestic in addition to taking advantage of the hot tub and took time to read and nap.  I returned a bit after 3pm to see him snoozing away and decided that was a great idea.  I was a bit fried from the meetings and had also gotten word from Janet that Uncle Joe had passed away.  It was not unexpected, but still it is a bit shocking and sad knowing he is gone.  The last of Mom's brother's and now there is on Mom and Aunt Bernice still with us.

Our final dinner was pork loin chops complete with caramelized onions and fried potatoes.  Quite tasty to be sure and a salad prepared by Markie was not touched as we were just too full, but we did polish off the leftover asparagus.  I did manage to pause long enough to take this shot.

We opted to watch a movie this evening and Markie had brought the 1945 fictionalized biography of George Gershwin, Rhapsody in Blue.  George Gershwin is a driven composer whose need to succeed destroys his relationship with singer Julie Adams and socialite Christine Gilbert.  Classic black and white, it was quite entertaining and a movie I would watch again.  After the movie I was off to la-la land and knowing the morning would find me packing and getting ready to head back to the US and seeing the opening ceremonies of the Summer Olympics.  Yes, I am quite excited.