The Princess of Fox Lake

This weekend was the Head Start Carnival in Fox Lake. It is an annual event that brings all of the families out to compete in different events. Saturday, the events were all scheduled to be outdoors, and Sundays events all took place in the gymnasium. Each event cost $5. If it was not an individual event, then the pair had to be a mixed team. Because of this, I felt like I was "looking for a man" the entire weekend...luckily, I always found one! I think, only because I paid for us...lol!

The first event on Saturday was the Toboggan pull. The men pulled the woman to the finish line, and then the women pulled the men back. I was paired up with a small man. Needless to say, he found it difficult to pull me! And when it was my turn to pull him, I was in such a rush, I ran faster than my legs and face planted into the wet snow. We had so much fun! I think we came in fifth of ten teams.

The second event was the snowman making contest. I asked Leroy, my friend, Nancy's nephew, to be my partner (and he was my partner for most of the weekend then). I ran home and got supplies to decorate our snowman with. Our snowman was the largest of them all, standing just as tall as us, maybe a bit taller than myself. We had a tough time getting those heavy, huge, and wet snowballs on top of the base, but we did it! He had a Mexican sombrero, and golden chocolate loonies for eyes. His nose was a carrot and his mouth made out of black licorice. His ears were wedges of grapefruit. He had three buttons, made of pink margarita umbrellas, a white scarf with pink tassels, and a pink and white belt. He wore my white moccasin slippers and his arms were made from my scrub brushes (still with food in them from doing dishes the other night! Leroy and I came in first! As soon as I took my items off of the snowman, the children had him destroyed into nothing in seconds...I could hardly believe it..oh, well :)

The third event was tea making. I had Chester as my partner. He is the guy who is coaching me in volleyball with Nancy on Tuesday nights. His job was to make the fire. My job to make the tea. As soon as they yelled, "Go!", I ran with my teapot into the snowbank and filled my teapot with snow. when I came back to our fire area, I helped Chester to make the fire by using his ultra sharp knife to make kindling from on of the logs. We built the fire around the teapot. Once the fire got bigger, we used a stick to life the teapot out of the center of the fire and onto the top. I ran and grabbed a snowball, as the teapot had to be full of boiling tea to win. (The teabag was in the pot before the competition began). It didn't matter though, because the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd winners were already announced. We had fun though. Unfortunately, while Chester was putting out the fire, he burnt his foot. He was okay, but I needed to find a new partner for the next event.

The next even was bannock making. Nancy suggested I ask J.B. to be my partner. I thought she was joking. He is a prominent elder in our community. But Nancy encouraged me, and I found some courage and went to ask him....I didn't even know if he could speak English! I asked him, and he laughed and then said yes. I didn't realize that minutes before he had turned down his daughter! His wife, who teaches my children Cree, said she would coach me from the sidelines on what to do. Before the event began, all of the woman lined up at the back of a truck and filled their bowls with three cups of flour. Then, they put baking soda in. JB knew I didn't know what I was doing and graciously snuck in to put in the right amount for me. Then I mixed it with my hands. Next, I added a heaping spoonful of lard. I massaged the ingredients together in my hands until JB laughed and said I could stop. His wife whispered to me to make a well. When they shouted, "Go", I poured slowly one cup of water into the mixture and began mixing with a fork first...until his wife whispered to me to just use my hands (that's what they used back then she said, and it's supposed to be like back then!). It really looked awful, like I had done something wrong, but she was smiling, and then whispered to make a snake from the dough. Then, I wrapped the dough like a candy cane around a stick that JB had previously prepared for me, with the bark expertly scrapped off, and one of the stick cut to a sharp point. By then, the fire was crackling and alive. I gave the stick to JB and he jammed the sharp end into the wet grass. The bannock was just beside the fire, so the fire was smoking the bannock. Then, we sat and waited. Every so often, JB would rotate the stick. We lost the event because we thought it was competing for taste, not time. But, the bannock was excellent. And my face broken into the excited, wide, and happy grin made JB smile too. I thanked him and his wife, who laughed at my delight!

The deep snow foot race I won. Need I say more!

On Sunday, I helped to run the children's carnival in the afternoon. The children were so happy and easily pleased. The gym was full of laughter and smiles, and I can't lie, my face hurt from smiling for so long, but I just couldn't help it. there was balloon darts (my station), bottle ball toss, face painting, and pin the tail. The prizes were awesome and the children got 5 tickets for $5.

The evening was for adult events again. I asked Leroy to be my partner for skipping. It was one big rope, and the man held it and the partners skipped together. Most of the partners skipped less than four times successfully. One partner group did 26. I told Leroy we had to win! We are an awesome team...we did 54, then I asked him to stop, because I felt like we were just showing off then. We won anyways! Leroy is really shy, but he smiled all the way back to his seat.

I begged him to do the Wheel barrel race next. I shouldn't have. We lost horribly! I picked up his legs so he could walk on his hands, but I think I was walking to fast, and he fell. And me, with my desperate winning attitude at the moment, told him to get back up and try again. He did, but fell again and then again. We quit. Full of laughter, we went back to our seats and watched the rest of the competition.

At the end of the night (I didn't compete in any more events after that), they counted up the points of each participant that weekend. Then the top male and female were crowned Queen and King of Fox Lake! I was second for the girls though, and was named Princess of Fox Lake (for the night anyways). I went home with wonderful prizes, and so did Leroy. As I walked home, people called out to me, not by name, but by, "Princess", and wished me a good night. I slept really well that night!