Alison Benedict, who is the organiser and chief administrator - manager of Carleton University's Off Campus program and Maureen Flynn-Burhoe, sessional lecturer in Sociology: Cultural Studies, flew in to Moose Factor. Alison was there for her regular consultation with the Moose Factory Education Authority workers and Maureen for the first in a series of six weekend sessions consisting of 4 three hour lectures for Sociology 53.100-M, an aboriginal-centred introductory course in Sociology: As we approach Moosonee airport at eight in the evening after a five hour flight Ottawa-Toronto-Timmins-Moosonee, we fly over Moose Factory, an island community with a population of 2500. The center where I will be teaching over the next four months is situated to the right on the Moose Cree reserve. Riverside drive on the western side of Moose Factory Island spans the three sections of the Island: federal, provincial and First Nations. From left to right buildings that are barely visible are St. Thomas Anglican Church, the Hudson Bay Company manager's house and the Moose Cree Education authority.

I was travelling with 70 kilos of books, forty sociology textbooks packed in four boxes by the Carleton University bookstore. I could barely lift one of them! The two girls, the cab driver and her friend, who picked us up at Moosonee airport were smaller than Alison and I; we were extremely grateful to the Northern Store manager who shared the taxi and packed and repacked the trunk until everything fit!

The water taxi driver helped us get them into the G-Man boat, the freighter canoe. These were usually fibreglass about 25' long and 6' wide with removeable seats for passengers and/or freight. Navigation was from the back of the canoe. Sand bars make navigation tricky as they can change forms with the tides. Local waterway travellers share the river roads by treating them like divided highways with invisible but highly respected imaginary lines with a few buoys. It is the Venice of the north. An inexperienced pilot could run into the sandbanks and the motor could pop off!

The plastic covered cabin allowed us to see out, but was super-filled with northern-sized mosquitoes. The citronella insect repellant proved its worth! The taxi ride seemed too short; we were there in less than ten minutes. I wanted time to stop so I could feel everything more intensely and so my memory would have time to register it all. I was grateful I would be repeating the whole trip again and again (without the boxes.) (Growing up on Prince Edward Island, my sisters and I would take a ferry and later a lobster boat taxi across Charlottetown harbour between Charlottetown and Rocky Point, our home from May through October. This service was in place for the Rocky Point Mig'mak First Nations but others could use it as well. These freighter canoes made me feel at home. )

	We docked at the Cree Heritage Village Marina. The floating dock was moored beside a ten foot steel retaining wall which protected the bank from tides and ice. This year the spring ice came with such force that the retaining wall was twisted! Stairs lead to the stone path and to the Eco Lodge. The taxi driver left us on the dock with the text books.
	Alison went to the Lodge to try to find someone who could help us carry the books up the stairs while I waited alone on the dock and greeted peaceful solitude with a grin.

WEBPAGE DEVELOPED AS PERSONAL RESEARCH TOOL BY MAUREEN FLYNN-BURHOE, FACILITATOR - LECTURER