I Won a GPS!

All of this past week was "Mining Week" here in Yellowknife. I went on a historic tour earlier this week, and yestarday was the mining picnic, with food, games and lots of fun. Apart from practically getting attacked by an elderly drunk woman, I had a really great time.

My aunt entered my cousin Matthew and I in the "Prospector's Challenge"...we didn't really want to do it at first, but we ended up having a great time.
The first part of the competition was canoeing across Range lake to place two stakes on two posts. Next we had to identify different rocks, my aunt is a geologist, so she prepped me prior to this, and we were able to identify them pretty well. After that we had to "sell" our property to the judges...just talk about what you would do with the land, and put it in the context of northern and environmental issues, and finally we had to pitch a tent (we did it in 35 seconds!)...drumroll please...Sumayyah and Matthew (aka the Cousin Connection) came in 2nd place!! We each won a GPS handheld unit, really great prizes, we were so excited! Actually the competition was really fun, and we are planning a canoe trip now...and with our Global Positioning units, we won't ever get lost lol! First prize was diamonds, yes, real diamonds that probably have a retail value of $500 a piece. And third place got you tickets to Folk on the Rocks Music Festival and lawn chairs...not bad prizes, eh?

...as a side note, a old drunk woman came up to me yestarday and asked me why I was dressed 'like that' (i.e. my hijab), I just smiled at her and she walked away. Later on I was sitting and she came and wanted to take my place, so I just got up and went to sit a bit further down. Then she came again and wanted to take my place, so I just moved over and she again asked me why I was dressed that way. I told her it was because I was Muslim, she informed me that she was Catholic and proud of it. She again asked me why I was dressed that way, and I told her again...this went on 3 or 4 more times, then she grabbed me and dug her fingernails into my arm and told me she was proud to be Catholic, so finally I got up and walked away. A few minutes later the police escorted her out of the area (I don't know who called them)...I am not really surprised, I tend to attract 'funny' people so this is actually kind of normal...though somewhat disturbing...