At break time, everyone came and sat around the kitchen table where I was finishing marking the homework. Usually they've been going outside for a smoke. Someone picked the Canadian Living magazine from the rack beside us. It featured a great-looking chocolate banana cake on the cover. We almost ate it up with our eyes. I said "We should make it. Let's look it up." They all jumped aboard.

Eventually we found the page with the chocolate banana cake recipe, after prolonged discussion on several other pages with great-looking food. We made copies of the recipe and started to read it. The recipe was not a basic white cake format at all. It called for exotic things like white chocolate and cooking terms I can't even remember the names for today. But in poring over the recipe we talked about what sour cream, whipping cream, and baker's chocolate are. We discussed "place with cut side down." One of the women explained what that meant and demonstrated with a pretend cake. I demonstrated how you could produce the chopped chocolate using an ulu (women's knife). They found that funny -but I don't know why. We delved into other tidbits of cooking lingo, then decided it wasn't really our kind of recipe anyways. Besides, it was smoke time.

Plans for the dance the learners wanted to organize came together. One woman called the principal to get the gym and things rolled along after that. We spent the last half of the class deciding the details and making posters.

I don't know if this is significant to the research or not. We had trouble with the computer program we needed to make the posters. A male student from the daytime upgrading was there working on his own and offered to help. It became a collaborative effort. When the posters were done and we were in the other room photocopying, two of the women pointed out some things on the poster they weren't really happy about. Today I wonder why they didn't say anything to the male student when he was doing it. I'm certain they would have told me or each other had it been one of us in control of the keyboard. Was it because he was outside the class, or was it because he's a man? What kind of relationships or connections are there between him and any or all of them? Maybe I'm going too far with this?

March 23, 1992

Betty-Ann and I met in Winnipeg to talk about the research. We decided she wouldn't come to Arviat because of the voyeurism that happens when white people fly in from the south to "research" the residents. Neither of us were feeling comfortable about her coming to Arviat, but neither of us said anything for a long time. Then, when she mentioned her concern, I felt relieved.

We did the first interview and I made a few notes while talking with her. I'm especially wondering why the research is so hard to talk about with co-workers and friends at home in Arviat. Maybe it's because there is no language and context for it or that language and context is hard for me to find. Maybe it's because talking about things makes them more visible. Maybe it's too hard for me to overcome traditional and cultural beliefs that dominate in the community. Maybe I just don't know enough about the research.