The miracle of flight

I just came back from holidays. When you live in the north holidays involves a series of plane flights, usually on progressively larger planes on the way out and progressively smaller ones on the way back. I have started holidays in a four seater where I have sat in the copilot’s seat and finished up on a jumbo jet; where, oddly enough they did not ask me to sit in the copilot’s seat. We had a pilot who used to joke “There are two washrooms on this flight; one here in Tulita and the other in Norman Wells. The flight is too short for an in-flight movie but not to worry your life will flash before your eyes!” Bush pilots; you gotta love them.
At some point in time on any number of trips I have made over the years someone standing in the departure lounge staring out at a massive piece of metal and glass and rubber that is their aircraft and will remark; “I still don’t understand how they get them to fly.” It does seem quite unlikely that this massive object can slip the bonds of earth and soar into the sky. I have had the opportunity to witness many flyers who are totally unconvinced that it will happen as they sit in their seats feet plastered to the floor hands lifting the arm rests like they were holding the plane in the air. I feel like leaning over once we have landed and saying; “Thanks for the smooth flight!” But that might be a bit cruel. I do not recall ever being afraid to fly. In fact it is a bit of a rush. I love the feeling of G-Force when you are pushed back into your seats as the plane hurtles down the runway. Where else could you hit such speeds on the ground without blue lights flashing in your rear view mirror? I love this part of flying. The lack of leg room; the sucky food and surly attitudes of fascist flight crew who have studied every rule of flying and want to make you aware of every one of them on every flight is another matter. But the sense of speed and the sheer power of takeoff are great.
No; this is not the miracle of flight of which I speak. I have long ago accepted that the miracle of flight itself is a simple matter of physics; thrust and lift, weight ratios etc. Even those who claimed that it was impossible for a bumble bee to fly if you worked it out on paper are wrong. I once watched a television show where a physicist explained bumble bee flight and they are quite capable. No to me the miracle of flight is something else entirely.
What I find miraculous is when the gate agents announce “This is a pre-boarding announcement only. Will those people requiring extra time boarding and those flying with small children please board the plane now?” Fifty people will surge forward with all manner of physical impairments and board the plane early. As soon as those poor unfortunates have boarded the healthy ones will stand and form a line long before the gate agents voice comes over the speakers and says “ Ladies and gentlemen thank you for your patience we will now begin general boarding of Fascist airlines flight blah , blah, blah.” The rest of us board the airline. Now I would like to point out one salient fact to all who fly. It doesn’t matter when you board; that plane aint leaving until every last mother’s son (and father’s daughter) is on that plane. We have all heard the plaintiff voice of the gate agents as they butcher people’s last names over the pathetic public address system “Would passengers Hrzelsquatch and Spuzzerby please report to gate blah, blah, blah for the immediate departure of their plane? That is passengers Hrzelsquatch and Spuzzerby to gate blah, blah, blah for the immediate departure of your aircraft.” The poor sods are probably fifteen feet away but don’t recognize what the gate agent has done to their names. If even one person misses the flight they have to remove that person’s baggage before the plane takes off so what’s the rush?
So let’s say that all the passengers make the flight. You soar to twenty; thirty or even forty thousand feet on route to your destination and somewhere along the way a miracle occurs. Because lo and behold; when you reach said destination no matter how short the flight; no matter how high or low you flew, when the flight attendants come on the PA and say “Those passengers travelling with small children or requiring extra time deplaning please remain in your seats and we will assist you.” Behold the miracle; only the people flying with children remain. Somehow all the other people who limped on the plane have shaken their impediments and been cured mid flight. It’s a miracle!

Wringing the last drop out of a wrong number

I wonder if Alexander Graham Bell got wrong numbers. I hope so. I hate them. There is nothing as loud as the sound of a phone ringing in a sleeping house at two in the morning. Lina got to it first on about the third ring. “Hello?” She answered weakly and groggily. “Is Wuzzername there?” Said a thick; slurred voice on the other end of the line. “You have the wrong number!” Lina replied, sounding more awake and a lot angrier. We put the incident out of our minds and went back to sleep. This time; when the phone rand Lina picked it up on the second ring “What?!” She barked. “Is Wuzzername there?” It was the same drunken voice. “You have the wrong number!” Lina answered with as much venom as she could muster. She slammed the receiver down even though it was cordless and that’s not what hangs it up.
Now this was far from my first late night wrong number. I remember when I was living in northern Alberta in the 1980’s. Back in those days there were no cordless phones. There was only one phone jack and it was in the living room at the other end of my trailer. When the phone rang at three in the morning I staggered ha length of the trailer in inky blackness stubbing my toe on the kitchen table in the process. “Hello?” I said still half asleep. “This is Alberta Government Telephones; I have a collect call from Henry do you accept the charges?” The operator’s voice sounded young. It figured only someone new would get stuck working at this hour of the night. I could hear a plaintiff voice in the background. A drunken plaintiff voice “Accept the charges Dad it’s me Henry.” Now Henry was a neighbor of mine. He was a sweetheart when he was sober. As there was no place to drink or buy booze in our little town he was usually sober. But every time he went to the nearest larger town he got drunk. Three a.m. was when the bars closed. “You have the wrong number.” I said putting the receiver down. I tried to get back to bed without opening my eyes.
I have had sober people call me back after a wrong number and I had barely put the phone down. I swear they hit redial. That is stupidity. Drunkenness is a different kettle of worms. Drunks have randomness to their thought process which allows their poor victim time to fall back into that deepest stage of REM sleep. The stage where young men are dreaming of waving a fly rod on a clear day in their favorite strip of trout water. A day so still and so perfect that the only flies are in your vest pockets and the only ripples on the water are trout rising to your fly. When suddenly with a deafening clatter the phone bell rends the air like the atomic bomb! I shot to my feet like I had been ejected out of bed. Again I thought I could stay asleep with the lights off so again I navigated the shoals of furniture without the benefit of the lights. I ran aground on a kitchen chair and hopped the last six feet my wounded toe in one hand as I scooped the receiver up with the other. “Hello?” I squealed into the mouthpiece. The same young voice as before; the same professional spiel “This is Alberta Government Telephones; I have a collect call from Henry.” I was stunned. There must only be one operator on duty at that hour of the night in northern Alberta. “Oh for crying out loud! It’s the same number as before lady; it’s still the wrong number!” I could still hear Henry sniveling on the other end of the line. “Well I am just doing my job! I have to put these calls through what if it was an emergency?” She sounded hurt and I immediately regretted my tone. “I’m sorry operator. But this isn’t his Dad’s place I am just trying to fish. I mean sleep.” As I hung up I made a mental note to look up Henry’s Dad’s phone number the next day.
I think the randomness is as infuriating if not more infuriating than the thing itself. I had actually hooked the fish this time when the phone exploded into action. This time I made no pretense of trying to stay asleep and I turned on the hall light which seemed to be a million candle power. It blinded me so badly I walked straight into the end table the phone sat on. “Hello?” I said dumbly into the phone. “This is Alberta Government Telephones; I have a collect call from Henry.” She sounded apologetic almost pleading. “I’ll accept the charges.” I said forlornly. She seemed stunned. There was a long silence only partly filled with the sound of Henry on the other end begging his Dad to accept the charges. “It’s the same guy; the same wrong number.” She said finally. “I know; but it is the only way I am going to get to sleep. “ I said. “I owe you.” She said kindly. For the next half an hour I got Henry’s life story. Once he realized I wasn’t his Dad he asked who I was. In time he figured it out. In time to he passed out. I hung up and grabbed the skinny phone book and turned to the half page that held our town’s phone numbers. Sure enough Henry’ Dad’s number was the reverse of mine. So Henry was not just an alcoholic he was dyslexic oot.
A month or so passed in which I slept well. Then; one night at three a.m.; the phone rang. I had learned a lesson and with a flashlight by my bed I walked the distance from my bedroom to the living room without incident. I picked up the receiver “This is Alberta Government Telephones;” A now familiar voice said. “I have a collect call from Henry for Greg. Will you accept the charges?” I was stunned. “Yes operator I will.” Henry and I had what would become our typical conversation. He talked about how bad his life was and I listened. We didn’t become friends but we became friendly. As the calls were only once in a while; and as they were no longer wrong numbers I actually grew to enjoy them; sort of.
When I moved about a year later my replacement asked me if he could keep the same phone number. We had shared the small trailer for some weeks and his parents already had the number memorized. I gave it no thought and quickly agreed. Some weeks later and in a somewhat testy voice he asked me; over the phone, of course. “Who is Henry?” “Probably a wrong number.” I commiserated. “A pretty damned persistent wrong number!” said he.
Meanwhile back in the present tense the phone rang again. I beat Lina to it this time. “Is Wuzzername there?” The voice sounded a little angry. “You have the wrong bloody number!” I thundered. Lina put her hand on my arm to calm me. “Look this is my own number; I ought to know my own number!” Said the boozy one. You should I thought but obviously you don’t. Just then an idea hit me. “Wuzzername is passed out. After you left she invited us all over and we drank all your booze and broke a few things, sorry!” There was a pause. I could almost see the look on his face as he figured out what that meant. “I am coming right home and you had better all be gone when I get there!” This time he slammed down the receiver. Lina stared at me. “So now he’s coming here?” She asked incredulous. “What do you call that?” I beamed. “Payback!” I rubbed my hands. “He isn’t coming here. He has no idea where we are. He is going home where a very surprised Wuzzername is no doubt sleeping. I’d give ten bucks to see the look on both of their faces.” I wish I had Graham Bell’s number in heaven. I’d love to ring him up and ask him if he has Prince Albert in the can.

The lure and lore of the northern lights

Photo By Brodie Thomas



“When am I going to get to see the northern lights?” Sharon the newest member of our management team asked. Fresh from God’s country (Nova Scotia) she wanted to see the big show. I couldn’t blame her it is well worth the wait though. “Well you’ll have to wait until it gets dark at night which won’t be until late August. Some of the best lights are at the end of August and early September.” I was smiling as I said it her exuberance reminded me of my own when I first went north. I had seen it many times over the years everyone has a natural curiosity about the lights and they are magnificent; one of the great natural wonders of the world. I thought back twenty five years ago to when I first saw them on a bus headed into northern Alberta. I had asked the bus driver if the apostrophe shaped smudge on the northern horizon was the northern lights he said he wasn’t sure but if they were still there in an hour or two they must be. “Otherwise,” he informed me “it’s just smoke from the mill.” Big mill; I thought. As I got off the bus eight hours later they were still there. “Looks like they were the lights.” He said with a smile as I got. Off. They filled the horizon now. “You’re not in Kansas anymore.” I remember thinking.
“What are the lights?” Sharon asked. “That depends who you ask.” I replied. “The peoples of the polar world all have their own explanation. The Finns call it Fox Fire they say that a great fox painted the Arctic sky with snow on its’ tail. The Eskimo of Greenland say they are the spirits of babies who died in childbirth.” Sharon visibly shivered. “That’s so sad.”She replied. “The Sami of Scandinavia believe they are the souls of the dead. They have an icon for them and use it in the artwork and evoke their power in their magic. My people; the Scots, call them The Merry Dancers. Closer to home the Cree I have lived among called them The Spirit Dancers. They too believe they are the spirits of the dead.” “I never knew they had such power over people.” Sharon said in a hushed voice. “Wait until you see them. You’ll understand.” I said smiling at her naiveté. “Don’t whistle when you see them.” Said my wife quietly. My wife is Dene; Chipeweyan to be exact. “Why not?” Sharon asked. “They will attack you.” Lina said seriously. “Some native people believe that the lights will take you away if you whistle or call them down or trifle with them. I think it comes from the awe and reverence in which they are held. It’s like a mark of respect; to take these wonders seriously” Sharon seemed impressed. “They crackle too.” Added Lina. “Really?” Sharon sounded incredulous. “Yeah, to the Dene the lights are a multi media event. They believe that when the lights are low the crackle and they have a smell.” “A bad smell! Don’t breathe it or it will kill you!” Lina added. “There is a legend of five hunters near Hay River who were using the light of the Borealis to hunt. The sound of their dog sleigh bells brought the lights down on them and even though they lay in the snow they were killed by breathing in the vapor.” I added.
“I remember once I was hunting in the Peace country of Northern Alberta. I had just bedded down when my dog raised his head and started to growl. I looked up and the wall of my tent was lit up like daytime. “What on earth?” I thought as I scrambled out through the tent door; my dog beside me. When I got outside I realized that it was not a case of what on earth? But rather of what in Heaven? The sky was dancing with curtains of neon green waving as if in some great cosmic breeze. Then I heard what had made my dog growl. Wolves! Choruses of wolves over the distant hills were calling out to the distant lights. Answered by a lone wolf much nearer; no doubt a lone black male we had spotted earlier in the day. A shiver went up my spine. I petted my dog and stood in awe of the sight and sound. This was what I had come north for.”
“But what are they really?” Sharon’s boyfriend Bart asked; always the skeptic, always the realist. “Cosmic dust carried on the solar wind.” I replied as cryptically as I could manage. “No; seriously.” He added. “Yes, seriously. They are caused by energized ions of dust carried by the solar wind. They enter the upper atmosphere and react with the elements there. The color of the lights changes according to the elements that the charged particles react with. The upper atmosphere is mostly oxygen which makes them green. Other elements make them blue or rarely red. They are often visible further south but they appear lower on the horizon. The closer to the magnetic pole you are the more overhead they will appear. It is largely a magnetic phenomenon.” Like I said you have to see them. A month or so later I was on the phone to Bart and Sharon. “I saw them!” Sharon was saying. She was ecstatic. She was on facebook right away telling her friends. A month after that she was asking me if I had seen them the night before. I had. I never get tired of them.
“So tell me…” Said Bart; the skeptic. “Do you believe the legends of the lights?” I thought for a moment. “I believe there are legends about the lights.” I replied slyly. “That is not what I asked.” He replied. Another pause. It was a touchy subject. I have always believed that I am a guest here in someone else’s land; that I have been privileged to share in the culture of the people who do live here. This is their land and these are there beliefs. I do not take them lightly nor would I ever dream of mocking them. “I do not disbelieve them. I respect these beliefs and the rights of those who believe them. They are formed out of awe and respect for nature and the creator. I share that awe and I share that respect.” I said gravely. “Did you ever whistle at the northern lights?” He asked.

“Never!” I said and I meant it. “And I never will.”

Lord of the Maggots

We grew up on the edge of the city. In what was then being called by a new term “Suburbia” ; a new term for a new age. Our parents had moved to the city from the surrounding countryside. Our fathers were back from the war. “Son; I see your back from the front!” ‘Oh my God!” he replies “It’s that army food! I must be skinnier than I thought!” Cities bulged. The babies were booming and those small; post war homes were popping up everywhere. Forests were cut down. A house or two would spring up and a neighborhood grew overnight. Small houses on big lots; big families in two or three bedrooms right on the edge of the city; up against the forest.
Kids were the order of the day. The depression was done; rationing was done; the war was done. The time for self sacrifice and grimness was over; it was a time to be fruitful and multiply. It was a time for laughter and the joy of youth. A youthful society set free from two decades of woe and care. A society that worshipped youth that wanted to hear the sounds of childhood. It was the sixties man! We were hip and cool and free! The world had probably never known a freer society. Set free by our parents who had tossed aside tyrants and opened the doors to prosperity. We roamed the neighborhood with impunity. We were legion. No play-dates for us just a game of baseball or road hockey at the drop of a ball. We rushed from the house with a ninety nine cent Superblade© on the end of an old broken hockey stick and made our own fun for hours at almost no cost and almost no fuss or arrangements. We were like our own subculture.
Like youth of all cultures we imitated our parents and our society and we formed our own societies with our own leaders and our own rules. Being that this was new ground we were like settlers or pioneers of sorts out here on the semi-civilized fringes of the city. We roamed around and explored the wilderness that surrounded our safe little suburban neighborhoods. There was adventure out there to be had; adventures that would; no doubt, have chilled our parent’s blood. We sailed the lake on an old raft powered by my swimming flippers. We climbed Miller’s Mountain and drank from a spring on its’ crest. We hunted suckers with spears in the swamp behind the school. We did boy things and had boy fun. We were like kids on a deserted island. Like “Lord of the flies” until we went home to our safe suburban one and a half story houses and were folded into our clean sheets.
One thing that boy society worships above all else is courage. There were many unwritten rules to this effect. Never let them see you cry would be number one. A tear or a crack in your voice could bring endless teasing; caustic rebukes and even the dreaded “Nyah nyah: nyah nyah nyah nyah!” the highest form of mockery! It was not uncommon to belong to different gangs of boys at the same time. You might be a junior member of an older boy’s gang or a senior member of a younger boys club at the same time. Important life lessons were learned while lighting firecrackers or climbing trees.
“What is it?” Jed asked as we approached the still form on the edge of the woods. Martin took a long stick and poked the animal gingerly; it didn’t move. “It’s a dead Bobcat!” Phil said with exuberance. ”Cool!” . Said many. We had come across the dead body of a Bobcat on the edge of the woods where it met the highway. We spent some time speculating on how it had gotten there. These woods were no longer connected to the greater forest where there were Bobcats. By consensus we determined that it had come from the nearby forest and been hit by a car and wandered here to die. It was a find of some importance. It was necessary to determine what to do with so sacred an object. There was only one recourse; we retired to the meeting rock. The meeting rock stood in a nearby clearing; it was enormous. In our primal world things of the natural world; things that stood out, were important. The rock; because it was huge had its’ own inherent power. It was a natural place to meet and to decide on things of importance.
We gathered in the lee of the rock safe from prying eyes and ears and sat in a circle in the clearing. “It’s splendiferous!” said one. “Its’ super cool!” said another. Choruses of “Cool!” resounded. It had been decided the Bobcat was officially “Cool!” There was some mumbling then a brief silence. Even brief silences among a group of boys are weighty things. There was some shuffling and then a cleared throat. “All right it’s cool; what do we do with it?” More shuffling; more silence. Then Phil opened his mouth “Why don’t we mount the skull on our clubhouse?” Pandemonium broke loose Shouts of “Skull!” and “Cool!” resounded in the little clearing in the woods. Phil lived on the other edge of the wood. His backyard held an old shed his Father had turned into a clubhouse for us boys. It was Phil’s home turf; of course so he was lord and master within it’s’ walls. A Bobcat skull would; it was decided look very cool over the door of the club house. We all saw it in our mind’s eyes; open jawed and yellowed with age (or maybe some varnish) emitting some silent roar that would instill fear into our enemies; foreign and domestic! It would be a symbol of our bravery and unquestioned badge of honor. Who could doubt the courage of boys who had bested such a creature? “It’s a little small; don’t you think?” said a voice from the back. Silence of a different sort fell over the assembled group. Not a silence of thought but a silence of disapproval and disdain. All heads turned in the direction of this lone voice of discord. It was Lorne one of the smallest of our crew but one who had won favor by being new to the neighborhood. No doubt it was this that saved him a pummeling. “It has been already decided that the skull is cool!” came the reply.
It was therefore decreed that the Bobcat would be placed in a garbage bag and be buried in a most memorable spot where it would later be dug up when nature had run its course and the bones had been picked clean. So we went about our normal summer routines; playing ball and road hockey and having adventures. The Bobcat was forgotten. Then one day, when the wind brought the first hint of fall one of the members remembered the Bobcat. A meeting was struck and the shovel was borrowed and with due pomp and circumstance we trooped down the path from the meeting rock along the trail already strewn with the first golden leaves of fall. Whether it was the leaves covering the ground or the passage of time; but the spot did not prove as memorable as we had first supposed it would be. Eventually the shovel stuck the shiny surface of the garbage bag and the bag was removed from the earth. It appeared unchanged. The bag was heavier than we thought it would be. We stood around it in a close circle as we awaited the first look. Like Carter opening Tut’s tomb or Geraldo opening Capone’s vault we waited with baited breath while the bag was torn open. What happened next was not spoken of in the club’s circle. I personally evoke images of the “Great Skedaddle”. The torn bag revealed a mass of maggots seething and writhing with no sight of the Bobcat whatsoever. Boys flew in every direction there was to flee. Bigger faster boys ran over smaller slower ones. The panic was universal. It spread like wild fire. Boys ran through the woods in all directions. As the mad dash subsided and cooler heads prevailed our societal rules returned and we all wandered back to the meeting rock. The crowd was hushed now and subdued. No one looked at each other. There was an uneasy silence. We were all waiting for someone to speak. No one wanted to bring up the subject of our behavior. This symbol was supposed to announce our bravery to the world. We stared at our feet and there was more shuffling. Then Lorne’s voice could be heard from the crowd. “It was kinda small.” He said meekly. “Yeah small!” repeated the crowd. “Kinda puny!” The poor Bobcat was reinterred and funnily enough the subject of the symbol of our great bravery was never brought up again.

It suits me to a tea

As I sit here writing this my cup of hot water is slowly; magically being transformed. Floating in it is a tea bag; orange pekoe to be exact. There is no doubt a science to making a good cup of tea; but there is also an art and a touch of magic. There is alchemy in the simplicity of the chemical reaction or whatever it is that turns hot water and some leaves into the steaming; satisfying beverage that seems to brighten the day and soothe the soul. Keep your chicken soup; give me my tea.
Now when I have coffee I must have it white with sweetener. That’s because I hate coffee. I have to kill the taste because that’s the only way I can get it down. So why do I drink it? Coffee; to me, is the Buckley’s Mixture of the beverage world. It tastes terrible but it works! But tea I can drink in almost any of its’ forms. I can drink it black. I can have it black with sugar or white with sugar. It depends on the circumstances. Half of the thrill of tea is the circumstances in which you drink it. Tea is very versatile. It can be had with sleeves rolled up, in Styrofoam cups on a busy workday. It can be had in a favorite mug on a sleepy Sunday morning, sunlight streaming in on my pajamaed legs and slippered feet, chez moi. It can be sipped from fine porcelain at five pm for high English tea. It can be drunk from an old melmac mug while seated on a stump replete with embers from the fire and a pine needle or two and none the worse for that. I have had tea on the running boards of a fire truck at five in the morning brought by some blessed angel of a citizen for us haggard firefighters who had been fighting a fire since three. It was the best cuppa’ I ever had. Sweaty; tired and coming down off an adrenalin high, your throat dry from breathing bottled air; there is nothing better than a cup of tea.
There is variety in the way you whiten your tea too. Whether it is milk or cream or powdered whitener or canned milk each has a place. A splash of milk is always welcome. Cream is nice for dessert tea, sweetened with sugar of course. When you are not well black tea with a little lemon and honey is most efficacious. When in the bush; clad in mackinaw jacket with felt lined boots against the cold and damp a bit of powdered cow or better yet canned milk is nice. It reminds me of the tea my Dad made; strong and thinned with canned milk. It creamed into your stomach with warming tendrils. A little apricot brandy didn’t hurt either.
As varied as the ways of preparing and serving tea are the myriad forms of the beverage itself. Whether green or black; Oolong or Darjeeling; Orange Pekoe of Earl Grey. There are many types of tea as there are types of people drinking the beverage. I have tried many and liked most of them. But for the most part just give me an old fashioned Orange Pekoe. But on a cold day when I’ve stolen an hour from the month give me a hot cup of Blueberry Ice wine tea first given me by my best friend. Delicious; just like a warm summer breeze.
I am not fussy when it comes to the preparation of tea but here is what I do know. Good water makes good tea. Aeration is good too, stream water it better than lake water. The water should be boiling just before adding the tea. Let the water just come off a boil and then add the tea. Let it steep for a couple of minutes until the desired strength is reached, this is a matter of preference, I like mine strong. It should be drunk before it goes too cold and remove the tea bags once the desired strength is reached in case you want a second cup; and who doesn’t?
I am from the east coast and I think the tradition of drinking tea is still stronger there. I now live in the north where the tradition has survived the scourges of the automatic coffee maker (shudder!). I will always associate the smell of the tea kettle with my Aunt Violet’s kitchen, warm and sunny, her parlor empty her kitchen table packed. Whenever the screen door slammed another tea bag and some fresh water went into the kettle it was seldom dry. Tea; in my deepest lizard brain is always linked with laughter and friends, with warmth and joy; with sharing and contentment. One lump or two?

The tipping point

This October 3rd will mark a milestone in my life. It will mark the point where I have been away from my native Nova Scotia for as long as I lived there. Exactly half my life spent in the north. I left Nova Scotia on a sunny morning with $150.00 in my pocket and three bags. I had never flown on a plane and had never been further from home than P.E.I. I guess it was the final rite of passage; I was leaving the nest and flying on my own. One thing for sure it was a long way home. I started as a Management Trainee for the HNC for the princely sum of $10,500.00 B&L (board and lodging) which meant that after the cost of my travel was taken off my first six months wages I took home just under $100 a week. Airfare to Halifax in those days was nearly $2,000 so going home really wasn’t an option.
But the weather was nice for early October in northern Alberta. Within a week I had made some friends, met some people from home and caught my first pike. I called home every week. I had a lot to say in ten short minutes that first week. Ten minutes was my ration. We often think that things have gotten so expensive over the years, but not everything has. A phone call in 1985 cost $1.70 a minute at the cheapest rate. Ten minutes a week was all I could afford. Saturday night was my time to call home. I hated when you couldn’t get a line out. The exchanges were crude and “all circuits are busy please try your call again later…” Was a frequent response; in that cold, business likes voice. Still; God bless A G Bell because there is more you can hear in the sound of someone’s voice than can be written in the most eloquent letter.
I wrote letters too; they were way cheaper. I sent pictures home of my new surroundings. When I got a part-time job doing guard duty for the RCMP I bought a truck. I proudly sent pictures home. I wanted them to think I was fine and doing well, prosperous even. I think I even believed it. Until Christmas eve I heard Stan Roger’s “First Christmas” and melted like a snowflake I felt every inch of the nearly three thousand miles between me and home. I may have gone over my ten minutes that first Christmas day; and what a job getting through; I think it took more than four hours. I wanted to thank Mom for the gifts; but most of all for the Santa Bag. She had always put together one as a stocking for us. It was a cornucopia. When opened it revealed a mixture of the practical (combs, toothbrushes and shampoo) the fanciful (Quality street chocolates, Candy chicken bones, and candy canes) and the sublime ( a small toy of some kind, no matter how old we were just to remind us I guess that we were still her little boys and girls). This continued for many years until I met my wife. Our first Christmas together my Mother sent us each a Santa Bag, I was delighted as it meant that Lina was officially “part of the family”. The only thing was I knew it was my last stocking from Mom. From now on Lina and I would fill each other’s stockings. At about the halfway point of the time since I left the little blue house on Third Street I had crossed another bridge; severed another apron string.
Back home communities are small and tight. Move into one and you will always be a CFA (come from away). No matter how long you live there you will always be “from away”. It is like that up here too. Small towns have that dynamic no matter where they are. Nova Scotia will always be the “away “ that I am from. But home we always be wherever Lina and I are together.

Watch Dog

He came into my life slowly, almost by assimilation. When I first met him he belonged to my boss, Nigel. He was in his prime, a fully grown Golden Retriever, though you might have been forgiven if you mistook him for an Irish setter; from a distance at least. He was very dark; which is, so I am told, not uncommon in the breed. His name was Seiko. “He’s a watch dog; get it?” Nigel told me when I looked at him askance when he told me the name. “More people would get the joke if you named him Timex.” I said and over the years when I explained the name to others the joke had spawned at least four dogs named Timex. But Seiko he was. Tall and proud and immensely strong; he was gorgeous. I was new to the north and a long way from home and loved ones. The transition was made a little easier by the fact that Nigel’s wife Anne and I were from the same home town and I knew her family. We had attended the same high school but did not know one another. It was made easier too by this gregarious Golden Retriever.
We struck up a bond right away. Golden Retrievers are notoriously friendly and Seiko was the rule not the exception. He followed me everywhere. When I was working in the warehouse he would come in to get some attention and I was always glad to see him. On my days off I took to asking Nigel if I could “borrow” his dog. Seiko went fishing and hunting with me. We went on long walks together on every trail and back road that there was in the surrounding area. He was good company. If I ever had to go somewhere without him he would follow my vehicle for miles. The speeds he could reach and the length of time he could follow were prodigious. Three kilometers from home I could still see him in my rearview mirror. I spent a happy year and a half in Wabasca but then was transferred in the spring of 1987. I bid Seiko a sad goodbye and thought I would never see him again.
Happily that was not the case. A few months later Nigel called to say they were moving and they would not be able to take a full grown Golden Retriever with them. Would I be interested in taking him? It took about ten seconds to make the decision. I was about to own my first dog. I only had to get him there. Wabasca is over 500 km away but fortunately Nigel was coming to Fort Vermilion. Fort Vermilion was only a short flight away by Cessna 206. I just had to find a pilot willing to fly an eighty pound bundle of muscle and energy in a cockpit the size of a loveseat. I thought I’d better talk to the pilot in person so the next day I met the mail plane and when we’d finished loading my truck I said offhandedly “By the way I wonder if you could help me out. My dog will be in the Fort on Monday and I need to get him in here.” I looked at the pilot with my most pathetic look. “Eighty Pounds!” he exploded when I answered him how big the dog was. “Is he part horse?” I decided to go all in and play my trump card., I pulled a photo of Seiko from my pocket, one taken on one of our many walks. The pilot took it dubiously but a smile crossed his face as he looked at it. “A Golden Retriever; well why didn’t you say? My daughter raises them. He’s a beauty. Look how red he is! Is he a good flyer?” The question caught me flat footed. It hadn’t even occurred to me to ask Nigel if the dog had ever flown. Of course I couldn’t tell him I didn’t know so I stammered “S-S-S-S-rue he loves to fly!” I had to lie as anybody up here who owned a dog any length of time would have had to have flown with him. I called Nigel that night to let him know that arrangements had been made. “How’s Seiko in an airplane?” I asked “I guess we’ll know next week.” Nigel answered. He had never flown before. I was waiting with baited breath the next Monday when the little plane taxied to a stop, I waited for the prop to stop spinning then I ran over and opened the passenger door. “How was the flight?” I asked when the engine noise died down. “He was my Copilot.” Said the pilot with a smile. “He never moved, just sat in the copilot’s seat and stared out the windscreen.” I was worried that he might not recognize me after so long apart but once out of the plane he planted his hind feet on the gravel runway and put his front feet on my chest and licked my face. He was not a dog who did this often so I knew he was saying “Hello; sure I remember you!”
We embarked on a new life together both off us adjusting to a changed existence. I could not have been happier, I know he felt the same. As before we went everywhere together. He slept by my side. He seldom slept on the bed but when he did he took the whole bed, lying diagonally across it stretched out to his full length; I was forced to sleep diagonally too. Usually he slept on the floor by my head. Occasionally I would hear him vocalizing in his sleep his legs would twitch like he was dreaming of chasing rabbits. I would hang an arm over the side of the bed and pet him. His tail would thump, thump thump against the floor in his sleep. I wonder what he was dreaming and was he picturing me petting him? In the mornings when he was ready to go out he would stand between the bed and the wall and his tail would make an arc from the two objects. It would whack the bed frame and then the wall in a whack, ting, whack ting that became my alarm. I woke up every day to his smiling face. No one could roll over and go back to sleep after looking into those brown eyes.
My bass Andrew had a border collie named DeeDee and the two dogs became inseparable. Seiko picked up any number of habits from DeeDee including her habit of sticking her nose under your hand and kind of flipping your hand into the air when she wanted to be petted. Seiko also took to rolling in mud puddles, one of DeeDee’s favorite things. The maddening thing is that he would go for a three mile walk and stay totally clean. Then; less than a hundred meters from home he would drop into a mud puddle like a stone. I kept a garden hose at the back door. He loved the water. Being a retriever that is only natural I suppose. When we went walking by the river which was almost every day; he would plunge in and swim usually grabbing a piece of driftwood. But no matter how far from the river I stood he would inevitably walk to within ten feet of me before he shook himself dry; thus soaking me. It was a game we played and he loved doing it. I pretended to be mad but he always saw through me and I could not help but hold him he was so charming.
From Fox Lake I moved to beautiful Ft Liard. Seiko loved the river and the mountains. He loved walking the trails and chasing the rabbits. He was getting older and he began to appreciate the wood stove as he got quite arthritic, especially in his hind quarters. Golden Retrievers are prone to that. I used to take him for runs on my bike so I could tire him out better. That became less necessary. Soon our normal walks became too much for him. One night in late February I knew he was not going to see another dawn. I had been talking to a friend who was a wildlife officer. He had told me that he could give Seiko an overdose of Nembutal which he had for tranquilizing bears. I wanted to put it off until the last possible moment. The last night I called Jerry but it was too late Seiko did not make it until he arrived. With a loud sigh he passed. I let out a scream of his name and he momentarily opened his eyes and looked right at me as if to say “It is O.K. Old friend it is my time,: amd then he was gone. I wrapped him in his favorite comforter and put his favorite toy a pink “My Little Pony” that Jerry’s kids had given him,. I picked up the toy and remembered how he had gotten it. One night we ewre visiting Jerry and his family. When we got home I noticed that Seiko had the pony in his mouth. I took it back the next day but the kids were adamant that they had given it to Seiko and his tail wagged furiously when I returned it to him. It had no tail and was one the girls no longer wanted. He loved it. He carried it everywhere. Once when he lost the toy he was beside himself. I have never seen a dog so despondant. The girls again came to the rescue with a “My Little Pony” unicorn. He loved that too nut not as mush. That spring under the snow I found the original and he never touched the unicorn again.
I got my friend Rick to pick me up a pick at the hardware store and I buried him in the back yard that Sunday. Rick was going to help but I was finished before he got there. We sat and had coffee. “It was brutally cold today you should have waited for me.” He said . “It was the only trouble he ever caused me. He was worth all that and more.” I put a cross over his grave and nailed his dog tag to it. I buried him with his pony. I thought I was doing well after he died. One evening while walking home from work about a week later I met my friend Elizabeth; the social worker. She was walking her dogs. We had walked dogs together many times. She looked at me askance and asked “Wherever is Seiko?” In her British accent. I tried to get the words out but nothing would come. I stood there like an idiot and she instantly knew. She hugged me and said “I am ever so sorry. I didn’t know!” It must have been five minutes before I could tell her what had happened. Nearly twenty years later I have tears in my eyes. He still stares out at me from a thousand pet food bags. One day I walked into the store and there was a wet Golden Retriever in the porch. The smell is like no other breed. I got down on one knee and petted him. “Sorry, he’s a mess.” said one of my Mountie friends. “He is beautiful and he looks just like a Golden Retriever should look.” I said. I have had a number of dogs since; each one of them as different as each person is. The one common thread is the unquestioning love that I have had from each one of them. I never came home to find them grumpy or ungrateful or not understanding. They have only been a source of undying love. No matter how much it hurts to lose one I will never regret the commitment.