I love to fly. There is that moment when the world slides
out from underneath you and you tilt to the sky while objects below take on
strange, ephemeral proportions. Then you
are punching through mist and cloud, settling in while the billows make a floor
over which a primordial sun glares. The
world is there, below, ready to explore.
No matter where you are going, no matter how many pictures you have
studied, the maps you poured over in anticipation, the landing jerks you into
the reality that everything is strange to you and new.
Flying into Edmonton was odd. There was little sign of the population
of 1,363,300 and the boom of the petroleum industry. The decent over barren, harvested fields caught me off guard. I anticipated the skyline of a modern
city replete with glass and concrete but this was not visible from the airport
some 40km from the city center. The day
was over by the time I landed and retrieved the six cardboard boxes holding the
accouterments of my life for the immediate future.
Determining what to fit inside 6 50lb boxes to establish
yourself across the continent is not an easy task. Confounding the exercise
further is the reality that your destination does not have an easy means to
fill a need created by managing this task badly. Further that complication with
the recognition that the weather where you will make your life is a frozen
landscape formed by extreme temperatures for
9 months of the year. Packing was
an exercise in coping with anxiety, pretending to have far more skill in organization
than I have, a million different lists and notes to self and asterisks galore.
Boxes stowed after several airport workers told me that
there was no overnight baggage stores and a mild panic in the back of my head I
headed to my hotel which was conveniently attached to the airport terminal.
Through the disco like lobby past the shi-shi lounge and safely checked in and
stowed like my boxes it was time for a beer, or two.
Back at the Halo lounge I slid onto a stool and gulped back a Yellowhead Brewery Lager
and picked away at a sampling from the tasting menu. I’ve decided that
“yorkies” are a sin that can only be washed away by ordering a second beer. Yorkshire
pudding filled with pan gravy and pulled roast of beef, yummy. A Boss Hog Oatmeal IPA sounded like a fun second choice. Edmonton has a number of craft brewers and I think a
longer stopover might be needed at a later date to explore some. The trick is
to explore then make it back to the airport without incident after the sampling
of such fine brewing. I’m sure Edmonton
would be a fascinating place to visit and do the tourist thing however it’s
never been high on my list of places to visit. Perhaps that will change.
My flight to Yellowknife was to leave at 0710hrs and baggage
checked an hour prior to departure and then there’s security to contend with.
So 0600 found me back down the hall and in the terminal with a helpful airport staffer helping me navigate carts
built to hold 2 suitcases now stacked with my 6 boxes through the airport to
the check in counter of Canada North Airlines then through the luggage check watching my boxes once again drift away via conveyor belt and become someone
else’s problem and my anxiety.
I was sweaty and already tired and it felt like the terminal
was gaining degrees with each new body lining up for early morning security
hassles. I decided to step outside and headed for the exit. Once outside and a
few steps away from the inevitable John Player and Sons fog I felt the rain. It was then that it hit me. I
had been hermetically sealed for almost 24hrs in: a van, Pearson International
Terminal, Edmonton International Terminal, The Renaissance Hotel, Edmonton
International Terminal again and was about to board a plane. How often do we
find ourselves in this situation? And how easily? We wake, we coffee up for the
day, grumble about the heat, the rain, the cold, the weather (we are Canadians
after all), we get into our car, we drive to our paycheck producing building,
clock in, work through break and lunch thinking we’ll make up for it later,
finish the day, grumble some more about the weather and get back into our car and drive to our
homes where we shut the door behind us and seal ourselves in for the rest of
the day. It’s too easy. The rain felt
better than my morning shower and left a chill on my skin as I re-entered the
terminal and got in line for security clearance.
I’d had the same pocket knife for a while now. A Gerber
dime. It’s a multi-tool really and my ownership of it is a testament to the
validity of a lifetime warrantee but that’s another story. It had made it past
security at Pearson despite my corkscrew being disallowed because of the blade
you use to remove the foil capsule from the wine bottle. Yes that is what it’s
called by the way: a foil capsule is a piece of history. It was intended
originally to keep rodents and other pests from chewing the corks out of racked
bottles. Betcha ya’ didn’t know that. Why I do I don’t know. Anyway, I lost the
corkscrew to security and I hope they put it to good use after work. My pocketknife
on the other hand I am less generous about. This piece of gear has been camping
and canoeing, opened innumerable amounts of packaging (you know the kind – that
tough plastic shell that companies seal their goods in making one question if
you were meant to use the item enclosed in this keep or simply hang it by the
convenient hole in the top and hang it as an art piece.) and even trimmed my
toenails, although that might be giving you too much information. I never
thought about it being in my luggage. Apparently the Canadian Air Transport
Security Authority thought about it. They scanned and rescanned my carry-on
bag. They moved everyone back from the x-ray machine and with me present
methodically searched the bag and found that dangerous 3.5 cm blade. A few
years back the airlines began again allowing blades under 6 cm but then they
changed their minds. With a bit of frustration I said goodbye to the knife and
I hope that some nice security staffer is paring an apple and laughing about
the whole incident as I write this. Drat.
I was so excited to be heading to Yellowknife. I knew that I
was only scheduled for a ¾ hr stopover but had hoped to at least take a cab
ride through the city and back to the airport. That was a good thought. The
plane landed later than expected and a cab tour was not to be. The airport
overlooks Long Lake and a short walk along the Mackenzie highway and a peek at
the SAREX 2016 equipment like a Hercules and Cormorant was pretty cool. Let’s
hope I never need to use those services, or that I’m in Gander, NL when I need
them.
Getting off the plane onto the tarmac I was entertained by a
bird that seems to dominate the landscape here in the North. There was a plane
next to the Canada North plane I exited which was unloading items including
garbage. A raven perched itself on the handle
of the trolley cart bearing the garbage and delicately picked through the
contents emerging with an empty tart tin. The bird then hopped off the cart
onto the tarmac and placed the tin on the ground. It went back to the trolley
again and removed another and again placed this on the ground. The raven
repeated this task about a half dozen times and then again hopped off the
trolley and began stacking the tins together. Once done he picked them up and
was off. At least as clever as a toddler
by developmental standards.
I landed in Norman Wells and here again I needed to collect
my 6 boxes. Things are undeniably more expensive in the remote North and in
preparing for the journey I elected to bring along pantry staples such as
flour, To Bean or Not to Bean 33 1/3 roast coffee (and yes that is a staple and
if you haven’t tried it you must), sugar, spices and herbs. Despite careful
packing including bagging anything that could spill, the 2kg bag of sugar took a
hit somewhere on the journey and when I retrieved it from the carousel at the
Norman Wells airport it was running freely. This is a small community airport
and limited staffing is present. There was no one to tell I was having a
difficulty. There was no one to clean up. There was nowhere to stow my baggage.
Like Hansel I left a trail of sugar, and I mean a solid white line, across the
arrivals area floor, to the elevator, across the departures area to the check
in counter of NorthWright airlines where a hand written sign indicated that
staff would not arrive until one hour before a scheduled flight. I took
liberties and left my baggage behind their service counter where a large pile
of sugar formed in the course of my three hour layover. How sweet of me.
Norman Wells has a degree of notoriety. It has a long and troubling history connected
to the oil industry and during WWII was a supplier of oil to the U.S. and
Canadian military staged in Alaska and the Yukon. A project called the Canol
Pipeline was started here pushed by American interests and money. It was short
lived andit was never able to satisfactorily operate as intended. I blame the
mosquitoes. The Conol Heritage Trail which was Canol Road and was built as part
of the pipeline infrastructure is part of the Trans Canada Trail. The trail made
for some good hiking on the layover.
Alexander Mackenzie had explored this area and felt that the surrounding
mountains needed English names instead of the Dene names that came with
them. From Norman Wells you can see a
panorama of the Mackenzie Mountains and the Mackenzie River. No one ever said
the guy had a great imagination when it came to names but then the Dene place
name DehCho (big river) wasn’t so creative either.
The last leg of the journey was the flight from Norman Wells
to Délįne on a Cessna 208 with NorthWright airlines with an Aussie pilot who
looked about 12. Looking down over the rust colored taiga pockmarked like a
moonscape with lakes and ponds and bunched up trees gives on the first real
sense of isolation. There is nothing familiar about this landscape from the
air. No landmarks for the layman save for the Great Bear River that snakes
along the last 110km of the flight. A few weeks later in the season and this
stark land seen from the air is much prettier as it is dusted with snow and the
small lakes beginning to reflect light and clouds off of the first ice forming
on them. After a short stopover in Tulita, population 478 at the airport where
wrecks, abandoned planes and trailers
line the edge of the airport and the Cessna banked toward Délįne my final
destination.
A dirt and gravel runway and a terminal building about the
size of a mobile home and without a tower greet the traveler. I was glad to be
rid of my instant friend who latched onto me during the flight and smelled of
stale beer and John Players and Sons. I had no idea where I was. I had little
idea how far the town was from the airport. I needed a ride and a quick
conversation with some guys in reflective work jackets resulted in my boxes
stowed in the back of a truck and a seat in the back of the cab heading toward
Grey Goose Lodge. I found out later that the lodge had a staff member who was
to have met me but arrived after I arrived, that a co-worker had been assigned
to pick me up and had also arrived late and a relative of my Délįne landlord
had also been arranged to transport me. Evidently we passed all three of these
people on the short 3km drive to the lodge.
Boxes unloaded and stowed in what appeared to be a gift shop
of sorts and the key for my room at the Lodge secured I was informed by the
young woman working the front desk that it was 5pm and the end of the workweek
(Saturday) so she was leaving and that I would be the only guest staying over
the weekend and no hotel staff was scheduled so the kitchen and front desk would be closed. They had
left sandwiches in the cooler in the dining room and I was to help myself and
write down anything I ate and we would settle up later. She then left the
building at a canter.
My boxes and I had arrived. 
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