Mick's Big, Exciting Adventure!

But a problem had come up that bothered him. He told me about it one day.

"Hey Mick. No chance I'd challenge you to arm wrestle now!" I commented.

"Thanks buddy. Feeling good too. Prepping for this trip has really worked out, but I'm starting to worry about some of the activity details. I hope that I get to actually use this new body up there. A lot of hungry polar bears are hanging around the camp area this year on account of climate change. They can't hunt seals because of the melting ice, so tourists are on the menu."

"Polar bears! What the Hell is the company going to do to keep you guys alive? If anybody is killed, there goes their future business."

"Think of us like cattle, Tim. There'll be a circular compound marked off by yellow caution tape and we have to stay inside that unless we're with Indigenous hunters armed with high-calibre rifles. Even when we're inside our 'fence', there'll always be a guard ready to kill a bear that tries to break inside. Anybody who won't accept this new restriction can get a refund until Friday. But we're on our own as far as airline cancellations are concerned."

"Big decision! What will you do?"

"I don't like it, but I'd lose some of the flight money because of my limited insurance coverage. I cut costs there and now I see it was a mistake."

"So, you're still going then?"

"I think so. I'm so fired up about this trip now that I can't just let it go. Hiking with armed hunters is alright- as long as they're good shots."

"They know how to use a rifle," I assured him. "Hunted game beats buying food brought in from the south. Way too expensive! But can you eat a polar bear, if they bag one?"

"I checked that out. Very well cooked is the only way, because the meat has lots of parasites that cause trichinosis. And don't eat much either. Bears are at the top of the food chain so carry all the accumulated toxins from the wildlife it kills."

The hunters led to us discussing Indigenous cultures in the Arctic. The tour company was supplying Mick with plenty of information about how important they were in the exploration of the North. Some Europeans owed their lives to native people- like fur trader and mapmaker Samuel Hearne, lost in the Arctic Barrens and under-dressed for the extreme cold. Others followed mental maps drawn out on animal skins by hunters.

Without a written language, information was passed through generations by story-telling. Mick told me about the tenacity and accuracy of this accumulated knowledge. Baffin Island Inuit encountered in 1861 related stories about Martin Frobisher's murderous confrontation with their people three centuries earlier!

"Oral tradition is strong," I added. "It helped modern researchers narrow the search for Franklin's sunken ships because the ancestors passed on what they'd seen when the boats went down."

We had more discussions like this in the weeks ahead of Mick's trip. My thoughts about exploration and discovery were shifting, with a growing respect for the big part Indigenous people played in it. They knew how to survive in a harsh and unforgiving environment. And they frequently assisted newcomers who would eventually come to dominate the land.

Then one day a cab pulled into my neighbour's driveway. A very large pack was loaded before the car pulled away. Mick was off on his expedition to the far North. I felt envious. While he was away, my family would do some tame camping and hiking at a government-operated park. Wood chipped trails and electrical campsites were a far cry from Mick's big adventure.

__________

Two weeks later my neighbour was back. The driver dragged his luggage to the front door and Mick rushed behind it as I shouted across the road. He quickly waved to me, then ducked inside. For the next few days, he never left the place as far as I know.

"Did Mick say anything to you about his trip?" Marybeth asked.

"I haven't seen him since he came back Tuesday evening."

"Maybe he's busy catching up at his business? Or he might be ill? I'll phone Janine to ask."

Later she confirmed her second suspicion. He had returned with a bad cold but would talk with me about the trip when he was feeling better. I didn't see him all weekend, though he phoned to say his cold was clearing up and we'd talk over a beer next week.

"I'm going to Mick's Friday evening. He said nothing about the trip. I wonder if he had a bad time of it?"

"Could be. It might not have measured up to what he was expecting. You told me a few times about how eager he was to get up there."

What I found out later that week confirmed my wife's suspicions. Mick told a tale of woe about his adventure. No wonder he arrived home ill!

"I went to Hell and back! Awful time! I wish I hadn't wasted all that money on the goddam thing!"

After that admission was out of the way, he said nothing more for a while. Instead, he tossed back his beer and munched handfuls of salty peanuts. I noticed there were no vegetable sticks served this time. Eventually Mick warmed to the story.

"The weather was really bad. It's usually pleasant there mid-summer. Best time of the year, but not this one. Damp, cold, foggy, rainy- clouds settled in for most of the trip and just stayed there. Terrible bad luck!"

"That's why you came back with a bad cold."

"Almost everybody did. We were living in tents because it's summer. The only heated place was the big quonset hut where we took our meals and gathered for classes."

"Classes! I thought this was supposed to be a tour, not a school."

"We all did, but the wolves and polar bears nixed that idea. The bears were hungry, and a few of them kept us hemmed in camp. The Inuit hunters were on guard much of the time and we only hiked outside the perimeter a couple of days when the weather cleared a bit."

"Not so good, eh."

"It got worse. When fog rolled in, we brought everything into the secure hut, and stayed there safe from the bears. One big male was especially aggressive before the hunters shot him."

"Did you eat it?"

"I tried some but didn't have much stomach for it. We watched while they butchered it. Jeez, blood everywhere and I thought I might be sick. The guide called it "learning about Northern ways", so we gathered round to see the whole process..."

"Ugh!" I interrupted, visualizing the blood and guts.

"Yeah. A lot of meat from one animal, and most of it went back to the local village with some guys who came by on ATVs."

"Before the trip we talked about the bugs. How was that?"

"My god! Absolutely terrible! The wet weather really brought them out. I mean clouds of them- blackflies one week and mosquitoes the next. I was eaten alive the first day and still itch. The damn blackflies bite behind the ears and go for hands, wrist, ankles... anything exposed. Just look at these!... The sonabitches itch!"

Mick made it clear that he hated his northern adventure, but was there a brighter side? He'd looked forward to this so much. Was anything salvageable from the experience?

"So, it was wet, with hungry bears and bugs. Were there any highlights, anything good about the trip?"

"OK, some of the cultural stuff was interesting. We were pretty much confined to camp, so they brought in people- mostly elders- to demonstrate old Inuit ways. The soapstone carving was good. I brought one home- a polar bear, of course."

Then he stopped, probably grappling with his overwhelming negativity to find more highlights for me.

"Well... there was a good presentation one day about underwater research on Franklin's ship, Erebus. Dive photos and a question period with one of the women who had been down there. But it was like school because I never actually went to the site."

"No side trips? Just stuck in camp almost the whole time?"

"Oh, there were side trips alright. At least three of them by helicopter. One to the dive site. Another to the Franklin graves, and one to Fury Beach to see stuff left from Parry's abandoned ship. Great trips, but very expensive extras. One couple spent about four thousand on this alone!"

"What! Why so expensive?"

"The Arctic is huge, absolutely enormous. I had no idea! Places are far apart, and everything is really expensive: fuel, labour, food. Without any extras, this thing had already cost a small fortune. Janine and I could have gone to the Mediterranean for a month on what I spent for the base trip. Dammit! Instead, I spent half the time playing cards."

I looked around secretively and lowered my voice.

"Does she know how much yet"

"Yeah. Not happy about it either. So, I've started setting aside some money for that one with her. Probably next year. We'll see."

As I listened to Mick, the recent hiking and camping with my family looked much better to me. We had fun and remained comfortable, without any danger. We all came back refreshed, not sick and disappointed.

Marybeth had pointed out earlier that expectations and reality can be very different. My neighbour came face-to-face with the gap. Experiencing the Arctic in real time proved much harder than watching a video or reading about the region. It's not an easy place to survive and it never was. Both of us had rosy, romanticized mental images of the North that were not realistic. He found out the hard way.

Mick's big, exciting adventure presented broader life lessons. And I might have learned as much as he did, without all the downsides and expense.

But it was time to cut the grass again, and I got to thinking:

"Why not change things up- step out of my comfort zone? Hmm.... I could cut the lawn on the diagonal in the opposite direction this time. Just like a golf course. Yeah, I'll try that! Wonder what Marybeth will say?"

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