Summer Ruminations -A word from ManNorth

I have often said that the North is a fine place to live but I wouldn’t want to work there, for when one works the mind is focused on work and little else. Seldom do we ever take time to step back from our personal grindstone and, according to Keats, “look into the fair and open face of Heaven”. In the cities far to the south I have met people who have never left their place of birth, who find no need to step outside their safety zones, who have built for themselves a wall so high that even if they had the inclination to do so, could not climb over; who look but do not see. Many people look, but few ever see; there is a subtle difference here. For seeing is akin to experiencing, and when you experience something, you understand it more fully and completely. If one spends all of life in a city, then the full extent of one’s experience is limited to that city. In a city, any city, one sees houses with televisions and central heating, grocery stores and hospitals, cars and trains. There is nothing at all wrong with that, of course, other than the fact that one’s experiences will be extremely limited. One’s worldview, one’s belief system will be skewed. But then believing is seeing.
People in Winnipeg believe that they live in the coldest city in Canada; this claim has been supported by the news networks too, hence the nickname “Winterpeg”. Yet all it would take is for one to do a little research before they see that this isn’t true. (For those who don’t have the time for this, Yellowknife is the city with the coldest winters, with an average nighttime temperature during December, January and February of -29.9 degrees Celsius. It is also the coldest city with a mean annual temperature of -5.4 degrees Celsius. Winnipeg, in fact has the sunniest winters and a mean annual temperature of +2.6.) But, even if this myth were true, the full extent of most people’s outdoor experience is standing at the bus stop for 20 minutes while rushing from one heated building to another.
It saddens me to see how urbanized we have become, and Canada is one of the most urbanized nations in the world. In our pursuit of happiness, our quest for the good life, we have left something behind, some essential part of us, our ability to see. And to fill this gap we have surrounded ourselves with icons of our own creation.
But, lest the reader think that I am being overly critical of the urban dweller, allow me to really stick my neck out and say that no more is this lack of seeing apparent than in the north. Case in point, years ago while I was preparing to leave on a six month winter expedition along the west coast of Hudson Bay, a young teacher stopped me in Churchill, Manitoba, offering me her insight and expertise. I listened kindly for a moment to her words of wisdom, but when I had asked about her experience outdoors, she said rather emphatically, “Well I live here!” Yes, I thought, you live here, in this house with a television, central heating, a grocery store and a hospital next door. You have a train to bring in supplies and daily jet service should you need it. You have all the amenities of the south. You also have a mortgage, 3 children to raise, car payments and utilities and in order to pay for all this you work. I have witnessed this same scenario unfold numerous times during my travels in the north, the most recent of which was just the other day. A colleague of mine was talking about the weather and summed up by saying to me, “You haven’t lived here long enough to know the weather like I do. I live here. I know.” While it is true that he has lived here longer than I have, what he failed to see is that weather is a global phenomenon, that the weather in Northern Town is not unique, that I am older than him and therefore I have seen more “weather” than he has. He could not see this. He lives in a house with a television, central heating, a grocery store and a hospital next door. He has two monster trucks and a dog, a hefty mortgage and bills to pay. In order to afford this he has to work. His house may be located in the north but he is really living in the south, with all the accoutrements of modern life.
The north of course is changing, has changed. It is no longer the Old North of my youth where a man could truly disappear for a year or more. The advent of modern transportation and telecommunications has shrunk the north. These days one wouldn’t think of traveling on the land without a GPS and Satellite phone. The north of today is filled with big screen televisions and satellite dishes, cell phones and the World Wide Web, cultural centres with weight rooms, swimming pools and saunas, hockey rinks and racket ball courts. In the stores you can find cans of pop and bags of chips as well as the latest fashions, and teens can walk the streets with their hats on backwards and iPods in their ears oblivious to the sounds of Nature. Just like in the cities.
We humans are cultural animals and we bring our culture with us where ever we go. This give and take of cultural diffusion is the common thread that binds us all together. But, I wonder how few will ever step back; leave their modern influences, their cultural idolatry, cut the umbilical cord of society’s infrastructure, and if only for a moment, wander free and unfettered. How can we ever see the true immensity of the natural world, or be humbled by that sweet solitude when we know in the back of our minds that society is just a phone call away?This weekend my wife and I are going canoeing, not far but far enough, to some distant hills across the lake. We will find ourselves “some pleasant lair of wavy grass” and just sit for a while and look out over the delta. I wonder what we will see.

© ManNorth, Summer, 2000

Halllooo out there!

Hopefully a few of you are still venturing back to check in here now and then in spite of my infrequent posting of late. I’m not sure why, but I seem to have hit a blogging wall where I really don’t feel that I have much to say or anything to write about. If there are things that any of you are curious about related to my life up here in Northern Town (or ManNorth’s), please feel free to ask. You could give me some ideas for future blog posts!

Some of you have been wondering about my new job. I’ve been enjoying it but am not sure just how much I’m ready to blog about it. For now, here’s an introduction to one aspect of it: what do I call it?

My position is an interesting one, in that it is a casual interim position with full time hours filling in for someone who is away and will be so for many months to come...and may or may not come back. No one seems to really know. My predecessor may come back this summer, but if she does, they also know that she has plans to go away again in September, which doesn’t really facilitate her filling a full time job here particularly well. There’s a long story which explains why she can be away and then leave again and still keep her position, but I won’t be telling it now.

I’d love to have this position officially and permanently but until I do, my name is not the one on the door, my files not the ones in the full to bursting enormous office file cabinets and my notes and books not the ones on the office shelves. All of this has meant that I’m not quite sure at times how I really fit in and when it’s appropriate to claim the job as mine. For instance, should I put my position title in my email signature or not? Will people (who know) wonder at my presumption when they know that I’m not the official –ologist on staff? I’ve even felt that I was doing something underhanded when on Monday and with my supervisor’s full approval, I replaced absent -ologist's (AO's) phone message and voice mail with my own message and name.

We been doing an end of the year inventory this week and I’ve needed to determine what equipment is stored in my office. The funny thing is that I don’t even know how to refer to my office. Do I call it mine? Do I call it AO’s? Do I call it by the name of the position we both fill? It’s strange. I’ve been calling it by all three names and feeling either like an imposter or simply awkward and silly as a result. While I debate such inanities with myself however, all the tasks that AO would be doing if AO were here have been given to me and we share the same job title in our job descriptions.

You might advise to just use the title and not worry about it but I've actually found it necessary when I introduce myself and my position, to qualify my stated position by saying that I’m “standing in for” or “here until” or “filling in for” AO until she returns. And yes, this is actually sometimes necessary, given the unusual politics in my workplace. (I’ll explain that later. Maybe.)

In the interest of brevity, which I seem to sorely lack, I’m going to finish with this: I enjoy my job and am thrilled to have it. I just don’t know what to call myself when I’m in it!

On Ignorance

I was party to an interesting conversation the other day and it centered on a theme that I’ve heard before in various places and by many people. It goes something like this according to the proponent:

If I don’t understand how something works, then nobody does and nobody can. Anyone who says they do understand this can’t be right and is therefore not to be trusted.

-A corollary of the above statement may also often be this: -And although I’ve nothing but hearsay and (wild) speculation to back up my position, I won’t try to find out if I’m wrong or if they’re right.

This sort of perspective can relate to any number of topics and in my experience, is extremely difficult to change. Adopting a different perspective would necessarily entail acknowledging ignorance in that area and accepting that someone else may know a great deal more about the topic of interest and that that’s okay.

For some people this different approach is a wonderful perspective to have as it allows one to challenge oneself to learn more. How else can one expect to learn and grow unless one recognizes that they don’t know everything and that they don’t need to be personally threatened by someone who knows more than they do?

As in the conversation I listened to, this can present serious challenges for the knowledgeable party who must inform (for various reasons) a less knowledgeable person about the relevant topic. If this occurs in an academic situation, usually no one bats an eye, as this is the typical state of affairs between an instructor and a student, but out in the public sphere authority isn’t so easily granted and may be challenged even when it is deserved. How to answer that challenge without making a bad situation worse may take no small amount of finesse or the challenge may be dismissed or avoided altogether. Sometimes, it’s just not worth it.

It's not you. It's me.

Although I accepted one job offer and have already started work, I didn't phone up the other company to decline their (soon to be formal) job offer immediately until I'd actually signed a contract for my new job. That happened today and so I just got off the phone with the owner of the rejected company to let them know I won't be working for them and I must say, I am glad to have that over with!

The owner was surprised, particularly as when he answered my call he'd jumped right into the salary and benefit details of the job before I could stop him and was also hoping that I'd be free for a curling tournament tomorrow that he'd already penciled me in for as a way of meeting some of his clients. He was obviously disappointed and caught rather off guard. He briefly tried convincing me to change my mind, declared that I'd have so much more fun with his company and then in response to my extremely awkward and flimsy attempt at honesty, without being too honest about why I turned his job down, he was gracious and understanding. He wished me well, said that I needed to do what was right for me and then invited me (and ManNorth) over to his house for coffee any time we felt like dropping by.

It was like an awkward high school break up and I'm still feeling badly, like I just broke some poor kid's heart. Is that a normal reaction to turning down a good job offer? I feel like such a bad person somehow. I do think though, that I made the right decision for me.

Some things you just don't forget

The recent news that the Toronto School Board is going to create an afrocentric school, despite much controversy and reports about the decision around the world (see here and here for instance), led to a discussion between ManNorth and me about how and when children learn about racial and cultural diversity and hopefully, also about the need for equality and kindness in their interactions with others.

Although I'm certain that my parents did their best to teach me to be a good kid, respectful of others, cognizant of diversity and desirous of equality for all, what made me really understand how hurtful racist behaviour can be was seeing the result of it firsthand, caused by none other than me.

It was in grade two when one of my classmates told me a joke at recess that seemed funny at the time. I can't remember the details now but it involved 4 people on a plane, the need to quickly jump out and only 3 parachutes. A Chinese man was the butt of the joke although I'm sure that the other 3 passengers were also racist stereotypes. I don't know what possessed me to pass it on, other than that I actually remembered the entire joke (which is rare for me to this day) but I did. In spite of knowing it wasn't a nice joke, I told it to David P. who then told it to Andy H, a cute little kid of Chinese heritage. Andy broke into tears, David (who didn't give me up) was severely disciplined by Mrs. F. and I felt terrible.

Andy wasn't a close friend of mine (although by grade 5 I had a HUGE crush on him) but he was my classmate and I liked him and I had done something that was cruel and made him feel sad and horribly aware of a difference he had from many of his classmates.

That was the moment that the lessons about racism made sense and it wouldn't have occurred if I'd had only classmates of the same heritage as me. I'd like to think that I would have treated any child equally, irrespective of their skin colour, if I'd never had a chance to be friends with kids who looked different than me, but I can't be sure.

I hope that the new school in Toronto is a success and is of help to kids who need it but I can't dismiss the positive impact that exposure to classroom diversity had on me and is likely having for thousands of other children in classrooms today.