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.
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
