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and i like her…and miss her.
“Imagine a map of the world. Draw a line straight north from Gallup, New Mexico, through Cody, Wyoming, and Red Lodge, Montana, past Swift Current, Saskatchewan, and on up from Lake Athabasca to the Arctic Ocean. Now find Mount McKinley in Alaska, and with an east-west line connect it to the southern tip of Baffin Island, or over the North Atlantic to Reykjavik and Lillehammer. Where those two lines cross, in the Northwest Territories of Canada, a small river called the Hoarfrost spills down from the tundra into the northeast tip of a cold, vast lake.
The intersection, this place, is twelve miles north of a dot some maps and globes still show, a dot that is labelled “Reliance”. That dot marks the site of an abandoned weather station and trading post. Reliance is both a physical point of reference and a suitable metaphor; my wife Kristen and I live twelve miles north of Reliance.”
This is the start of David Olesen’s book ‘North of Reliance’, which we are reading for my Dogsledding. This is where I will be going a week and a half from today.
A week and a half from today I get to experience Reliance.
This class as been a mix of the best English class I have ever been in, mixed with the most advanced Home Ec class, with a crazy Phys Ed class on the side. We have been digging deep into personal narratives and are getting ready to start putting our own together. But we won’t start officially, however, until we experience Reliance.
A week and a half from today.
A week and a half from today I will be flying with Candice to Yellowknife, staying with some of our prof’s friends, see Liz, see Cody and Dana, do a Augustana info session at one of the high schools, meet up with the group, practice snowshoeing, and pile into a mini plane to fly out to the Hoarfrost.
The Hoarfrost is an area where Dave Olesen and his family live and raise dogs. Anything I would say about what they do would seem so minimal compared to what their lives actually include. But to quickly throw together some of it would be to say simply that they fly, mush, sled, live sustainably and experience life an a way that I hope that i wish I had the courage to. I STRONGLY encourage you all to read his book to get a glimpse into his life and into the land. I have been significantly impacted by this book especially in how he creates this environment that invites you into his world. The lifestyle that he has developed and the way he describes the land and the solstices and the caribou make my impatience to get up there unbearable!
There is part of Dave’s inner person that I find a connection with…
“Northern Canada has always appealed to me more than the State of Alaska. In a pattern that has kept my life both interesting and unorthodox, I have always tended to reject the common thinking. If one lives in the United States, and one wants to move to the far north, one moves to Alaska – that is the standard progression. There are no immigration applications to be made, and all that is required is a good dose of gumption and a vehicle capable of making it to Anchorage or Fairbanks. That move seemed straightforward and relatively simple to me; it was the logical move for a person with my background and my cravings. It was clearly the sensible thing to do, and therefore I had no desire to do it.”
I find my self more and more not wanting what is typical, not wanting to do what may be expected of me, and sure as hell not wanting that damn white picket fence! So I am excited to explore this part of Dave’s personality and am really pumped to be on the trail with him and to get to know him that way.
So as the time crunch is killing us, we can’t help but countdown the days to the tundra!
On another note, the birthday party of boys I had yesterday at the climbing wall called me a ninja and told me they were so excited to tell their friends that they learnt how to wall climb from a ninja. I am assuming that means they thought I was cool and maybe a little bit talented? Maybe they even thought i was a MINJA!!! (I can only hope!).
