On Being a Southerner

For years I have thought of myself as a Westerner – having grown up in Edmonton and Calgary, and having spent the majority of my life in SE Saskatchewan. On occasion I have waxed eloquently on the topic of Easterners.  “They don’t get us,” I have said. “They don’t understand or value our way of life.” And I never once thought that the same sorts of things could be said by Northeners about Southeners as naïve as I am.

In fact, I have never once thought of Canada as being a land of North and South. Nor did I ever think of myself as a Southerner, but I heard the term repeatedly throughout my visit. “He’s gone south,” Yellowknifers would say – and not in an envious sort of way. More like – “He’s gone to the Dark Side. We just lost another one.”

No duh. You might say. If you go North, then you must be from the South.

Okay, but as a Westerner I always viewed our rural way of life as about as slow-paced and down-to-earth as it gets. Now I have discovered a whole new perspective on RURAL on the population density continuum.  

And let’s keep in mind that residents of Inuvik would class Yellowknifers as Southerners too. Everything is relative.

I ended up in NWT because a good friend of mine is principal of a K-8 school in Yellowknife. She contacted the NWT Literacy Council. Lisa Campbell did a superb job of coordinating my visits to Weledeh, St. Pat’s High School, Sir John Franklin High School, St. Joe’s, William McDonald, and Range Lake School. The staff and students received me warmly in each location. The NWT Literacy Council also flew me (courtesy of First Air) to Fort Simpson, where I did a few more presentations. In all I did fifteen reading and writing workshops in five days. 

Here’s a few observations:

1.     People drive a great deal slower in Yellowknife than they do in Estevan. Drivers stop and wave and smile at pedestrians.  In this city of 20 000, there’s still a very small town attitude.

2.     Yellowknife is still very cosmopolitan – and multicultural – with many amenities of “the big city.” I attended a very classy Food First fund-raising event at Ecole Sir John Franklin School where Canadian Living editor Elizabeth Baird prepared three appetizers

3.     And the bush is generally only a stone’s throw away. Bears are often spotted in the neighborhood. Caribou migrate onto the lake when it freezes over. Giant ravens are everywhere.

4.     Yellowknife is a blend of contradictions – a DVD player sitting next to a stack of antlers in the city dump. A community kennel for sled dogs only a few miles from the state-of-the-art NACC.

5.     Two gold mines – Giant and Con — closed in the last decade. These locations bring back powerful emotions for every community member who lived here during the strike in 1992.

6.     Northerners know how to cook! I ate local fair at some of the local dining establishments – and was treated to Arctic Char, my favourite fish – served in three different ways. Pan-fried at Bullock’s, an establishment that prides itself on its brusque service. Eggs Frobisher Bay – a variation on Eggs Benedict — at the Explorer Hotel. And grilled on a skewer by one of the local restaurants at the Food First fundraiser. Delicious.

I don’t pretend for a minute to understand the complexities of the North. I just got to open the door a crack and see a little, much like my view of the sled dog kennels at Cam Lake. The three dogs I did see – not quite “wild” and not quite “tame” were just the tip of the iceberg.

So people go North for an adventure and never leave. One man – who has lived in White Horse for the past 28 years  (as long as I have been living in Saskatchewan) came there for a weekend without his coat or wallet and never left.

Maybe it has to do with the climate (of course the residents assured me the gorgeous weather I experienced during this last week of September was nothing like the two weeks of rain previous) or the geography or the isolation. You don’t have to move far from Yellowknife to feel like you’re really OUT THERE.

Flying in on Sunday evening, I peered out the window for a solid hour and saw nothing but an ebony pool.  No lights. No sign of habitation. Apart from flying over the Atlantic or Pacific, it’s not something I have ever experienced.

I said when I found out that I was making this journey that I didn’t care if I sold one book – it would be enough to be shown around and treated like a celebrity for a week. How naïve I was. And how humble I feel. I know I learned far more from the kids I spoke to than they learned from me.

Normally when I am away from home, I can’t wait to get back. This is the first time I have ever felt that I maybe was at home already.

I bought a heart pendant in Yellowknife, with three tiny Diavak diamonds.

I have a feeling I have left a little piece of my own heart – the heart of a Southerner — behind.

This entry was posted on October 11, 2008 at 4:28 pm and is filed under On Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.