Twenty years ago this week I was returning to Thunder Bay from Rankin Inlet, having just completed a stint as a student teacher. It was my first time in the eastern arctic. At the time it was Rankin Inlet, Northwest Territories. Reaching a milestone like 20 years in the arctic could be a good time to write about how I deeply understand the north and that I’m a real northerner now. Twenty years here has taught me I don’t know enough to write that article, and if you want to know that, there are better sources than me.
As someone who spent 18 years growing up in rural Ontario, then 9 years travelling the country and going to school, then 20 years in the arctic, I do feel qualified to comment on some important differences between the north and the south. I will of course be impartial and fair in my comparisons. I wouldn’t want to offend ‘southerners’ (that’s southern Canadians. If you aren’t sure if you are part of southern Canada, you are. This includes you, Edmonton). There are way more of you than there are of us, and if I offend you, you might jump in your trucks and SUVs and drive to Nunavut to set me straight. (If you don’t know why that is funny, you are a southerner.)
1) Sounds
When I first came north to Rankin Inlet 20 years ago, it was a hard decision to come. I really wanted to come, but I had almost no money and flights north are shocking the first time you look at them (they continue to be frightening the 1000th time you look at them, but if you keep being shocked by something that doesn’t change, you either have a problem with your memory or you have too high expectations for things to change). After the first weekend I knew every last penny was worth it. The first thing that got me hooked was the warm welcome and outgoing friendliness of everyone I met. The second thing was the sounds. I remember going outside and sitting on a little hill near where I was staying. I remember the crisp, hollow, melodic crunch of the snow that you only get with wind-blown -30C snow. I remember the sound of dogs howling, and the occasional snowmobile. I also remember the silence. It was beautiful, and it still is. The north sounds different than the south. I’m certainly not one to judge, of course, but the north sounds way better.
One point for the North.
2) Cities
Cities are what you get if you take all the people and places you really like, and put 1000 other people and places between each of them. If you take all the people and things that aren’t part of your life away from a city, you get a small town. City folks think they are living in the centre of the action, and that small towns are for the people who don’t know enough to move to the city. Well, people in small towns think that the problem with cities are mostly the people who think that.
One point for small towns everywhere, but we don’t have city people driving in here for the weekend, so one point for the north.
3) Trees
Southerners come here and say: ‘it’s so barren’. If you can find any reporting by a southern reporter describing the arctic without using the word ‘barren’, or ‘desolate’, send it my way and I’ll frame it and put it on the wall. It is not barren here. We have lots of plants, they are just small. Please don’t judge us on the size of our plants. The tundra is amazing. Trees just block the view. (No, I’m not advocating clearcutting, I’m just happy to not have trees, naturally, here.) Snowmobile, skis, foot, or dog team, we can go any direction. There is no place more free than a good tree-less tundra, thank you very much.
One point for the north (okay, the arctic part, anyway).
4) Ex-northerners
There are a lot of ex-northerners. Here I am focusing on those that came from the south in the first place. There are those born-and-raised here that move around for school, work, etc. That’s a different group of people and I have no desire to make fun of them. So back to the revolving door of southerners coming and going. These ‘ex-northerners’ are all over southern Canada. They are likely the closest thing to a northerner most southerners will ever meet. This is unfortunate. There are three kinds of these ‘ex-northerners’:
1) The transient workers who never really were northerners but think they were. They often speak with great confidence about what the north is like, with a particular focus on what is wrong with it and how they could fix it no problem.
2) Those that left bitter. They are bitter that they weren’t elected Premier. They are bitter that, even though they were hired to do a job they never would have qualified for down south and were paid six figures with no relevant experience, they worked their butt off doing three jobs because of vacancies and got no thanks for it. So they have punished Nunavut by taking their three years of experience and the money they squirrelled away and bought a comfortable house down south. We are very, very, sorry to see you go. Very. We will do our best to fill the big hole by, who were you again?
3) Those that rave about how great the north is. They loved their time here. It was special. It was rewarding. They will never forget it. Ask them why they left and they will say: ‘Oh, I paid off my student loans’, or ‘my kids got to be school age and, you know…the schools…’, or ‘well, it was a fun adventure, but you wouldn’t want to live there!’. To be fair, this category also includes those that left for health care access, or for post-secondary education, or to be closer to family who needed them, or because their spouse fits in one of the categories above and dragged them away. I’ll give those people a pass just like the northerners that leave for those reasons. (There is also a very small group that left for a legitimate career promotion that was hard to turn down, and I guess I will allow it, but everyone will put themselves in this last category, and they will believe it, but don’t buy it).
Do I sound bitter? I have seen good people go – lots of them. But some going away parties are, well, parties. There is a scar left by it, though, and that’s why I wish it weren’t so. When I first arrived in Pangnirtung as a teacher in August 1999, the first question most kids asked was ‘how long are you staying’? It takes a toll.
No one gets a point. We feel the sting of questioning our attachments to those that we think will probably leave again soon, and the south is stuck with the ex-northerners.
5) The Cold
Fur is certainly optional in most of southern Canada, and is generally a fashion thing, not a survival thing. Wearing fur is offensive to some in the south. Here even vegetarians wear fur. I’ve gone through many pairs of southern-made mitts, and even the leather ones have lousy plastic layers inside that crack and break. Fur is the traditional way, and manufacturing still can’t come close to matching fur.
Go find an extension cord. Grab it about two metres from the end. Hold it up shoulder high. I bet the end of the extension cord is on the ground by your feet if you are a southerner, and you feel silly for listening to me. When I do that, on a -30C day (like today), the extension cord sticks straight out like a two metre long stick. I have heard from mechanics that rubber at -30C can wear away steel. Yup, it is cold here. Similarly, every time I buy hiking boots I check the soles, and the manufacturers assure me they use nice soft natural rubber and they will be grippy even in the cold. I get the boots here and many have the grip (and sound) of tap dance shoes.
One more example: scraping car windows. A ‘cold’ day down south, scraping car windows has the feel of grating a firm cheese. Here, it is like removing dried paint with a spoon. Most northerners with cars just let their car warm up for half an hour before their 6 minute drive around town, but that’s not exactly a win.
Southerners think for sure they score the point here, but hang on, Northerners are proud of being hardy, and Inuit in particular can be super proud of a long history of being hardy, resilient, adaptable and innovative. A point to the south for not having to buy a new pair of mitts and a new extension cord every second Tuesday. A point to the north because we’ll take a cold winter that lets us get out and do wintery things and the south can keep their sweaty summers. Remember, you can put clothes on, but you can only take so much off. I am tempted to take a half point away from the south for whining about the cold as you walk around in fancy little shoes, indoor pants, gloves, and no hat. But I’m above that. That’s why I didn’t mention it.
Break Time
This combative north versus south business is exhausting, so I think we should take a break. To call this a north versus south thing is very divisive, of course, which is why I didn’t just do that. We can all get along, right? So it isn’t about the score.
But that doesn’t change the fact that the north is up 4 – 1 at this point. Wooooya! Tune in next week for the stunning conclusion, and I gotta warn you, things tighten up in the second half…
