bout de papier, Vol. 3, No. 3 (1985) — Fall 1985 // Automne 1985, pp. 30–31
The annual Arctic Tour is on,
So Ottawa’s diplomats will come to know
Canada better, its vertical dimension
Which Canadians, with lateral vision,
Scarcely do themselves appreciate.
A pride of sovereign representatives,
A clutch of Canadian hosts
accompanying,
Did set their course on seven of June
For near far-north at Frobisher,
Baffin’s ice and snowbound isle,
Abroad Canadian Forces flight
Three dash eight dash two and two.
A modest aircraft to be sure, but
Cosmopolitan,
Well crewed, reliable, ideally suited
For its mission of Arctic indoctrination.
The plan’s to carry on by DC-3
To Pangnirtung and meet with local
Esquimaux
(Inuit, we learn, is the proper term).
But Pang’s fogged in and we’re denied
Its fiordal beauty and display of Inuit art.
Instead it’s back to Frobisher
To settle down and overnight.
A southern allusion that,
For no night comes in this our land
Of June’s perpetual sun.
So we are shown the sights of Frobisher.
Saint Jude’s Cathedral, igloo-shaped,
And Inuit speaking British curate
The best attractions are, in this half-
thawed
Seat of regional northern governance.
The eight of June’s the day to wing
Across the notable latitude, to north of
66 –
The Arctic Circle’s cross our track
To world’s north-most mine of lead and
True Arctic adventures now begin, at
Nanisivik.
A transit cross the Northwest Passage
To Resolute on Cornwallis Isle.
A brief respite to view that sometime
base
Of Queen Elizabeth’s northern
archipelago
Of vast dimensions, frozen land and sea.
Then further on and still toward the North
To Melville Island’s eastern shore –
Point Rea,
Whence Pan Arctic for hydrocarbons
drills.
Our first insight how, on frozen land
and sea,
The North’s modern explorers do deploy.
Overnight at Rea, we all are fully briefed
On Canada’s most northern benefits of
gas.
And some do helicopt to view
Musk oxen herds which somehow thrive
On solid frozen, still snow-covered
ground.
Now southward bound for Inuvik,
(Another northern seat of government)
On MacKenzie River’s delta broad.
We skirt Banks Island to the north,
enroute
To landfall at Cape Parry’s settlement.
Dewline site and winter harbour this,
Of Dome Petroleum’s fleet of drilling
ships,
All caught up in stubborn ice.
The MacDonald’s moving to break the
grudging way
Cross sixty miles to drilling site in open
Beaufort Sea.
The tree line’s back, near Tuktoyaktuk.
(Prononce that and everyone will own
You’ve had the fortune to go North)
Here Inuit conduct their hamlet’s own
affairs
And set example of cooperation to
mutual benefit.
A welcome warm we get at Tuk
And witness ancient Inuit drummer’s
dance.
And we outsiders pressed, do join
In stamp of feet and gesticulate
With arms out-thrust like ancient
Inukshuk.
Back to Inuvik, past ice-thrust-up Pingos,
Hill-like features of this Arctic tundra
coast,
To be received by local citizenry,
And be challenged without forewarn
To field an international team
For baseball in the midnight sun.
The diamond’s gravel, imagine that!
It makes for early casualties –
We’re three away before the game’s
begun.
We taste inflation at the hospital,
To swab a minor wound and apply
bandaid,
Guess what, costs forty dollars!
But the game’s the thing and so it was
Enjoyed by all, with umpire most
accommodating.
Four strikes, says he, not three, for VIP’s.
No matter, most still fanned, though
managed
To score a run or two and place in doubt
Who really won what had to be a draw.
So buoyed up were the visitors
They lingered on, in interview, to record,
By CBC (whom else, that far north?)
Their exploits, to be broadcast nationally,
Of baseball played by rank outsiders
Under glaring midnight sun.
Next, Yukon bound for Dawson City
Through Old Crow, most northern
Indian settlement,
Whose residents are occupied with
traditional hunt
(It’s ratting time out on the Flats
North of the Porcupine.) So southern
visitors
A restful peregrination make of that
unique community.
Some visit Edith Josie, renowned Indian
scribe,
Who announces to the world outside,
“Here are the news!”
Of Old Crow, of course, and who lives
there
And how they feel and fare,
Who visits and from where and why.
And so our visit was inscribed in Yükon
Indian News.
Then south across tall Ogilvy Mountain
peaks,
God’s country, this, without the flies,
Which we did most luckily precede.
And so to Dawson City of worldwide
fame,
Stampeders’ town of Klondyke Gold
Rush days,
To be refashioned soon, a planned
historic site.
And we are fêted in most friendly
friendly style
By governing ladies, Commissioner and
Mayor.
And our own lady High Commissioner
Is much at home with occupants
Of modern Yukon’s seats of power.
Gone the days of ’96, and leading lady
Lou.
The daylight night’s reserved for Follies
At restored Opera House, a good and
lively frolic
Capped off ad hoc by native son, Pierre
Burton,
Who “readicites”, with typical
accomplishment and flair,
Sam McGee’s most celebrated
cremation,
By Robert Service, Gold Rush poet
laureate.
And where from Opera House, but
where else?
The Opera crowd repairs en masse
To Diamond Tooth Gertie’s celebrated
saloon.
There more follies and folly, if gambling’s
that.
A night in daylight on the town,
Less strenuous than baseball, but in
ways more draining.
Sunday’s bright and warm, time to
recreate
The Gold Rush. All are eager for the sight
of gold!
Up Bonanza Creek, through piles of
gravel
Long since moiled and screened of gold,
But there’s some left, at Poverty Bar-
we can’t miss!
Dust for all and, for our lady, a nugget
small.
South again to Whitehorse, Yukon’s
capital,
Southern, northern frontier hub,
South of Lake Laberge (Sam McGee’s
own crematorium),
Where, to our surprise, nuggets are
more plentiful
Than at Bonanza Creek, but for a price
of course,
In Murdoch’s fine emporium.
Miles Canyon’s now placid waters hide
The torrent once that was the Yukon
River here,
One of countless obstacles which must
be overcome
By those who, after ninety-six, came that
way
In search of Yukon’s just discovered
gold –
The mother lode of Eldorado.
Transportation’s still the key to overall
development,
The paddle steamer’s long land-bound,
Replaced by truck and train and
aeroplane.
The railway to the coast and famed
Alaska Highway,
Provides potential pipeline right-of-way.
All this and more recorded in stained glass
In just completed, handsome government
edifice.
The ambition long has been to link by
road
The North’s resource to Canada’s
outside.
Now Dempster Highway boldly thrusts
O’er Mounties’ one-time dogsled trail,
North From Dawson clear to Inuvik.
Canada: ad mari usque ad mari,
And now as well to northern sea.
Six days out and heading east by south,
We cross MacKenzie’s mountains high,
En route to Yellowknife, modern
northern territorial capital.
Down the famed Nahanni – river of no
return –
Where legends do abound, of headless
men.
But that was long ago, when Virginia Falls
Were nameless, tho’ twice as high as
famed Niagara.
At Yellowknife the vast Canadian shield,
pre-Cambrian rock,
Scrub growth called bush, uranium, lead
and zinc abound
In Great Slave Lake’s most productive
mines.
While some transport’s by water, it’s
very much air.
Small wonder they do here commemorate
The so-called bush pilot-living legend –
who was the key
To opening up these spawling northern
territories.
Honoured by Commissioner, all must
speak their piece.
The trip has clearly made its mark.
The diplomats, with professional
observation, note
The vast Canadian North, its native
people’s purpose,
The frontier pressed, with technological
thirst,
For gas and oil and minerals and all of
nature’s vast largesse.
It has been, they all agree, a unique
experience.
The last stop’s at Fort Smith, hard by
Alberta’s northern bound and Wood
Buffalo National Park,
Nesting ground of near-extinct whooping
crane:
Here native people learn new skills and
trades.
And we are hosted by ebullient,
indefatigable Mayor, who
Now 80 odd, still going strong, in person
does present
The spirit and fibre that has built the
North.
Mission completed, near 10,000
kilometres logged.
A week’s gone by, so much seen and
heard
For foreign representatives and
accompanying Canucks,
New friends, new knowledge, a week
well spent,
A wider base from which to better judge
What happens in this conundrumical
land.
View the original scanned pages →
Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 3, No. 3 (1985) — Fall 1985 // Automne 1985, pp. 30–31. Read the rest of this issue →
