A Whale of a Time

A week in Churchill, Manitoba. July 2018

Once upon a time we used to make fun of the caricatures we met along the road. There was always the older fellow (late 20’s?), still hipply staying at Youth Hostels, pulling out his guitar to save the dwindling (escaping?) party, his eye on the bright young thing in the corner. Or a German couple with matching glasses stained purple on top to make it look like permanent eye-shadow. How times have changed. Now we are the caricatures.

Travellers we have met:

a) The ‘fun’ older couple, reliving their youthful exploits, keen as mustard to kick off this new chapter only to find that they can’t actually walk that far and need to rest their ample bodies on the nearest bench and await everyone else’s return. They always go first, wheezing their vast buttocks slowly along narrow passages, attempting and failing to lift their baggage up-stairs. Everyone else waits.

b) The old gal doing it alone. She who chirpily announces to the group that she has figured out the toilet in her room ALL BY HERSELF! She enters the room with two walking sticks, an American flag scarf draped around her shoulders and a shrill but exuberant “Good morning”. She, who tries to do everything and accompanies her failing efforts with cheery shrieks and helpless giggles. Everyone else must tell her what is happening next and help her carry her bags.

c) The 25th anniversary couple: seriously overweight, dour, dull and way younger than anyone married that long should be. They are afraid of getting wet and not willing to go anywhere when there are all those bugs.

d) The know it all: bird watcher, global traveller and self-proclaimed capable individual extraordinaire. A bevy of elderly housewives fawn over her dominating expertise. She has a vast bosom and knows all things, including the number of deaths and disease caused by drinking from a public water fountain at airport. Never do that!

e) The morbidly obese, dyed hair, coke drinking, burger-eating, non-exercising-but-wearing-lycra individual who refuses to drink from a particular cup because of potential lead poisoning.

Groan. Welcome to Americans on tour in Canada.

Most of you will by now know that we took a train from Winnipeg heading to Hudson Bay, Canada. The journey started with a rather amusing crew who manually intoned the ‘dong dong dong’ that precedes announcements before speaking over the loudspeaker. The ride was quite lovely, through the boreal forest and into the tundra. It was raining quite hard, and apparently had been for a while. Which is why we met with a rather large puddle at 50kph - the rain had washed the rails out. Three carriages of the train derailed with a huge whiplashy lurch. We were tucked up in our bunks and felt the carriage tilt one way, snap to the other side, then return to the first side in slow motion. We were convinced it was going over, but it settled back in time. A few pax were thrown from their beds but for the most part, we were ok. That’s when the fun started.

It was dark – which is bad timing as it is only dark for a few short hours up here in summer. We were remote, so no cell phone coverage. There are no nearby roads, and nothing but rushing black water all around. Immediately, the bird-watching contingent announced with great authority that things were dire, and that we would not be rescued for at least 6 hours! They were going to dress immediately and be ready for anything. One of them went all the way through Girl Scouts you know.

After a bit of toing and froing (things get confused so it took about an hour…) we (16 passengers and five crew) assembled in the dining car. We learned that the train drivers (Engineers in this part of the world) had been thrown about quite violently, and had struggled to get out of the engines. Water had been seeping in, darkness, radios not working etc. Quite the drama. Someone had emergency pinged a radio tower – whatever that means – so we weren’t too bothered. One of the chaps was clearly a bit sore, and in leapt the aging bird ladies! “OMG, let me look at your ribs” (quick glance under shirt). “Broken, definitely broken. God, we need to get this bandaged. You need ice, you need to sit down. Tail bone, you may have cracked your tail bone…”

All this was spoken in a rapidly rising crescendo. I could tell from the way he was moving that they were not broken, and that she was spinning and trying to maintain control, so I calmly (we were cool OK!!) asked if she was a doctor. She promptly and somewhat huffily retorted that she wasn’t – but her father had been a fireman! Awesome. I got some ice for the seriously overweight engineer, who in all seriousness, said it was really fortunate that he had so much muscle – a lesser man might have been really hurt!!!

We did eventually make it to Churchill, on Hudson Bay where they have the biggest flies you have ever seen! We spent time on in and under the water with Beluga, which is utterly magical and saw a polar bear in the wild from a helicopter. The place is really something.

Currrently in Alaska trying to find something other than burgers to eat. Not hopeful.