The Pre-Trip Blog Post

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So I've buckled to the "pressure" (i.e. requests from a couple of friends) and decided to create a travel blog. I'm not going on vacation, or backpacking (at least in the traditional sense), rather I'll still be working full-time and will still be in the same province -- just a different part of the province. And Ontario is a fairly big province.

In three days I'll be leaving my downtown Toronto condo to live and work in Northern Ontario for six months.

How did I come across such an opportunity? Well, I happen to be fortunate enough to have found a job where I get to do what I love, biology and environmental work. The organization that I work for is based out of Toronto (hence my current location) but operates across the entire province, including the "remote communities" in the north, above the 50 degree latitude line. In my almost 2 years at my current job, I have been lucky enough to travel all over southwestern Ontario, getting to make site visits from Point Pelee to the Bruce Peninsula (both of which, by the way, are absolutely gorgeous in the fall -- I still can't believe I got paid to take trips there). I have gotten to do incredibly interesting and exciting work, and have gotten to meet some very cool people.

Well, it turns out that they want us young people to "rotate" around the organization, get to see some things that they normally wouldn't get to see in their home department. Normally this involves moving to a different department within the same head office, or at the most maybe a field rotation in southern Ontario, places like Barrie, Pickering or Belleville. I can't remember who brought up the idea of going up to the remote communities division -- it was only really ever mentioned in passing -- but as soon as I heard it I knew that's where I'd be going.

I've been to the northern Ontario before, and loved it very time, but I'm almost embarrassed to make the comparison to where I'll be this summer. When I was 15 I spent 23 days in Lake Superior Provincial Park doing an Outward Bound course. As a young and fairly shy nerdy kid, it was probably the first time I really "came out of my shell" and although I didn't want to go at the time, was probably the best thing my parents ever forced on me. It was also my first exposure to the north, 3 weeks of hiking, canoeing and portaging that really imbued in me a special appreciation for how beautiful and interesting this country really is. The second venture up north I had was during university, during the fall of 2006. I'd landed a co-op job in Sault Ste. Marie and spent 4 months living in the residence of another school, Algoma University, while working a 9-5 desk job. Although this second trip up north didn't involve nearly as much wilderness or adventure (the work was beyond mind-numbing), I did end up with another revelation: namely, that uprooting myself and getting out of my comfort zone for a while was, in fact, kind of fun.

And so that's how I ended up where I am now. When I saw the chance to drop everything and go immerse myself in one of the places that held so much mystique to me, I had to go along with it. It actually took quite a bit more paperwork (and time) than usual because no one had gone up there recently. I'm sure it's been done in the past, but apparently it was far enough in the past that we had to draw up new work and expense agreements. A bit tedious, but all that matters is that on Tuesday morning I'm getting on that plane. I mean really, how many chances does one get to just leave normal life behind and go somewhere completely new, while keeping their cool job? And how many more would I ever come across if I let this one slide?

So what now? Well, I'll be based out of Thunder Bay, not exactly a tiny city (actually two cities merged into one) and I will go north from there: a week in this remote community, a week in that First Nations reserve, and so on. I won't be up there the entire time, I'll aim to come back to Toronto maybe once every 6 weeks, but the bulk of my time for the next 6 months will be spent in Ontario's "No-Man's Land". I do not yet have a place of my own in Thunder Bay because quite simply, it may not be worth it to get a place. The first 3 weeks I'll be up there I'll be in a hotel by the airport, and I could very well spend the next 6 months going from this hotel to the staff houses in the remote communities and back. Despite the lack of storage space, I think it would be kind of cool to spend 6 months without a permanent home, living out of a backpack- although we'll see how I feel about that once I start.

I don't really know what to expect once I arrive up north, and this has put me in an awkward position as of late because I've also been trying to get everything ready for my departure. Because of the nature of my work I already have some of the gear I'll need for the field, but I still have had to go out and buy a few things. I spent way too much time trying to pick out a pocket knife, and opted for a ridiculous and apparently indestructible Smith & Wesson (yeah, the guys who make magnums) folding blade. I don't really know why I felt compelled to buy a good knife, but it seemed like a useful tool. I've also had some help- the small bit of backpacking I've done has meant that I still have some good travel gear, and my little brother got me a solid survival kit for Christmas, in case my chopper goes down or something. Still on the shopping list is a nice raincoat and the most powerful bug repellent known to mankind. I've already stopped eating bananas, which apparently will make me less attractive to bugs.

A few coworkers have been up to the remote communities, and I could probably summarize everything I've heard in these two points: 1) It is amazing and beautiful and 2) I am in for a culture shock. I've been told that above 50, it's a whole different world, and as much as I enjoy the odd adventure, I've spent far too long in my current comfort zone to be able to anticipate what I might come across up north. I spent this morning prying the brain of my friend and coworker Adam, an environmental guy-turned-First Nations analyst who has taken quite a few trips up to Thunder Bay and the northern communities for his line of work. Apart from the usual places to eat/drink/see, he did subtly drop the hint that some of these places were "quite different" from what I'm used to. Rest assured, although I have no idea what I'll see or experience up north, it will be posted here.

Which brings me to my last point, why I am keeping this travel blog in the first place. I could claim that it's because a couple of friends bugged me to, or that I'm scared shitless of telling the same stories over and over, but really it's because I wanted a place to document everything that I do, see, hear and feel over the next 6 months. I've never blogged before, in fact I've never even kept a journal or diary, not even when traveling, and since I don't know when I'll have another chance to do something like this, I felt that a travel blog would be a good way for me to end up with some kind of record of what will hopefully be my biggest adventure yet. I've told I'm a half-decent writer when I try, so here's the test I guess.

Next update will be from Thunder Bay. Wish me a good trip.

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