<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML><HEAD>
<META content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" http-equiv=Content-Type>
<META name=GENERATOR content="MSHTML 8.00.6001.19298">
<STYLE></STYLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY bgColor=#ffffff>
<DIV><FONT face="Palatino Linotype">Hi et salut hallo f_minorites,</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Palatino Linotype"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Palatino Linotype">Been busy lately, pecked about the
ankles by angry ducks ... so I'm sorry if I haven't posted much lately.
</FONT><FONT face="Palatino Linotype">But I faithfully read (almost)
every post.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Palatino Linotype"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Palatino Linotype">* * *</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Palatino Linotype"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Palatino Linotype">Between the last week of September and
the first week or two of October, (mostly male adolescent) polar bears will make
their annual migration around and through the tiny Hudson Bay freight shipping
port town of Churchill, Manitoba Canada.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Palatino Linotype"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Palatino Linotype">I guess rich pervs can comfortably fly
there, but for Normal Human Beings, you catch a train (diesel, 'cause you're
going Way Off The Electric Grid) in Winnipeg and head North through the vast
gorgeous Canadian forest wilderness for 2.5 days until -- far beyond the Tree
Line, in Arctic permafrost tundra -- it finally reaches Churchill.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Palatino Linotype"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Palatino Linotype">(Like all beach towns, you'll be just a
block or two from the beach, which is the astonishingly otherworldly Hudson
Bay.)</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Palatino Linotype"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Palatino Linotype">One Human Being who rode this
train there and back again was Glenn Gould. In 1967 the CBC asked what he'd
like to contribute to a big Anniversary, and GG took a tape
recorder and talked to the passengers riding this train to the Canadian
North. The result -- after GG's revolutionary mixing -- was his first radio
documentary, "The Idea of North."</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Palatino Linotype"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Palatino Linotype">(If you've never heard TIoN, a
little web shopping or library surfing could get all three
radiodocs to your ears in a few days.)</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Palatino Linotype"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Palatino Linotype">It's my wish that the world-unique train
trip, the wilderness, and annual polar bear migration might seduce just 1 or 2
or maybe 3 addled f_minorites to investigate buying a round-trip seat or sleep
box on This Amazing Train.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Palatino Linotype"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Palatino Linotype">I promise any GG fan addled and
irresponsible enough (as I once was) only The Adventure of a
Lifetime. I promise nothing more than that. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Palatino Linotype"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Palatino Linotype">(Except up-close-and-personal encounters
with polar bears, polar bear warning signs, barred doors up and down main street
to keep out the poar bears ... )</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Palatino Linotype"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Palatino Linotype">For a week you'll be Less Than No. 1 on the
Food Chain. Running shoes are much better than great wildnerness
boots.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Palatino Linotype"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Palatino Linotype">For whacks like me, this is one of the most
famous train journeys on the planet, the subject not just of TIoN, but
of documentaries that have peppered TV for decades.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Palatino Linotype"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Palatino Linotype">Likely, you've waited too long to book this
famous trip -- but it's been my experience that if you want a journey bad
enough, and you whine, and bribe, and lie, and wheedle, and then just show
up waving cash, they usually find space for you and your
backpack.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Palatino Linotype"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Palatino Linotype">Or for you and a pal, and both your
backpacks.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Palatino Linotype"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Palatino Linotype">The crammed snack bar car -- this is a
heavy-drinking frontier train, affordable transportation for
the people in these parts -- is possibly the most interesting
cage of colorful people I've ever spent hours in.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Palatino Linotype"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Palatino Linotype">You could semi-officialize
something This Train has never had -- a living, travelling memorial to GG's
1967 trip, what it meant to him, and what it did to his creative life. By
just chatting with passengers, or lending them flash drives of TIoN,
f_minor could treat Glenn to another train ride to Churchill. Glenn made
Hudson Bay his own just as much as Toronto.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Palatino Linotype"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Palatino Linotype">The buzz is that Churchill is the
world's hottest, most active spot to view the Aurora. It sure looked
astonishing to me. The Native-Canadians are mostly Inuit, some Swampy Cree, they
have their own (missionary-introduced) alphabet, and if you are lucky they will
share some of their experience with you. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Palatino Linotype"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Palatino Linotype">The food's very interesting, some of it
stunningly delicious, and unobtainable in civilized regions. (Calling Churchill
"civilized" would be a stretch.)</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Palatino Linotype"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Palatino Linotype">In my Amazing Adventure, there was no
hint, no rumor, no whisper that the polar bear -- the largest and best
hunter-carnivore on Earth, mostly it hunts seals on winter ice -- might be
coming to the end of its mellennia as undisputed ruler of the circumpolar
Arctic. The anomolous numbers of polar bear drownings hadn't yet been reported
by US federal scientists. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Palatino Linotype"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Palatino Linotype">GG's earlier trip ditto -- everyone assumed
the great and dangerous wild polar bear migration would be there for humans to
marvel at forever.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Palatino Linotype"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Palatino Linotype">So now, as you ponder a wildly
irresponsible and impulsive adventure, there's an added urgency. We're looking
at a future, some now think in our lifetimes, when there'll still be polar
bears ... but only in the world's zoos. As the polar ice melts, the wild
bears will drown trying to swim to the next ice cake.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Palatino Linotype"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Palatino Linotype">If you are completely impulsive and
irresponsible -- bring me back photos and souvenirs, send me a
postcard!</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Palatino Linotype"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Palatino Linotype">Bob</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Palatino Linotype">Massachusetts USA</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Palatino Linotype"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial><STRONG><FONT face="Courier New">News, Global
Warming, Mozart, Sports, Intergalactic Travel, sausages, <BR>VOLCANOS!!! opera,
PIRATES!!! Filth in Extinct Lingos, </FONT></STRONG></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial><STRONG><FONT face="Courier New">Big Integers &
BOINC: </FONT></STRONG><A href=""><FONT size=2
face="Courier New"><STRONG>http://VleeptronZ.blogspot.com/</STRONG></FONT></A><BR><FONT
size=2 face="Courier New"><STRONG>Remarkable Older Stuph: </STRONG></FONT><A
href=""><FONT size=2
face="Courier New"><STRONG>http://Vleeptron.blogspot.com/</STRONG></FONT></A><BR><BR></FONT><FONT
size=2 face=Arial></FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>