i have so much to write about that i don't know how to do it

The HMCS Shawinigan officer in the background looks pretty impressed, eh?

So I'm back from the first leg of my Operation Nanook experience.

I originally wrote this Friday night/Saturday morning (before departing for Kimmirut -- which was probably the coolest experience I've had in quite a while -- more to come) but, Iqaluit internet connection being what it is, I couldn't upload any pictures, so I didn't post this until now (Sunday night), even though I could only upload one picture. I will put more up when this internet starts behaving.

(Also, just as a side-note, I've found it's so much easier to write when life

is very boring. The more that happens, the more I'm compelled to write, and the longer it takes to get everything that's cool in somehow. But this recounting of long days means this is probably a lot more personal, and journal-like, and less interesting for someone else to read, as opposed to the bored brain meanderings that usually fill this page up.)

Anyways, to move this thing along, loyal reader,

I had beers at the Legion tonight, in a room half-lit and I was leaning all night, falling off my seat almost, trying to get back onto solid ground.

That sounds pathetic, I'm sure, but I spent 52 consecutive hours on the ocean (minus a brief, 5-minute embarkment on a random Baffin Island Island) and I was honestly -- honestly -- trying to get my legs back.

I can't put most of my good pictures on here -- only the ones I took on my crap Panasonic -- because I was on assignment (pompous way of saying I was working). So the pictures I took on the other camera belong to THE MAN.

So what a bizarre, sporadic, and temporary odyssey into a life I could never imagine.

The discipline. The adventure. The boredom. The routine. The unpredictable.

I spent the last three days and two nights on a Coast Guard Icebreaker, and two navy warships -- HMCS Toronto and HMCS Shawinigan.

Talk about discipline... gives a new meaning to the saying "pearly whites." I reluctantly erased many Picasso's over the three days I was on Coast Guard and Navy ships.

I told many a navy and coast guard personnel how much I envied/admired/could not comprehend/could never do what they did. A good portion of the crew on the HMCS Toronto had been aboard for over 6 months. They'd been through a tour around the entire coast of Africa and seen (and saved three people in a boat from) a volcano eruption off the coast of Yemen, and had recently returned from an exercise in Ireland. The Coast Guard folk, a little more laid back, had been on shift for three weeks and had another three to go.

The experience was something new -- given this really unique access from a group of organizations that want good publicity. And being paraded around to things you're not quite sure if you're interested in writing about, and being supervised at all times and handled with gloves.

The kid got his first helicopter ride -- which landed on the Coast Guard ship and then a Navy warship. We circled a giant iceberg and the two boats, which steamed along alone in the Arctic bay. It was a site.

Went on tundra patrols in a rubber boat in the absolutely pristine and untouched bay, staring off for miles and miles, with so much visibility that the horizon loses colour. We had to climb up and down the 15-foot side of the warship on a dangling rope ladder to get into the raft. I was a little shaky the first time, but kind of got the hang of it by the end. That was so cool.

I'm getting paid to climb down a warship on a rope ladder into a rubber raft to rip around vastly untouched Frobisher Bay? Thumbs up, indeed. It would be two thumbs, but I was probably pinching myself (PG-version of jackin' it) with the other hand.

Saw a seal and a 30-foot high iceberg break in half and walked around an island that looked like a temple, it was so weathered from ice and wind and water. I honestly wondered how many people had ever set their eyes on some of the things we saw.

Arrr... she melted fores I could get 'er on de scale, matey. (Or were pirates saying Metis?)

I got a glimpse into Navy and Coast Guard life. The coast guard had about 40 people on board -- all French (spoken language, labels, everything). For comparison's sake, the Navy ship had around 200, and they were the same size. The Coast Guard felt like a cruise after being aboard HMCS Toronto for 24 hours.

Poster aboard HMCS Shawinigan:

"I'm sorry, Mr. Selleck. This is the Navy, not Hawaii in the early, mid-eighties. We have rules."

Gotta give it to the Navy and Coast Guard though. The beers were much cheaper than in town. The Coast Guard had wines, scotch, and all sorts of beers for $1.75 a piece. I thought that was grand (considering it is a pretty $7 for a Canadian in Iqaluit), but then was blown out of the water when Navy beers were $0.75. Yesh, you heard me right. Apparently, it's duty-free.

I have no focus here. I think I'll just post some pictures -- whenever the internet allows.

Note:

Operation Nanook is one of three sovereignty exercises that the Canadian Forces undertakes each year, to work on different scenarios and assert a presence in the North. It seems to me a pretty symbolic exercise, seeing as the North is so inconceivably large and the patrols, etc., are really very limited.

I was with two documentary film crews as part of my embark media opportunity.

DON'T BELIEVE EVERYTHING YOU SEE IN DOCS, FOLKS!

I was honestly tired and worn down by the ceaseless shooting of the crews (one, which was German. Yeah.) who were running the crews ragged with simulations of emergency exercises and stuff. It will definitely make me watch those things with more attention to detail.