November 10, 2008
From Winnepeg to Churchill via Train…
Reflection of Brandon and Me on the Train
We’ve been on a train all day. If you didn’t know Chuck is a brilliant professor and revered bear expert, you may think he’s a madman. He has the look in his eyes when he speaks and sometimes it’s hard to tell if he loves you or if he’s disappointed you didn’t eat his homemade snacks. But he loves us and is an amazing host. He’s always passing out snacks, telling stories and answering questions about the bears.
We are in the middle of nowhere. Literally. For 500 miles we see the same view – trees with frost and frozen lakes. The train is comfortable and the rocking lulls us into sleep – well, that and the sleep deprivation from 2 days prior. So we sleep, eat, read, sleep, eat, and finally… we discovered the bar. It almost seems like this is what we do now and I need to keep reminding myself that finally, tomorrow, we’ll be on the ice with bears and snow fox.
No internet, no cell service, no text messages or status updates. How did we ever survive prior to all this technology?! Well, you get to know people, have real conversations, hear all the details. I’m also the only city-person on this trip, surrounded by mountain people. They’re great, but they’ve literally never seen a Blackberry, some have confused my iPod for a cell phone, and every time I get the laptop out they ask, “are you gettin’ on the internet?” It’s refreshing (albeit foreign) to be surrounded by people who are not dependent on technology, and in fact, many of them despise it!
Well, back to reading, sleeping, reading, sleeping. We have another 14 hours on the train.
The train we called *home* for 30 hours
My Travel Tales 