(HOST) Commentator Willem Lange is a contractor, writer and storyteller, who sometimes visits a place where a simple question never gets a simple answer.
(LANGE) Many years ago I took a Dale Carnegie course. One lesson I remember is, "Make the most difficult phone call first!" But when it comes to telephone calls to the far North, I procrastinate.
The late friend Dudley Weider spent several years doctoring in Kotzebue, Alaska. He cautioned me never to ask a Northerner a question that could be answered yes or no. "Why not?" I asked.
"Well, because in the North, agreeability is one of the highest virtues – probably from hundreds of years of being cooped up in very small spaces during the long Arctic winter. So if you ask such a question, the answer is always, ‘yes.’"
Some months later, in the Cree village of Mistassini Post, I spoke to a knot of native women. Pointing to a church on a hill, I asked, "Is that the Anglican Church?" They smiled. "Yes."
So up I went – and walked into a Pentecostal prayer group who’d just finished praying to be shown their next mission. Took me an hour to get out of there.
On another canoe trip to the Ungava Peninsula, I found a charter outfit in Radisson owned by its pilot, Barry Bearskin. His secretary, Michelline, had an inviting voice on the phone, and always ended with a lilting "Bye-bye!" I called several times, partly to hear that farewell. Every time, she assured me, yes, everything was just fine. Bye-bye…
We arrived at Radisson with a mountain of gear and discovered an empty terminal. We called Barry’s office; answering machine. Michelline? – out of town for the weekend. We called Barry’s house. Everybody there was pretty sure he’d be back sometime.
Two days later Barry showed up, seemingly surprised to see us. Dudley just shook his head. "We think of time as linear," he said. "Yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Up here time is circular, cyclical: If it doesn’t happen today, it may happen another day. You have to allow for it."
So today, planning another trip, I located the cab company in Kuujjuaq – Snowball’s Taxi. I asked if he had a couple of vans to move six men and their gear to the float plane base. "Sure!" he said. Uh oh. Could he meet our flight at the airport? You bet! Oh, no! And can we stop on the way to pick up our fishing licenses and 8 litres of unleaded fuel? No problem! By this time, I was in despair. There is no way, when none of this happens, that I’ll be able to convince five other guys that I really did try to sort it out before we got there.
It doesn’t matter. The die’s been cast, the tickets paid for; and the surprises ahead, whatever they may be, are no less surmountable than inevitable. The hotel at the end of the river is expecting us on a particular evening, and they’ve assured me our rooms are only 100 yards from the harbor – an easy portage. I don’t think Dale Carnegie helps carry canoes.
This is Willem Lange in East Montpelier, and I gotta get back to work.