The House & other Arctic musings

My daughter's eyes.

Yesterday afternoon I took the kids to school. Usually, when we arrive I say the same thing I always do to Travis "Have fun, learn lots" and he bolts for his entrance. Hilary, because she is in pre-school only goes in the afternoon, and only every second day.

I carry Hilary to the closest entrance. Its not that she can't, or won't, walk on her own, its for a practical reason. I usually run late, and carrying her I can easily strip off her boots before setting her down. Its quicker and we get on our way more expediently.

But, I enjoy having her in my arms, I can't deny. Today as we arrived, Travis was already half way down the length of the school when I turned and look back, Hilary holding on tight. The entire horizon was tinged in pink, deepening to mauve and blue. "Look at the sky" I told her.

Hilary looked up and said "Oh, its pink" and then "There's purple!" "The colours change." She then turned back to me, looking into my eyes and exclaimed "Dad, we have the prettiest skies here."  I looked back at the southern horizon, ringed with this amazing gradient of light and colour, not missing the sun at all, and answered "We do indeed little girl, we do indeed."

As we turned and walked into the school I thought about my daughter's eyes, thankful that they see the world much the same way that I do. Grateful that I have two little naturalists, who marvel in our world, for children.

In life, Service.

Often on a grave in France, there is an inscription. One of the principals of War Graves Commission was that all of the fallen would be treated equally. The headstones were simple and essentially the same, no bodies were allowed to be repatriated, rich or poor, officer or enlisted man they were all buried where they fell. One concession made was that families were allowed to have a small inscription put on their son's or husband's headstone.

Visiting my namesake's grave was a very powerful experience, on a trip filled with powerful experiences. I was struck by the inscription that Clare's parents, my Uncle and Aunt, put on his grave

In thought, Faith
In deed, Courage
In life, Service
In death, Victory

Service. It is really what is the essence of what of what we honour on Remembrance day, service and the sacrifice that accompanied it. Many, if not most, of the men who volunteered for the Great War, World War II, and the wars and peace keeping missions that followed, did so out of a desire to serve. To serve their country and the greater good. I assume that it continues today with the men and women in the Armed Forces.

Most would know that there was sacrifice involved. Theirs is a dangerous profession. And although we most often think of death when we think of that sacrifice, others were wounded (often horrifically), many bear psychological scars, and all put themselves in harms way while far away from family, friends, and the comfort of a familiar life.

At one point, when my father and I were being filmed reminiscing about Grandpa for a documentary (footage that never made the finished product), the subject of whether Grandpa's experience inspired me to join the RCMP came up. My answer then, as now, was that no it did not. I had more direct inspirations that lead me to the RCMP, Members who I wanted to emulate. But one of the many things I took from Grandpa (and my Dad) was that service, public service, is an important and noble calling.

My grandfather lived through a horrific war, a war that chewed up nine million soldier's lives, and scarred countless others. He knew that "War is hell, from the Devil's School" a terrible thing. He also knew that it was important to do the right thing, even if that was hard and involved sacrifice. As much as he knew that war was a terrible thing, that sometimes, as much as we wish it otherwise, it is a necessary thing. At the outbreak of the second World War, in his mid-forties, he again volunteered to fight, rejected due to a hernia. But the service remained, and he became a Captain in the Home Guard, and opened his house to any errant service man who needed a place to stay during those years.

Remembrance Day, to me, is by far the most important day of the year. For personal reasons it is a highly emotional, powerful day. The day where family passes through my thoughts more than any other day of the year. And through out it, I pause and give thanks to the service of Grandpa, and Clare, their friends, colleagues and comrades, and those who follow in their footsteps. In service.

My children, last night

You'll have to indulge me a moment as I post some photos of Hilary and Travis. The Hilary photos are from Uluksan Point, Travis' are from Victor Bay.

Picking flowers.

Nothing says "Arctic" like a child in an amautiq, picking Arctic Poppies, with an iceberg in the background. Inuksuit be damned.

She had, moments before, just found out that flies can occasionally be found in poppy blossoms. Loud scream, followed by poppies scattered everywhere, followed by tears, followed by dad carefully picking up the flowers and ensuring no more flies resided therein. A smile from that point on was impossible.

What father's heart wouldn't be warmed by the sight of his son running out to greet him with a huge smile.

Outdoors and on a bike, if it wasn't for being forced to have his picture taken by his father there would be a huge smile on his face.

Some tents at Victor Bay.

Poppies overlooking an old qarmaq and Adam's Sound.

A father's kiss

I love that my children are still young enough that a kiss from their father along with a gentle "That's okay, you'll be alright. Dad's here." will cure most ills and pain. I dread when that will no longer be the case.

Yesterday at the games, Hilary was playing in amongst the guy lines of a tent when the inevitable happened, and she tripped over one. My friend, Niore Iqalukjuak, is a gifted photographer and he was there taking candids. He got this sequence of photos that he graciously shared with me.

Playing

The fall.

Dad making it better.

Smiling again.

As a bonus, after reading the last post he also shared this photo of an Ugly Fish, which I believe is the Shorthorn Sculpin (Myoxocephalus scorpius) which apparently have antifreeze proteins in their bodies.

A pair of lines in my hands

Daisy was up from the battle school today but I missed him, I have not seen him for three weeks now, that is the longest spell since we joined up, or even before that for a couple of years. He left a snap of my team of greys that had been sent in one of his letters. I was glad to get it, I would give a lot to be able to get a pair of lines in my hands again, but I guess that can wait until the business in hand is completed.

This past Saturday saw the 65th anniversary of the D-Day landings in Normandy. Today, however, is a much more significant date for me, the 65th anniversary of the death of my namesake, a little inland from those terrible beaches.

I've written before on his death, how he and 39 other Prisoners of War, were sat down in a field, just off the Highway to Caen near Fontenay Le Pesnal, and gunned down. The last words they would have heard were "And now you die" by one of their executioners. By the accounts of those that escaped there was a realization of what was about to happen in the moments leading up to their deaths, and I imagine that some of their thoughts turned to home.

A little about what I know about Clare come from letters that he wrote to my grandfather, and it is clear to me that his thoughts turned both to the past that had been left in Canada, and the future that awaited him there. He spoke (as the passage above showed) about his horses. Both he and his father were keen horsemen, and he longed to once again to have reins in his hands. But even more telling from that passage is the importance of friends to him, the mention of not seeing his friend for three weeks, the longest time in years.

He looked to the future, hoping to buy one of the family farms if it was still available after the war...

Perhaps it is a little early in the game to call the score, but I do a lot of thinking about the matter of Grandma's farm, naturally I don't expect it to be held over, but if it is still in the same status when I do get there, I shall be doing my best to work out some arrangements satasfactory (sp) to the majority of the people concerned.

He thought, of course, of the future Mrs Kines before he was "too old"...

Mil may have told you that my Little Lady in London is now a married woman, so all chances of the girl in England not liking a farm have vanished, after all there can hardly be two girls as nice as she is in a small country like England, anyway there is always the one back home, if I could only make up my mind which one. If I don't make it up soon I'll be too old to care, I don't feel so old most of the time, and now that I have shaved my moustache off I don't think I look a day over thirty. (he was 29 when he was killed)

But one of the most telling aspects of him that his letters left was his concern and comforting of my Grandfather who, like the old soldier he was, was angry and upset about not being able to take part in the fight in Europe himself...

and I honestly think that you are filling a vital position where you are, and hope that you will continue to serve in the manner you have since this whole affair started, not that I am wishing that you could not do the things that you most desire to do, but that in my opinion it is just as important  to have competent men in the business back there as in this side of the works, I hope I have made myself clear, but knowing how badly you wanted to get into it again I am treading  on shallow ice, another case of fools walking in where angels fear to tread.

In short, we often don't think about the life of the soldier who was killed, just their lives. They were (and are) no different than us. And while we often speak of the loss of potential that happens when so many young lives are ended, it is loss of the mundane, and the magnificence that is wrapped up in that mundane, that is the most profoundly felt. These men, who gave their all, lived ordinary lives, and I have them to thank for the opportunity to live my ordinary, and magnificent, life.

The man I most wish I was

While searching my slides a couple of days ago I came across my favourite picture of my father, standing in a field of alfalfa on their land, with the late, great, Opus at his side. It was taken perhaps 20 years ago, or more.

Last Sunday, my father turned 80. I could think of no where on earth that I would have rather been, but once again I was far too far away to join my family. When I think upon my life, the influences on it, the things that make me who I am, there is no doubt from where the good parts came from. My father remains, by a huge margin, my biggest role model. He is the man I wish I was.

The big scrap

France, April 12, 1917

Dear Home Folks:-

Just a few lines on this my birthday to let you know I came through the big scrap OK. I haven't time to write much but just want to say how glad I am. Louis came through alright too. Dan Holmes was wounded + I think Stewart McNicol was killed. You will know long before you get this anyway. I only hope that I will celebrate my next birthday at home with you all. Bye Bye love to all

Alvin

My grandfather didn't celebrate his next birthday at home, or the next. But he was out of the field and in England by the time his next birthday had come.

April 12th, 1917 was his 24th birthday, and of course the big scrap he refers to was the Battle of Vimy Ridge, 92 years ago today. Two years ago I was standing near where he went over the top, walked in some of his footsteps, visited graves at the German Cemetery where his visit in 1968 had such a profound impact on him, and stood at Stewart McNicol's grave, thanking him for his sacrifice.

As a side note, April 12th is also my Dad's birthday.  When he was four he announced: "I'm four and my dad is forty.". Sunday is a milestone birthday for him.  I'll let you do the math.

Because

... an occasional photo of me on the blog can't be that bad of a thing. Can it?

I ain't got a card to sign

Steve Earle is a brilliant song writer, and his song Valentine's Day is beautiful and you know, just know, that it comes from his screwing up on Valentine's Day. But it is also a wonderful expression of his love for his wife (the one he married twice "Our divorce didn't work out.").  When it came up on the iPod last week I thought I came up with the perfect gift. I would sing Valentine's Day for Leah, put it on a DVD and give it to her.

Now I like to think I can sing. In reality I'd probably be one of those contestants on Idol that just doesn't get it ("No? Let me sing one more song. Just one more, you'll see." "Stupid judges. I am an Idol, wait until I make it big. I'll buy them!" - That sort of thing.). But I got a hold of a friend of mine, who does have talent, and asked him if he'd accompany me on the guitar. I must have listened to the song every waking moment, well every waking moment that Leah wasn't home. This was going to be good.

Dwight wasn't able to open the copy of the song I emailed him, so he simply downloaded, but he downloaded another version. When he got here Friday we had about an hour an a half to get our act together, and get the song recorded. He shone. Me not so much. But its the thought that counts right? When he finally had to leave we had about three recordings of the song, the last one the best but far from perfect (and I'll stress again that it was my singing not the guitar playing).  I even shot some close up footage of his playing the bridge so I could fade it in during that portion of the song.

So I had some footage, that while imperfect, was heartfelt and that is the main thing. I now had a few hours to edit and burn the DVD. My computer wouldn't let me. My poor old G4 is in the grips of senescence, it could not handle the video in Final Cut. I could listen to the clips but I couldn't view an entire clip of video. I also have Final Cut on the Powerbook that I use as another desktop, but it wouldn't load, and tht means I have to find the software and reinstall it.

After a couple of hours of this I threw my hands up in submission, hoping against hope that Leah was getting me a brand new 8 core Mac Pro for Valentine's. In the end I played the raw footage for her this morning, I really had no other cards to play. Her initial reaction was that she didn't understand the words, so I sang it to her in person, something I should have done in the first place.

You know, I'm not sure, but I think she liked it. She didn't even ask where her roses were.

Just desserts

Dennis Cheeseman and Shawn Hennessey were sentenced yesterday for their role in the senseless murders of Anthony Gordon, Leo Johnston, Brock Myrol, and Peter Schiemann some four years ago. I was surprised, and gratified, to see that the last couple of articles on CBC's website did not have a comment section. In general comments on major news websites make me bleed from my temples, and many of those associated with this story even more so. It his hard to believe how vitrolic and hatefilled some of these are.

For those of you not familiar with the role that these two played, essentially they gave James Roszko a rifle, and drove him to his farm, knowing that he would probably murder the policemen that he found there. That the rifle they gave him wasn't used to kill the four members matters not. Cheeseman and Hennessey then went and got on with their lives as five men lost theirs, and five families were shattered. Is it appropriate that they go to prison? Of course it is.

I've told this story in the past but it serves to illustrate how different an outcome there can be when someone has the moral fortitude to do the right thing.

Just before Christmas, a few years before the murders in Mayerthorpe, a colleague and acquaintance of mine was murdered a mere half hour drive from where I grew up. Dennis Strongquill and his partner, Brian Auger, were heading for a quiet coffee when they pulled over a truck for not dimming its headlights. When the one of the occupant came out shooting at them, Dennis and Brian pulled away to get away from the firing, and incredibly were chased by the culprits. Looking for backup and better weapons they drove right into the Russell RCMP Detachment, where the suspects rammed their truck pinning Dennis inside, a misfunctioning pistol (with the clip useless on the floor) in his hand. One of the suspects walked up and killed him with four shotgun blasts, until they were driven away by Brian's return fire. In the subsequent manhunt and crime spree that followed one of the three suspects was killed, perched on a roof of a hotel with a rifle. The other two were captured and eventually sentenced to prison.

Prior to the incident, some people, who apparently cared about the suspects, had pretty good ideas that their spree would turn out this way. Although it is questionable that they had direct knowledge, such as Cheeseman and Hennessey's, that police would be harmed they certainly had good signs that they would. And yet they lacked the moral fortitude to stop it, supposedly because they cared for the suspects. Had they acted two men, including one of those whose life they cared about, would be alive, and other lives would not have been shattered.

Less than two weeks later I, along with my partner, were responding to a call for help. A young man called to say that he had taken pills in a suicide attempt and called us to help him. It was a trap. The young man actually intended to kill us, he waited for us with two rifles in a barricaded house, to shoot us down simply because we were police officers. Neither of us had had any prior professional dealings with him. So he waited to kill us, and probably planned to kill the others who would eventually arrive to arrest him.

But this time someone intervened. As the young man put his plan into action, he told a friend of what he intended to do. But this time it was someone with the moral courage to realize that what his friend was doing was wrong, that lives would be taken and others changed irrevocably. He realized that although he might be betraying his friend's confidence, that in the circumstances it was the right thing to do, and that lives (including possibly that of his friend) hung in the balance. So he made the call and warned us before we could walk into a death trap.

The young man still shot at me, about a dozen times, but from a far not while I was standing on his step unaware of what awaited me on the other side of a door. Because his friend had the moral fortitude to warn us, lives were probably saved that day. My children got to know their father, Leah could still wake up beside me, not some faded photo of me in Red Serge. My parents and siblings did not have to go through the great grief of a family member murdered.

Pity that Cheeseman and Hennessey did not make that warning call. Because of it five men died, five families were shattered. I hope they reflect on that their entire lives, and not just the next few years as they experience their just desserts.