The House & other Arctic musings

The man I most wish I was

I've often said that I am a very lucky man. I've long known that. And a good part of the great life I've had, and the type of man I am falls at the feet of my father.

Many of my fondest memories surround him, from Saturdays at McLeod's lunch counter, to walks in the country when I was grown. Heck even to being towed behind the car on a toboggan in the winter (note to present and future fathers - this is crazy dangerous, do NOT  try this, at home or elsewhere, but for us, we thought it was great fun).

He's taught me many things, and amongst all those things I hold two to be amongst the most important things I know. That everyone deserves dignity and to be treated with respect;  and that life is best faced with humour. 

I love you Dad, this is your Father's Day card, cheap son that I am.

And I didn't forget to call him for those who note that this is two days late.  I was in this hide at the time and called by satellite phone. He also taught me to appreciate being outside and was wise enough to let me be adventurous and myself. It was a great place to call him from (and my sister whose birthday was also on Sunday) perched on the edge of a canyon. I only wish I had more battery life in the phone when I called.

Another Mother's Day

I'm not sure that we ever really give our mother's their due. I mean, how can we really? We are their children and we embody almost every one of their hopes and fears for the future.  My mother would never forgive me if I publicly posted her age here, but she has three grown children, the youngest of whom hits 45 this year. You can figure out some sort of estimate that satisfies you.

We are three grown children, with various successes and failures that coat our lives. We are, if I do say myself, a pretty good bunch. That is thanks in no small part to our parents and the values they instilled in us. But I don't think there is a day that goes by that my mother doesn't worry about us, fret about some incoming calamity or our health, our happiness, if the loves that share our lives are treating us right and on and on.

Both parents do this I know, but I've long suspected that mothers never lose that amped up worry that they acquire when their children become teenagers. No that's not right, that amped up worry that they acquire when we are born.  Fathers tend to temper theirs more I think.

There is a photo in my parent's room at home of my mother as a young woman. It is a glamorous photo, worthy of any Hollywood starlet, and I used to believe that my mom was movie star when she was young. How could anyone that beautiful not be?  And while she may not be a movie star, her beauty still shines through, for her beauty is timeless, painted in her eyes when she looks at us those moments when her adoration overtakes the worry.

So while Sunday was Mother's Day (and yes I called), I wanted to let you know Mom she deserves one of her own, not shared with all of the mother's of the world. That for me, today is my Mother's Day.  Don't worry, we're all fine.

I love you.

I'm four and my dad is forty.

It's my dad's birthday today.  He's 79. The title of this comes from the fact that his dad, my grandfather, was also born April 12th, and his aunt would never let him forget that when he was four he announced that he was four and his dad was forty.

My dad remains the man I most wish I was, and I wish I was there with him today.  We spend far too much of our lives apart.  Happy birthday Dad.

Ghosts in the rain

There was a moment, last year in France, that I imagined my Grandpa standing near me, not as a young soldier, but as the man I knew, a man revisiting a place filled with ghosts from his youth.

Forty years ago he returned to Vimy, fifty-one years after the battle that must have been a definitive moment in his life. In 1968, one of the first places he visited was the German War Cemetery near Neuville Ste. Vaast. For over an hour in the rain he wandered amongst, not the graves of comrades, the graves of men who had been his enemy. His best friend, and other comrades, lay buried less than a kilometre away and yet he chose to visit this place first.

As I stood there, listening to my Uncle describing the scene, I imagined him standing next to me and then moving off amongst the crosses. I wondered what brought him here first and although I'll never know for sure I think I understand.

It is difficult to reconcile the man I know as my grandfather with someone who had killed, but he undoubtedly had. His citation for his Military Medal that he earned at Hill 70 recounted that he had killed at least 9 of the enemy. There were many other battles. No doubt, among the 44,000 dead buried in that cemetery were men that he caused to be there. Stewart and his other friends had been mourned long before that trip, but there in the rain far from home he probably had to confront the other ghosts that haunted him. Not his friends, but strangers from another land. Strangers just as bent on putting him in the ground, as he was them, but standing there it would have been impossible not to face them. Perhaps, there in the spring rain, he had to do some mourning yet undone. Mourning men he had killed, and perhaps his youth.

Nearby in the soil of Vimy Ridge,
Graves by the thousand lay,
Covering dust & bones of German youth,
That war had brought that way.
Fifty thousand, they said, lay there
All silent now and still,
Slain in a war that settled naught;
As now, war never will.
- A.T. Kines (from Vimy Revisited 1968)

Magical Mushrooms

Much to my surprise I received a package in the mail today, that had a couple of plastic bags of dried mushrooms in it.  No, not those mushrooms (I just lost half of my readers from the west coast), but dried morels.  They are a culinary delight.

Growing up in Roblin, every spring would bring a bounty of fresh morels, that dad, and sometimes the rest of us, would pick.  If memory serves me correct the usual method of serving them was to fry them in butter and serve them on toast.  Now I have to confess that when I was young I wasn't much of a fan of eating fungi, morels included, but now that I'm almost grown I've grown to love morels.

The unfortunate thing is I never get to eat them anymore (collective sigh). My brother still picks them come spring, but the high arctic is a long way from their range of distribution. So I do without. Until today. Now I've got to come up with away to incorporate them.  I'm thinking a burger, topped with a morel sauce made with reconstituted morels, onion, garlic fried in butter, followed by a slice or two of truffel that I brought back from France.  Or perhaps a tenderloin of caribou, topped with a morel sauce of chopped fried morels, garlic, reduced chicken and liquids left over from the reconstitution and perhaps some apple juice.  Hmm, yeah, with a healthy dollop of pepper. Or maybe just fried in butter and served on toast.

Thanks Bro, you're the best. (but not the smartest).  Love you.

Cream Pie Reminiscences

I got baking tonight.  The urge overtook me. That and Leah and Travis have both been after me to bake an Apple Pie. The thing with baking, is if you're going to bake one pie, you might as well make more. The kitchen is going to be a mess anyway, and your return on your time is greater.  So I baked (with both Leah and Travis' help) an Apple Pie (such a simple recipe and so good), two cream pies, and a Blueberry Cheesecake.

I made a Banana Cream and a Coconut Cream pie, the custard base is the same for the two, it's only the last step that differs. Want the recipe?  Okay, you'll need a pie shell, you could use a bought one, but pie pastry is simple, and I just blind bake a bottom shell.  In a heavy saucepan mix 3/4 cup of sugar, 1/4 cup corn starch and 1/4 tsp of salt, and then add 3 cups of milk, mixing well.  Heat over a medium to medium high heat until the mixture thickens and boils, and continue to cook for a couple of minutes. Remove from heat and add 3 egg yolks (temper them first with three or so spoonfuls of the hot custard). Return it to heat and stirring constantly (which you should be pretty much doing anyway the entire time the custard is on the heat) heat until the mixture begins to bubble again.  Remove from heat and add 2 tsp vanilla and 2 tbsp of butter.  Its at this stage you diverge.

For Coconut Cream pie, add a cup of coconut and pour into your pie shell, refrigerate until completely set, about 4 hours.

For Banana Cream pie, cool the crust completely and line it with sliced bananas (about two).  Mash a half of a banana and add it to the custard.  Cool the custard to luke warm before adding it to the pie shell and again refrigerate until set.  Top both with whipped cream.

When I was a young boy every Saturday my dad would take me to the local McLeod's Store on Main Street in Roblin.  Every Saturday he'd buy me a slice of Banana Cream Pie (sometimes he'd have Banana Cream and some times he'd have Coconut Cream Pie) and we'd sit there at that lunch counter and savour that creamy goodness, but even more we'd savour our time together and the ritual that we'd observe almost without fail.  It is, without a doubt, amongst my most happy  memories of a pretty happy childhood. Perhaps tomorrow I'll have a slice of each, one for Dad and one for me.  And I'll probably call him.

Some new family pictures.

I thought I'd share with you some photos of us that I received by email today.  I really need to credit the photographer but (I hate to say it) I only remember his first name, Alex...

They are pictures from our visit to the CCGS Louis S. St. Laurent.  The first is my new favourite picture of Leah and HIlary.

The other is us prepared for our ride home from the ship.

Remembrance Day

There was a point, this past April in France, that the numbers of graves overwhelmed me. After the ceremonies at Vimy, after visiting my Grandfather's front lines at Vimy, after Hill 70, I tried to get to as many Commonwealth War Grave Cemeteries, where men from Roblin were buried, as I could.  Cemetery after cemetery filled with young men, they are everywhere.  Suddenly the scale of what happened grabs hold of you, and it fills you with sadness and meloncholy. So many lives unlived, so many families in mourning.

My first war cemetery overwhelmed me on a different, more personal scale. The day I arrived in France I drove to Beny-Sur-Mer CWG cemetery. My namesake, my cousin, lies buried there, a place that has hovered in my consciousness, since I was a little boy. As I drove up to the cemetery and saw the Canadian flag flying over with it, the tears started. They built as I approached Clare's grave, here was a man who I never knew, long dead before I was born, but who figured so large in my sense of self, and I could not hold them back.

Remembrance Day has long been one of the most important days of my year. It has been that way because of my Grandfather. It is the day I'm closest to him. I understand now, a little more of what he went through, in the cause of doing what was right. I understand a little more, at least a part of what made him the man he was. A man of morels, and compassion, and an incredible sense of right and wrong.

Remembrance day is a day to honour the sacrifices made, and being made by the soldiers of this country. Its not a day to give glory to war, my Grandfather would be the last to glorify that "Hell, from the Devil's school". But it is a day to recognize just what we ask of young men and women, when doing what is right causes so much suffering and loss. It is a day to thank the men, like my Grandfather, like his comrades, like Clare, like the men and women in Afghanistan and elsewhere in the world. Men and women who we ask to put their lives in harms way, to do what the rest of us are unable to.

If I was home in Roblin, I'd be standing at Grandpa's grave right now, honouring, not his being a soldier, but his being a grandparent. Giving thanks for the lessons I learned, and the fun we had. 

I miss you Grandpa.

Vimy Underground

Early in the film Vimy Underground (The History Channel - Nov. 6th, 8pm ET) Lt. Col Shane Schreiver descends into a Cavern near Neuville St Vaast France. The cavern, originally constructed by french farmers to hide in in time of war, was used by Canadian Soldiers during the Great War in the days leading up to the battle of Vimy Ridge.  The walls are dotted with carvings made by the soldiers as they waited underground, some carved their names, some made elaborate carvings of regimental insignia, some drew characters, some carved more rudimentary regimental crests. As the camera paused on one of the names carved in the wall my heart jumped. The name, W.S. McNicol, belonged to my grandfather's best friend, Stewart McNichol. The date showed it was carved on the 28th of March 1917, just eleven days before he was killed at Vimy, only metres after "going over the top" next to my grandfather.

The film, unfortunately doesn't live up to its promise of those first few moments, and an opportunity to tell more of the stories of these men was squandered.  A large part of the film is dedicated to a handwriting analyst, who supposedly can tell from the mens' carvings what they were like in life, even sitting in on a hypnosis session with her to overcome her claustrophobia so she can go down into the cavern. 

The film, to my mind anyway, would have been much better concentrating on the stories of the men who left their marks on a chalk tunnel 90 years ago. The parts of the film that dealt with soldiers, such as Grant Phelps and Alec Ambler (a master stone mason who carved incredible reliefs of regimental crests in the chalk), were great, there needed to be more of that in the film. The part of the film where Ambler's 81 year old son descended to see his father's handiwork was especially poignant. There needed to be more of that.

For myself, a personal highlight came early in the film. A carving of the 16th Canadian Scottish crest, carved by my grandfather, his name proudly carved in outline underneath "A.T. KINES" is shown and highlighted by a trench art expert, an overlay of who he was flashed onto the screen. It is a piece of my family's history that I never knew existed until the film yesterday. A piece of family history that no one in the family knew existed.

By way of disclaimer I should point out that my grandfather's story was going to be a larger part of this film originally. My father and I were filmed in Roblin talking about Grandpa while going through some of his mementos and photographs. While I don't believe that not having more of his story included is colouring my criticism of the film, I suppose I must acknowledge that it may. I just think that the story could have painted a much better picture of the men who lived, fought, and sometimes died over there, who left their mark on a chalk wall, long buried beneath the soil of France. Whether those stories included my grandfather or not is irrelevant, but the film should have told more of their stories.

As the film ended there was list of some of the names of the soldiers on the wall. I noticed four names of men of the 16th, mentioned by my grandfather in his memoirs or stories, Dan Holmes, Leo Kenny, Stewart McNicol and Jim Pinnegar. Of the five men, Dan, Leo and Jim were all wounded at Vimy, Stewart was killed, and only Grandpa came back alone.

I am extremely grateful that the makers of the film revealed a little bit of my Grandfather to the world. I wish they would have concentrated on the soldiers stories, they are what needed to be told.

And yet another is gone.

When I was still a member I never thought much about not coming home from a call. I thought a lot about officer safety, about what I needed to do to keep safe. Ultimately though, it was rare that you would think to yourself, there's a chance I might not get out of this alive.

Every call had potential to be dangerous, some carried more risk than others, but it can be a violent world at times. The police are at the edge of that violent world, and even the most innocuous call can turn quickly.

It was a call about an impaired driver in Kimmirut that Constable Doug Scott attended to last night, one of the calls that we often think about as being very routine. It ended in his death. Doug Scott, only 20 years old, and posted in Kimmirut for only 6 months, was shot and killed last night. The second death of a member in a month. A young man with all of his life ahead of him.

Most members don't think about not coming home from a call, until one of us is killed. Then we think about the countless calls that could have ended our lives. I charged about 300 people with impaired driving in my career, I have been there. Like Chris Worden in Hay River I went to countless disturbance calls. Like him I probably would have gone over to check out what looked like a drug deal going down, I have been there. I have guarded the crime scene, been in the high speed pursuit, gone to the domestics, stood on the side of the road in a traffic stop, pulled over the vehicle with no lights. I have been there.

We have all been there, that is one of the reasons the death of a member hits us so hard. There are other reasons it hits us hard. We are family. I don't know Doug Scott, but he is connected to me. He was my brother, born of a common experience and similar dreams and hopes.  I have lost another member of my family today, and I just wish it would stop.