A tourist is anyone like you or I who goes to a different land. We want to stay in hotels, eat at good restaurant, enjoy some entertainment in town and perhaps, take in a tour or two.
It’s the same for people who come to our lands to explore and take in some rest or pleasure or anything else that might be possible.
You’ll see that in most towns a good night rest is a priority, choosing between the classy hotels or take the dive, just off the freeway. Up here, there’s a chance you could get lost or stuck if you venture too far off the highway, maybe run in a moose or herd of caribou at the most. Down there, it’s possible to get lost, raped or mugged if you venture too far from the freeway, perhaps get shot at, at the most.
Being a tourist does have it’s risks… imagine in deep Africa being chased by poachers after you accidentally save the last big game by feeding it your ultra nutritious power bar… or, fighting off an anaconda after going out to do bowel movement behind the first bush. Up here, you’d have to dodge bullets from the certified gun owners with permits to shoot anything that moves and then classify the blood let as “accidental”, and perhaps you could get stung or bitten by a mosquito. The risk is all relative and these days, choosing the less risky sortie is a better choice for most tourists who come up here.
I thought of a tour based on staying alive in the north and living to get back home to show off your digital pictures to your close ones. Pictures with captions like: “look at me, I’m terrified…we’re about to land in a snowstorm”, “shamefully holding up a plastic decoy after blowing it to bits on your first trip to a goose blind”, “finding out what -0C. means, in twenty feet of salt water”, “look, who caught who in the ear with a fish hook?”, picture of the nice nurse caring for you in your first northern medivac, picture of banker who begrudgingly lends you money to pay off your liabilities for your foray up north,… stuff like that.
When you’d arrive here, I take you off an a wild ride through town, juggling baggage and passengers on a four-wheeler in a blinding raging storm of snow, rain and sleet combined, then find someone with a key to get in, then telling you I’ll be right back, I check to see if the guides are ready for a quick run through the mountains.
After a ride through the famous back trails of the tree-line taiga, tremendous effort from your chiropractor is needed to realign your backbone, so carry a good health insurance plan first. Another tremendous effort will be needed to tear yourself away from the breath taking beauty of the rugged, north wind eroded beaches and scores of activities relating to back breaking work, chopping wood, getting water, pushing and pulling, walking and climbing. Nothing better than using tourists to do all your hard work and then them paying you for it, don’t tell anyone though, about my little trade secret.
So come north you good tourists from the south. Come to the land where the sun never sets in the east, where clouds are parted by fog, where the caribou roam (in fear of hungry townsfolk), where the planes can’t land everyday, come to the great white north and play in the snow and sand dunes, and golf in the ultimate face of adversity and challenge, come north, dudes and dudettes.
