Polar Bear Express

When I was young, we did car trips.  My mother would take my sister and I somewhere for a few days.  I recall the very large station wagon had with wood paneling in the side.  It was large enough to accommodate the single bed mattress from my bed - which is where I laid down for much of the road. No fights over the front seat for me, I wanted my own berth.  I recall reading books - Peter Benchley’s Jaws sticks out, perhaps for the shark, or the sex scene, it was an adult book and my first.  I recall lounging mostly, relaxed as Canada rolled by my windows.  We went to Quebec, the US and Nova Scotia.  But the one I recall most fondly was Moosonee.  

To say we drove to Moosonee would be inaccurate as there were no roads to it then and indeed there may be no roads to it now.  We went to Cochrane and then took the train. It was Ontario Northland’s “Polar Bear Express”.   What a lovely evocative piece of marketing that is.  I can’t say I ever saw a polar bear on the 4-5 hour one way train journey that goes due north, but it did roll through the Canadain Shield wilderness and anchored itself into my heart. We went to the southern tip of the Arctic, James Bay.  That one trip had me glued to my window seat - after I’d explored the train of course.  

Something still resonates about hundreds and hundreds of miles/kilometers (does it matter at this scale?) of lakes, trees, and this vast untouched area of nature.  Now, when my life allows me to fly, I still marvel at the size, the scope of the place.  It stretches and stretches to the horizon and focuses down to each individual fallen log, infested with bugs, moss and fungus, teeming with life.  Hundreds, thousands and probably millions of them. 

In hindsight, I saw all this when I was 9 years old, from the train.  I still recall each bend in the train tracks, peering around each approaching corner for what lay ahead.   I do remember Moosonee itself a little too - a strong and unwelcome taste of what it’s like to like on that frontier with the few hundred inhabitants that must see the daily train as the needed tourist revenues and only escape route.  

I don’t recall the drive back.  My heart stayed that day on the Polar Bear Express and the uncharted territory of northern Canada.  I knew then I wanted the wilderness to play a role in my life. I wanted to be be there, lost as Marlow was, exploring my own path and finding my own way out.