August 4 - We're going to Canada!

Welcome to Day One of our blog! We hope you enjoy a window into our trip. Please excuse any spelling or grammatical trespasses, we’re writing on cell phones in the Arctic!

Day One of our adventure in Northern Canada. The crew arrived at the Rogers’ house on a crisp July morning, about 2:30 AM. Kurt Celtiaks drove us in the Bruin bus to the airport (what a cool dude). Arriving at the airport was hectic; we are traveling with tons of bags that need to be painstakingly carried from the curb to the terminal. As you may expect, we had to move the bags several times to several different places.

Ok, we’ve checked the bags, we’ve made it through security, we’ve made it to the gate (Z as in Zed, not B as in bed), and we’re hungry. Carla leads an expedition to the friendly local Dunkin Donuts, which doesn’t open until 6 am. Despite our pestering, Carla was insistent that we stake out the Dunkin and wait 10 minutes for them to open. Boy, did she make the right call. By the time the store opened, there was a long line behind us, and we all got to watch the life drain out of their faces as we ordered 12 breakfast sandwiches.

We returned to the gate and were about to begin boarding when we received news that Julie and Vicki had not been assigned seats and were on standby. Uh oh. The rule is we all go, or we don’t go, so this added some nerves to the first leg of our journey. The problem was solved in a jiffy, and we were herded on board by a very energetic and passionate gate agent.

The plane was nice, but the in-seat entertainment was not the greatest. I think it was running some form of Windows Vista 99 or whatever program my parents used to check their AOL accounts in the 90s. The flight went well after I urged everyone to lift their feet so we could take off. Several members of the ISAMR crew obviously didn’t want to go anywhere. Everyone knows that the plane can't get off the ground if enough people don’t hold their legs in the air. Come on people, this is a common aeronautic principle.

Our connection in Toronto was fast, and we were on the plane to Winnipeg in no time!

The flight was uneventful; Alana, Julie and I finalized our shopping plans while many others got some well-needed shut-eye. We landed in Winnipeg and proceeded to get our bags while the adults got our two rental cars. We miraculously got all the bags without any problems. We then had a big issue. We are a big group doing some big science. We have a lot of bags. The problem is we needed to go to Costco to buy our food for the trip and needed a place to drop our bags before we return to the airport for our bus ride to Thompson in 12 hours.

A friendly Canadian airport guide named Hoss greeted us and asked if he could help. The best solution we could come up with was to ask a local hotel, but all of them cost over $200. Hoss and I started talking about how we should go into business and start a bag storage solution in the airport, but he thinks he’s getting too old to be an entrepreneur (I was watching the Apple TV show about Adam Neuman on the plane, so I was feeling practically motivated to start a business). As Hoss and I kept talking, I mentioned we were traveling to Churchill and he said that he has a niece who lives there. I figured it’s a pretty small place, and perhaps we know her, and, believe it or not, Hoss’s niece is Jill Larkin, our favorite Canadian badass!

We had to take a group photo with Hoss before heading outside to meet up with our chaperones. After some more confusion, Julie and I returned to see if we could leave our bags with Air Canada (Pablo suggested just putting them back on the belt and coming back later, which is a pretty great idea). Julie sent me to find Hoss as he may know a church or some sort of place to store our gear, but the great Hoss was nowhere to be found! As mysteriously as he arrived he had vanished into the cool crisp Canadian air.

We went back outside and after several phone calls to local churches failed, we were about to abandon all hope and leave two poor souls at the airport for the day to watch the bags when it clicked. We should rent a U-Haul! A fantastic idea and we immediately headed to one of dozens of U-Hauls in the area. Julie grabbed a box truck for only 20 bucks (plus it’s Canadian so it’s cheaper), and we were back in business. We got a quick bite to eat, then headed to Costco to break out into teams to purchase our food items.

We had quite the Costco adventure, then purchased boxes and other supplies to pack and prepare all of our provisions. There isn’t possibly enough room here to describe our adventure, but I’ll just let you know that Carla is really great at driving family SUVs offroad in urban Winnipeg.

We had an early dinner at a local hot spot favored by Jill Larkin (Hoss’ niece) and had great conversation. We then headed back to the airport to catch our bus to Thompson.

We unpacked everything once again, used several rolls of duct tape to seal the boxes, labeled and cataloged everything, and got ready to get on our 10-hour bus ride. Then, we found out the bus left from a different area, so we loaded all forty-three suitcases and boxes onto carts, rolled them to the new spot, and camped out. After some airport bathroom hygiene (woohoo), an early bus arrived, only 20 minutes late! Everything fit perfectly, and we all packed into the bus and passed out, ready for the next part of our adventure.

This is really going to be a great trip!

Written and Uploaded by John