Here goes.
Many of you know that I spent five years in the Arctic and enjoyed it. I was very adventurous, young and full of mischief. I had many experiences that I would never have had if I didn't have those characteristics. Now since I'm 80 most of the adventurous side of me is gone.
I had a friend who always wanted to go goose shooting. We rented a small airplane and were dropped off somewhere in the Mackenzie delta. Other friends came with us. We had a lot of supplies. Rum was one of the main supplies. Needless to say we didn't shoot any geese or even scare a goose.
One of the hunting trips was to Richard's Island in late September of 1965. Richard's Island is a very large island on the Mackenzie delta. In the mid fifties a very large dew line site was built there. By the time I got there the site had been closed and most of it destroyed.
We found a good place to camp in some willows on the beach. We had one small tent for three. Four of us were on the trip. We took an aboriginal with us so this would be a serious and successful goose hunt. George, the aboriginal, said he would sleep outside the tent. So I thought if he can sleep outside the tent so can I. Well you guessed it . I was so cold I got very little sleep.
But another thing was a cause for lack of sleep.
One of us brought a transistor radio. We couldn't even get the local station let alone any other station. But with radio reception in the north strange things can happen. Whoever had the radio didn't realize it was still on. All night a California station would come in and out. Sometime the station would be on for half an hour. Now the content of that station is what's stayed with me for a lifetime. Most of the station's broadcast was taken up by a right wing commentator. I listened to this guy go on and on. I believe it may have been John Birch or had something to do with John Birch. I was not familiar at all with right wing ideology
So being very , very cold and listening to a transistor radio I spent one of the more uncomfortable nights in my life.
Did we get any geese? Of course not.
