Where in the world am I today?: Flying up to Yellowknife, NWT, Canada
So I get an email out of the blue from an old friend/event producer named Rick Poltaruk a couple of months ago asking me if I’d be interested in coming up to the Northwest Territories (Yellowknife to be exact) to perform as part of the umpteenth annual (there’s some dispute as to how many there have actually been records being a bit suspect and all) Caribou Carnival in lovely downtown Yellowknife and before really giving it too much thought I say -
‘Sure, those dates are open, I’d love to come and play for you!’
It only really dawned on my yesterday when I was packing and checked the weather forecast for Yellowknife that this might in fact be a very very COLD event to perform at – DOH!
The flight up was uneventful enough. Got to YVR in Vancouver with oodles of time to spare and got some email and stuff caught up while I sat in the Air Canada Maple Leaf Lounge pre-flight. The hop from Vancouver to Edmonton was painless… Caught a bit of Drew Barrymore’s directorial debut in the film “Whip It” but the flight wasn’t long enough to watch the whole thing… Might catch the tail end on the way home…
In Edmonton there was enough of a layover that Neale Bacon (a ventriloquist from Burnaby who’s also going to be playing over the weekend) and I ended up parking ourselves at the Tim Horton’s at the airport and yakked away as we waited for the First Air flight up to Yellowknife. Truth is I had a ton of work I could be doing, but it seemed more important to just chill and chat than try to whip out my laptop and get anything done.
The hop up to Yellowknife was a breeze. The service on First Air was great and as we touched down in Yellowknife we were greeted by sparkling fairy dust-like snow that was blowing across the runway and catching the light of the terminal building. My luggage all arrived, I was greeting by Rick at the Airport and whisked off to the Hotel. Got checked in and headed immediately to the Mackenzie Lounge to catch some live music…
Now there’s no doubt in my mind that the temperatures I’m going to experience while I’m here are going to well below the norm in terms of what I’m used to, but with any luck I’ll be able to catch the Northern Lights and have a few great adventures along the way… Amazing to think that a little over a month ago I was performing in India on the other side of the world and tomorrow I’ll be making my performance debut at the Caribou Carnival.
Sometimes taking a gig is about some sort of career advancing opportunity. Sometimes the motivation has something to do with hooking up with friends and having a great hang, sometimes it’s all about the adventure and new experience. I sometimes love to wallow in the fabulousness of the fact that this thing I do for a living has allowed me to life such a diverse and interesting life. I’ve had this conversation with several people recently and the best way that we seem to be able to sum it up is this – I get to live the lifestyle of a millionaire with out the paycheque.
