Vacation from my Vacation

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I'll never complain about the gig I found here in Labrador. Sea shanties at night, hospitality at the table, "Can I clear your plates?" and chopping wood and sorting bottles and cans in the day.

Troubled Guides

These were the two local guides who led me astray. But if it weren't for them I never would've sped so fast to Mary's Harbour where I met the person who gave me the opportunity to volunteer on Battle Harbour. So it all turns out good in the end.
I will post date some blog entries to give you a reason to check here. I have absolutely no way to update the blog on the island. I started out as Oggy from the future and now am living in 1890. Go figure! So I'll post date the entries as I'm in Mary's Harbour for a few hours having resolved my visa issue one day ahead of the end of my visa. I've got 6 more months to enjoy the hospitality of Canada's lovely people.

The Great Auk

Someone once said, "There will have to be another Earth and another Heaven before the Great

Auk is seen again."

I heard that anecdote from the lips of Gordon Slade as he read his Great Auk poem in the Anglican Church on Battle Harbour on the day a smithsonian research vessel returned from a urchin expedition near Nain. The name of the boat. Alca i. out of Portsmouth, NH.

I later learned that the boat rarely stays in Portsmouth but is stamped thusly for tax savings. Those smithsonian folks must be minding the budget.

I thought Alca i meant Alca I. Like number 1. And somewhere was an Alca II. But Alca is a lonely genus with only one member. The great auk is gone and I mourn his passing. My work will hopefully ensure the arctic wolf does not vanish as well.

On a lighter note an American tour group showed up (they all got an earful of my wolf quest) so an American Flag was raised. It rebelled against the wind for some political reason so when the southwesterly came in, the stars and bars pretended it was a nor'easter. Maybe it was pointing me toward my country.

Oggy Strikes Back

I've applied for "environmental refugee" status in Canada. The deciduous memories of America are falling into the duff of flat desire.
One day I'll sing you my sea shanty song called "The Queen of Labrador"
"Oh, Dana, sing me home. Oh, Dana, sing me home. Oh, Dana sing me home once more, to the land of Labrador."
For now you will have to entertain yourself with this unplanned rant I vomited forth. It looks like a good green screen photoshop effect but I forgot to zoom out after filming the icebergs and so I look big and outlined in the pristine air quality.
I am chopping wood and carrying water as I await my shrimp boat to leave for Nuuk, Greenland, the stopping off point for Ellesmere Island and arctic expeditions.
Everyone loves the wolf idea now.
It's one thing to tell a Maine Potato farmer that the wolf is imperiled but it is another to tell a world explorer on boats.
"I'll tell you how to get to Ellesmere..." he begins.




Rant VideoAs for freedom, if you think a government provides freedom then you are an asshole who couldn't spell freedom. Despite what PHS taught you, Freedom is an individual ethic, not something you choose from a political bill of rights like #5 with chicken fingers off a Kim Lai menu. Governments protect land thieves from the peasants with pitchforks.

New Leaf - Old Forest

I'm out of touch with some of the details that previously would consume me with resentment for the abomination known as Man.

I'm broken and slowly finding the pieces of my new transformation and identity to weld back together. Poems whistle through spruce twigs and finally the old foliage has fallen away and perhaps a new spring will replenish the nutrients diminished in the desert. The caribou herd is lost.

The wolf is the sentinel of man. Be brave. Walk proud. Think for yourself and see with your own eyes. This is a natural state for humans except when the media war begins on their young minds and wins by triumphing over their nature in stages of abuse conspiring with the weak parents who are defeated by upward mobility and plantation owner mentaility.

I have hunted for my home like a lonely humpback whale whose flippers are marred by coral reefs. Self imposed exile from the world may be my path. A 19th century salt cod village happens to be my oasis. I'm shit out of luck, you say? No, because one still exists at Battle Harbour. The loathsome 20th century passed this place by but the Petermann Ice Island made a visit with many