Condition Other Than Normal: Finding Peace In a World Gone Mad. Gary Tetterington

to hear, at a drunk and dark 4 A.M. It sounded as though the pack, including kith and kin from every part of the Yukon, were readying and preparing a primitive rite, prior to an organized storming of the bunker.

      Should Darwin have come across Canada’s Yukon Territory, he would surely have cut and run but not before shouting, “Survival of the fittest!” A sage of the Yukon would nod shrewdly and say, “Call of the wild. Code of the north.” Me? Hell, I knew it was every man for himself. That was wisdom deep and profound enough for me to understand. I also knew it was best to take it on the lam before the North Country went totally insane on me.

      So I shot the moon early the same morning but not before stopping in front of the wolves’ cage and pointing and leering and laughing at those freaks from hell. The last I saw of those mongrel beasts, was they were purely and positively berserk, turning and spinning cartwheels and back flips, trying to chew thru the steel fence which contained and confined them, trying to get at me, to release me from my mortal coil.

      Leaning up against the brick fronting of the Edgewater Hotel and praying for a miracle. Hoping I wasn’t too conspicuous and wondering who across this great country Canada owed me a favor or money. Who, within the vast range of my visionary network would be good or foolish enough to lend me jack – cash. No one. When you are down and out, you have no friends. You are alone. It is an axiom. It is also one of those true – life facts which occasionally bothered me yesterday.

      One slight and slender prospect and in a fit of panic and desperation, I placed a collect call to my best friend down south. Zowie! Shazam! A radical but wise speculation! The government of Canada had done the right thing and upped with the money they owed me! Two hundred dollars shot north fast! Mercy!

      It took me 2 nights to splash and spill that satisfaction on a bar – room floor and about then the full realization of my dilemma came over me. For sure, it was time to do a fast exit from W.H. and the only way out was back down that damned dirt road, to turn around at G.P., to go north again, to Yellowknife.

      This brilliant strategy had been determined during my last alcoholic stupor and slumber in W.H. After all, no doubt I would find a lot of really good friends in Y.K. So long ago, way back and during the summer of 1976, I was convinced God was not a kind fellow.

      All is well

      G.B.T.

      Yellowknife – Basically

      My reception in G.P. was cold and the good and gracious citizens of G.P. may have let me have a glass of warm water before putting me on the road again.

      The long road is a harsh and uncaring bitch and I’ve walked that white line many times and always alone. The road will steal your pride and make you humble and you become aware of how small you really are. On the road, there were times when I despaired of seeing civilization ever again. Not that I’ve ever had great need of organized structure in my life but society’s mainstays, books and beer and other excitables have sometimes been necessary. Hell, at times even people hold me with a peculiar fascination. The long road builds character and strength and courage and allows you to think and imagine your mistakes and alternatives. On that journey, back in ’76, I did all kinds of time inside my head, only to find hordes and legions of barren and broken questions, no answers, just bitter need and longing.

      There I was in ’76, charging angrily down the throat of the N.W.T., wholly unprepared for what lay ahead. Had I recognized a climactic ending to a frenzied lifestyle, perhaps I would have fled screaming and screeching in the other direction. But no, that would have been a cheat and the next 100 days had been written and would have come to pass no matter where I ran to. An equal form of adversity would have chased and followed me and nothing I could have done about it. There was no escape. I don’t believe in chance or luck today. There is a reason and a purpose for everything.

      A man would have to be seriously disorganized, to want to live anywhere suggestive of the N.W.T. From where I was standing, the N.W.T. was not much more than a flat, scrub – rock wasteland. The N.W.T. is no more than a huge and festering gravel pit. The land was asleep and gloomy, devoid of vitality, not like the jolting and stirring landscapes and scenes capes I had looked upon, in my own small way, in other lands, in other countries and here in Canada.

      There was one redeeming feature regarding the N.W.T. Should a man have wished to remain obscure and anonymous, well, the N.W.T was the place to be and I can understand seclusion and solitude. Hell, I enjoy serenity and I delight in being on my own and free but the N.W.T. was a meaningless quiet, dull and insignificant and of no big importance to me. The N.W.T. and I could never blend and flow together. We could never intermingle, contribute to and help each other. In the N.W.T., I could not feel the heartbeat. Of a certainty, I had crossed deserts that had more character and inspiration. Nothing exciting lives in the N.W.T. I could have been watching and listening from beyond the far reaches of outer – space, for all the virtue and rectitude I found between G.P. and Y.K. and no matter I may have run afoul of the law there. I guard myself against bias and preconception. I will not lie.

      The rides were lengthy. Hell, human habitat was scattered widely and randomly across the orange rock and moss of the N.W.T. and I came to believe the only creatures endemic to that part of Canada, were those huge and horrible blow – flies, black and hideous slips of nature, which kept attacking me and trying to drag me off and into the bush, where they would have had their way with me. Once or twice, I honestly wished for a shotgun to ride herd on the evil bastards.

      Standing on a remote and desolate corner, high above Alberta and I was exposed and vulnerable and truly grateful for 1 ride that is worth mentioning. The man was moving and transporting 10 lbs. of quality marijuana and it helped take the pain away. Also, the young man had recognized my fierce need and want for the 5% and he took care of this craving from the depths of a large ice – chest, which happened to be firmly anchored between us in the cab of his truck. The man’s name was Rennie and he was a prisoner of the white line.

      Rennie and I trucked and flew that hi – way for 100 miles and more and then he dropped me off with best wishes, a six-pack of beer and an amazing bag of robust and rowdy marijuana. A kindred spirit and a rare person. I called and bawled many blessings and benedictions at the man and his rapidly departing cloud of dust and then sat back on the side of the road and watched the world go spinning past my eyes.

      At that twisted moment in time, I naturally felt like a saint, kiss – tilted and stone – rocked on believing and I was positively crazy and abnormal. I even took to ignoring the occasional vehicle that chanced and rattled on by and to those drivers who did bounce past, I was a mystery. I mean … what was this animal, down in the dirt, drinking beer from an un-sterilized can and laughing at a clear and empty sky? A lost link that had accidentally strayed from out of the bush and encountered a vestige of civilization? A savage? Folks, it was all I could do to find my mouth with a smoking joint or a foaming can of beer.

      About the only thing I remember of my last ride north to Y.K., was stepping out of a battered old car and dumping the sand out of my pockets. I had arrived in Y.K. I was dizzy and dazed from the booze and the dope and bent badly from the road. It had been a long haul and drag. Journeys end.

      Even though I was garbled and off – centered, I wasn’t overly bothered or concerned, as being nuts in the North Country was a man’s private affair. Not for the first time had I been worn and wasted in a friendless and foreign land. No worries.

      No money either and not much for it other than to do my hocus – pocus routine and convince someone innocent of the wisdom of buying me a beer.

      This I did, by targeting the Gold Range Hotel, a nom de plume I thought entirely auspicious and there, to my great delight, I came upon an even dozen miners, drinking their wages. I may have been a homespun union representative on that particular occasion. No matter. In return for my having to listen to their gripes and groans, they were, in their own casual and friendly way, willing to buy me drinks all day long. I do have an affinity for caging a brew.

      I needed a place to sleep. It became my lot to hook up with an American, a sportsman, a man who had materialized in the north country behind the wheel of a complete R.V., stove and fridge, shower