Hacktreks in Canada

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GIMLI- MANITOBA Heather Neale This... is for me: a place of firsts.

While visiting Gimli Manitoba every summer still provides me with a great source of pleasure, it’s definitely lost the magic. This largest-settlement-outside-of-Iceland Lake Winnipeg appendage- that houses up to 8000 immigrant cottagers every summer- is for me: a place of firsts.
First lake swim,
First fireworks event,
First ferris wheel ride and three legged race attempt.
First witnessing of sexual activities played out between Ken and Barbie by my sage-older-cousin.
First cigarette-induced coughing attack, first light-Canadian-beer induced display of drunken flirtation and obnoxious giggling, and first, "hey man, those stars are a trip," exclamation following the inhalation of my first west coast import doobie.
Now you understand the term magic.

Gimli was also the locale of my first real kiss. This brazen beso was slapped on me by a 14-year-old skin head skater dude who was way too cocky for his own good. This was the same boy who then proceeded to ignore me the next day after I had decided to marry him at the fine age of 12. He didn’t even kiss well, using his tongue like an A.D.H.D gopher poking its head up out of ground and then retracting frenetically ad nauseum for what felt like hours.

Gimli was the first place I got to try driving a car. My Uncle Jerry the farmer took me out in the tractor first for fear I would be a road hazard in his Chevy Buick. So instead of worrying I’d hit Great Auntie Ida on her way home from the Bingo alley, we played pick-off-the-cows, accelerating into open fields where I learned the hard way that not ALL cows sleep standing up.

Other firsts in Gimli included fending off Hell’s Angels coming at me across putting-green pool tables in the bar one day, and then finding their repugnant ugly mugs in the obituary section the next day having died of "unknown causes." (You try being that ugly, mean, offensive, and philistine with a penchant for drunken violence and then we’ll talk about "unknown causes.")

More firsts are as follows:
Skinny dipping with cute teenaged neighbours, constructing the perfect smore, swimming five miles in a natural body of water with my Uncle Guy, resuscitating myself after almost drowning due to a muscle cramp induced by aforementioned swim in a natural body of water, thanking my lucky stars I didn’t drown from cramp induced by aforementioned swim, sneaking out, getting caught, shaping up behaviour and then sneaking out again. Oh, that and eating wieners and beans.
Like I said, the magic is gone, but the memories have left permanent damage.

© Heather Neale December 2003
senoritaheather@hotmail.com
Update From Heather:
So Much To Tell... It's been a while since we've spoken, you and I. There was a period there where you thought maybe I had gone for good. But it was just a misunderstanding you see. I went to Mexico for a while, made my attempts at oyster fishing, and sadly, came to terms with the fact that I was terrible at it. (You try holding a spear that weighs more than your right leg, executing a surface dive of about thirty feet with it, hitting and grabbing up a camouflaged shell exactly at the right spot, all the while holding your breath. Add to this equation the fact that the surf is booming over your head sending your legs flying in the opposite direction as your torso, and you will begin to recall what it felt like to be a gangly prepubescent teenager unfamiliar with the movements of your own two feet. As we move towards the glee and joy and sometimes sadness of Christmas time, I hope that you have all checked your stockings for coal, made sure to max out your credit cards on Purdy's chocolates (the old standby in the event that you really don't know your brother's sister-in-law's girlfriend well enough yet to go for the old lingerie gift) and of course, gone in for your flu shot. (No one wants a sniffling drunk on their shoulder at the New Year's party.) There will be more news now that I have a computer again, but for now, I shall say, good night. Be well. Heather

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