Well, the Olympic Torch has come and gone, with the 7 long months of planning and preparation finally coming to fruition. Before I start with the stories, I'll get out of the way what 95% of you came to see....me with the torch :)
It's a bit blurry due to the cold and the camera (and maybe the sheer speed I was moving....alright, maybe not) but above is definitive proof that I helped the Olympic flame on its journey from Greece to Vancouver. It's kind of just now sinking in how special the moment really was...at the time I was pretty sure that I was smiling, but my cheeks were a bit too frozen to tell.
Backing it up a few days, prior to the torch arriving Station staged it own mini-Olympics. Five teams, representing all the Olympic mascots, were selected to compete in a variety of sports and challenges. For some reason someone thought that I had 'spirit', and so I was made captain of Team Sumi....the little goat/chipmunk looking one :P I won't bother boring you with how my awesome Captaining led our team to many victories (it didn't), but we did get bronze in floor hockey, so at least we placed 'somewhere'.
The Sunday that the torch was slated to arrive (at 6pm) Byron and I were designated the unofficial Heavy Lifters on Station. I'm pretty sure that the CO and AdminO basically had us moving anything not permanently bolted to the ground. The biggest challenge was the stage the Byron built for the gym. Technically the sections were built to fit through the door...but in reality, trying to manoeuvrer the 4 x 8 x 1.5 foot, 175lbs monstrosities was a real pain in the...back :P I'm very proud to say that I cut about half the legs for the stage, as well as drilling on the hooks for the screen :D Byron did a wicked job with it and it held up like a rock, even with 11 people from the choir standing on it.
As we sat down to our early supper, we heard that the plane was delayed 45 minutes in Resolute Bay. It just goes to show, Olympic Flame or not, NOTHING runs on time in the Arctic! We were finally shuttled down to the runway in our tracksuits to meet the flame. We got a quick lesson in passing it off, how to hold it ("High above your head...be careful of your face in the flames"), and how we'd be marching up to the main building of Station. The walk (yes, walk...you don't run in the Arctic) went way too quickly. Everyone got a good 50 or 60 feet with the torch, which was very cool. The sentimental highlight of the run was when Gilbert, an old, soft-spoken mechanic that walks with a cane (but was too proud to use one for the long 1.5km walk uphill from the runway) received the torch and broke into a stilted jog for his short leg of the route.
Above is a picture of the whole team at the Alert sign at the beginning of the run, as well as one outside of the gym where the temporary cauldron was lit upon its conclusion. I know that we all look pretty much the same, but if you enlarge the pics I'm under the W of NWT and 5 left of the cauldron.
Luckily, upon lighting the cauldron outside we sang Oh Canada, which counted as our warmup for the choir. We walked in from the cold and literally sang our song the second we'd gotten out of our tracksuits. Honestly?...we rocked :D We weren't amazing or anything, but if you heard our first practice 3 weeks ago (when we were "better than nothing") you'd be mightily impressed! From what I've been told, the CTV vignette didn't have any clips of it...which is just as well :)
The finale to the evening was the fact that I was bartending for the meet-and-greet in the bar. Let's just say, Sundays are usually dead, but we made more in 3.5 hours than we did in 7 hours for TGIF. New people are always fun in Alert, and we'd gotten 39 all in one go.
They all left the next morning at 8am, after being in Alert for only 13 hours. In case you're wondering how the flames moves around the country while not in the possession of a torch bearer, the lantern above is the answer.
Was all the planning, lead up, stress and backache worth it for an event that was over in the blink of an eye?
Absolutely.
Please Remember those who fell today,
Graham
