BeyondTheMargins

There is this odd thing about Canadians…

Although the population of Canada is a mere 40 million people spread over a large area of land, they still seek even more privacy and seclusion. This leads to conversations with colleagues and friends during the summertime resulting in something like this.

“So where are you heading this summer?”

“Oh, we are heading to our cabin in the remote wilderness. We’ll light a bonfire there; there will be no internet or TV, and we are going to stay there for the rest of the summer now!”

It boggles the mind why anyone would want more “remoteness” and “privacy” when already there is so much privacy in this country? But that’s the Canadian mindset for you.

Privacy, seclusion, and safety…

It results in building houses in strange and unreachable locations like this.

Privacy, seclusion, ‘safety’..

Or this,,,

…..Privacy, seclusion, ‘safety’….,, ‘safe’ …..must feel ‘safe’ at all times….

This search for ‘privacy and seclusion’ leads many to live in an almost unreachable untouched place in the remote wilderness like Bissett, Manitoba.

Further away from the remote town of Pine Falls, about 4 hours more, is Bissett, Manitoba.

It would be right to say that if Pine Falls and Beausejour and Churchill were the Rural North, then Bissett was so far up east and into the isolation of the green Canadian prairies that getting there was quite the work.

If Winnipeg’s population was a little less than a million, Beausejour’s population was about 5,000, Pine Falls housed around 1,400 people, and Bissett housed around just 100 people.

The San Antonio School in Bissett had only 6 children in total, and there was only 1 principal who also served as the teacher for all the children plus 1 administrative clerk.

At a distance of about 400 km from the Rural North provincial building, you could either drive to Bissett or you could fly there through small planes.

Bissett, Manitoba, is so remote in the prairies that it is difficult to drive there with your own vehicle. The government provided with a fleet vehicle, which was perfect for a long trip to Bissett—a large Ford Explorer SUV well equipped with all the GPS, up-to-date computational systems necessary, and a satellite tracking system. As mentioned before, the Canadian government is rabid about its employees well being and security—you don’t go to Bissett in a substandard, not well-to-do vehicle.

As one approaches the settlement, the road becomes a lot like the roads in India: ill-maintained, narrow, and broken apart, and one starts getting in touch with the “untouched” flora and fauna of the great Canadian prairies. Wild animals are easy to spot, roaming about without fear or disturbance, and come out into the open to interact.

Needless to say, Bissett was one of my most favorite places to visit for work.

One had to actually witness the beauty of Bissett in person to really believe it.

There are lots of beautiful places in the world, but untouched natural beauty with very minimal human involvement or interaction is not the easiest to find. The water is different in color, the air feels different, and wildlife is more transparent and out of hiding.

One of the my favorite birds to encounter is the Bald Eagle, and in Bissett you will find ample nests of the Bald Eagle. These nests are not made of small twigs but massive branches and often 2 mtrs by 2 mtrs wide. Bald Eagles mate for life and are monogamous, indicating higher cognitive functioning and personally to me nothing compares to the site of a Bald Eagle on the road in the wild . The most majestic breath taking bird on the planet.

Above a bald eagle nest Bissett.

Another animal that is a common sight is the Beaver. A beaver is a natural engineer who can build dams which obstruct a lot of the water flow through the use of twigs and debris. Needleless to say the Beaver is pretty smart with a large head to body ratio , indicating higher cognitive functioning and a rich social life.

Although living in rural north can be isolated living. But as i heard the government had 1 position tentative opening up for Bissett with just 1 employee for 100 residents of Bissett and it was in the “maybe phase”. I began to wonder that i could do this, and i would absolutely love that position. Afterall Bissett was a dream natural location.

Bissett was 2 hrs. away from the local police station, and that meant no accountability. People drove around their big trucks and vehicles with no number plates on them and no insurance. This was a free man’s land with only miles and miles of untouched nature around and nothing else. It was as if you went back in time to the 1950s in the rural north with nobody bothering you about absolutely nothing and no concept of time, and no rush at all. Civilization, the concept of existence and the world as we knew it came to a stand still and a stop. It meant that living in Bissett, “life” meant something different. Some people had satellite phones to talk to their relatives in the cities and otherwise large dishes to get that internet running. Occasionally Bissett was inundated with geologists and students of geology and meteorology studies. A gold mine existed in Bissett which employed about 20-30 gold miners. Below the Bissett Gold mine.

Fyi a couple of years back it was on the news that a geologist was looking for rock samples at night in a cave. Two residents of Bissett got drunk and approached him at night in the forest. Bissett being so isolated and with only a mere 80 – 100 people living there, the student had a massive panic attack and ran across the woods terrified only to later figure out the intruders were local residents roaming around the forest a bit drunk if anything…. His Panic attack at the unexpected sight of another human being was so voracious that it made it to the Winnipeg news.. Regardless a small beautiful shack existed for government employees in Bissett – incase somebody wanted to crash. It looked a bit like this.

Another one looked a bit like this

I thought to myself, if anything if it was Bissett, then i could do this for a long time….