Pearson of the Arctic

When Bryan Pearson introduced himself to me at Iqaluit airport in early April, 1995, my heart sank. I was booked to stay at his Bed and Breakfast during a brief consulting mission. A friend had recommended the place to me. Tellingly, however, that friend had not actually met Pearson; nor had he even stayed at the B & B. All he could say was that Pearson was “an Arctic character”, and he thought the two of us might get along. He also thought that if I stayed there would be pumping some money into the local economy, instead of it going to some anonymous chain of hotels. I concurred. I had no idea what I was in for.

I had booked a room over the phone a couple of weeks earlier. I had my misgivings about the place just from my conversation with Mr. Pearson. Here was this sepulchral British voice at the other end of the line asking me what I expected for one hundred bucks when all I asked was whether I could have my own private bath. One hundred bucks, for a crummy B & B! I got bad vibes from this man right off the bat. He insisted on repeating my name at every opportunity, pronouncing it “Mister Gray-Yam” the way the Jebbies used to bellow it out before sending me down to the Principal’s office. Against my better judgment, I decided to bite the bullet and just let things happen. If things didn’t pan out, I told myself, I just wouldn’t stay there; after all, he hadn’t taken down any credit card information, had he? Moreover, he offered to pick me up at the airport; all I had to do was pick up the free Pearson phone in the terminal and let him know my flight had arrived.

When my flight arrived from Ottawa I did just that. First there was no reply. I figured he must have been on his way to meet me, having possibly heard my First Air jet coming in for a landing. Iqaluit is, after all, a compact town of perhaps 3,000 people, all of whom live within earshot of the airport. After waiting about ten minutes to no avail, I tried again. This time Pearson answered. He seemed genuinely surprised by my call; it was as if he had completely forgotten not just his kind offer of a lift, but the fact that I even had a reservation. I was tempted to cancel out then and there and just stay at one of the nearby hotels, but I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt, even if I did not think that there was any. So, I took my bag outside and waited patiently outside the terminal door in the cold and damp. The weather in Frob was about ten degrees centigrade colder than it had been in Ottawa. Later, when I commented on the cold to Pearson, he complained that it was too warm for the upcoming Toonik Festival, which evidently involves all sorts of Arctic games.

After an interval of about ten minutes, I see an old, beat-up pickup truck lumbering along towards the terminal. It was one of those with the extended, four-seater cabs. As it approached, I could see this grizzled old critter behind the wheel, with at least a week’s growth of stubble on his face. Behind him, a couple of mangy old huskies were sticking their heads out the windows. I thought to myself: “Who is this poor bugger picking up?”, and “Which poor bugger is being picked up by this guy?”. Anyway, to my utter astonishment, the truck lurches to a halt beside me and out pops the driver. First he swings around the back of the truck and opens the side doors. Then he comes up to me and says “You must be Mr. Graham”. I thought to myself: this can’t possibly be Bryan Pearson, the ‘Arctic character’ I was supposed to get along with so famously! There must be some mistake. But then I thought, gee, the voice does sound familiar. I shook hands with him, and he announced himself simply as “Pearson”. Then I thought, how am I going to get out of this, because if his B & B is anything like his truck, then god help him. As the saying goes, you never get a second chance to make a first impression, and the first impression I had formed of “Pearson of the Arctic” was entirely negative.

The first thing he asked me as I was about to climb in the cab was “Do you like dogs, Mr. Graham?” My natural inclination when confronted with one of these weak attempts at chit chat is to say dismissively “No!”. To tell the truth, which was that I like dogs, but I can’t stand mangy old dogs I don’t know that slobber all over truck seats and shed their hairs all over the place, seemed somehow inappropriate, however angry I might have felt. All I could think of was how lucky it was that my wife Harriet was not with me; she would undoubtedly have refused to get into this rustbucket of a truck. The upholstery of the seats was in tatters, revealing much foam rubber. To top it all off, the panel had obviously fallen off metal of the door on the driver’s side. The vehicle must have been at least twenty years old. Then it started to dawn on me that life is very expensive in the Arctic, and that this was precisely the kind of truck that I had delivered exactly twenty years ago on the Sealift. It may not have looked nice, but at least it was still on the road, and, hey, I was getting a free lift, wasn’t I? In effect, I was rationalising my own cowardice. Deep down, I was dreading the prospect of staying in this man’s house.

Pearson’s B & B is about a mile out of town, up a steep dirt road by the ‘golf ball’, an enormous telecommunications station. Aside from brief stops in Frob on my way to and from Auyuittuq, this was my first real visit to the town. There is not a helluva lot to see, but there are some hills, so at least you get some nice views, unlike Inuvik at the other end of the NWT. You could sort of imagine how nice it must be in the summer, when the ice of Frobisher Bay had melted. But for now, you would never have guessed that we were by the sea: the land and the sea were as one, the same colourless white, with the sky above a steel grey colour. We passed the multi-storied Frobisher Hotel, which had obviously seen better days. We also passed the igloo church, which is one of the landmarks of Frob. Other than that, nothing special: just the usual collection of Arctic structures: largely prefab units with snowmobiles out in front, empty packing crates recycled as doghouses, and half-starved huskies howling at the moon.

Within minutes we arrived at the top of a hill in one of the most desolate locations I have ever seen anywhere in my travels. Pearson steered the truck into a driveway, at the end of which was a small A frame house and a couple of out buildings, what the English call ‘outhouses’. I thought to myself: “There is no way I am going to enter this dump!” No sign “Welcome to Pearson’s B & B”, no picket fence, no porch, no nothin’! I fully expected the worst, and yet something kept telling me to just relax and let things happen. I had become quite used to creature comforts down south, and I was accustomed to staying in four or five star hotels whenever I travelled on business. This, I kept telling myself, will be different; it will be an adventure; just enjoy it, do not fight it, for the universe is unfolding as it should. Nice words. I tried to hide my reservations from Pearson, and to this day I have no idea whether he sensed my apprehension.

The entranceway was somewhat less than grand. The front door was ajar, and the vestibule was a veritable junk heap, with boots littering the floor, parkas hanging from wall hooks, and dog food scattered all over the place. Pearson took my bags and went right in to the house proper. I took my boots and coat off before entering. He led me to a room with a double bed in it and asked if that was alright. I nodded yes, but I felt as if I was sleeping in his son’s room. The place had that lived-in feel to it, and was a little musty. Oh well, I told myself, it’s a damn sight better than the pickup! There were books everywhere: on the night table, on a table, and over the radiator covers. But for some reason I felt like things were going to be alright. I was still giving this man the benefit of the doubt. I looked at the books, for example, and found that they were for the most part very interesting. There were books on art, healthy eating and organic gardening, among other topics. There were some very interesting paintings on the wall. I I unpacked to the sound of classical music in the background. I was starting to see that Mr. Pearson could be full of surprises.

I only spent two nights chez Pearson, but in that short space of thirty-six hours, I came to know one of the most interesting people I have ever met. Bryan Pearson had the most peculiar mix of personality characteristics. As an example, during my stay there he never once referred to me by my Christian name: it was always “Mr. Graham”, as in “Would you like tea or coffee with your breakfast, Mr. Graham?” This in a place where people are famous for being ‘just folks’. He put on this gnarled, gruff manner, but underneath the tough exterior there was a little pussycat. He was phenomenally opinionated; he had strong feelings on virtually every topic under the son, from politics to the Inuit. He wanted to know all about my work: why I was here, who my client was, what I was doing, who I was seeing, etc. He showed me around the house. What looked like a simple A-frame on the outside seemed like a palce within. The main features of the building were the living room and its adjoining dining room. The living room featured an enormous, A-shaped picture window; it was so big I felt I was in church. It let in a large amount of light, but it must have wrought havoc on the heating bill. The view from the window was bleak: snow and rock trailing off into a white expanse of nothingness which turned out to be Frobisher Bay. There was also a big stone fireplace on a side wall. Decorations consisted of African spears and masks on the wall, plus some modern art. The furniture amounted to large, heavy pieces of Spanish-style wooden chairs, as well as a big leather couch. In front of the window was a very sophisticated sound system. Next to the fireplace was an outsized television set.

The dining area was dominated by a huge wooden banquet table and high, straight-backed chairs. The table was decorated with silver candlestick holders, fancy placemats and bright red napkins. The cutlery were also of silver, and the drinking glasses were crystal. It was as if my host was expecting a large party of visiting European diplomats for supper. Where Pearson ever got the money for all this stuff is a mystery to me. Just getting it all up to Iqaluit would have cost a packet. Maybe he was a remittance man, and this was his inheritance. Who knows? I certainly wasn’t about to ask him where it all came from. After showing me around, we sat down and had tea together in the living room. After grilling me about my mission, he told me a bit about himself. As a young Englishman during the fifties he had come over to the Arctic to work on the Distant Early Warning System, or DEW Line for short. Afterwards he stayed on. Eventually he became Mayor of Frobisher Bay, before it was renamed Iqaluit. Then he went on to become a Member of the Legislative Assembly, representing the Eastern Arctic in the NWT Assembly in Yellowknife. Then during the nineteen eighties, he had run as a Progressive Conservative candidate in the federal election; he blamed his loss on the public’s disfavour with Brian Mulroney. Pearson was a lifelong Conservative; on one wall there was a photo of former PC Prime Minister John Diefenbaker.

Bryan Pearson was quite a cultivated and well-travelled man. He had been to Asia and Africa several times, and talked about these places as if they were just down the road. His favourite spot was Bali, although he also liked East African game reserves. His last trip had been an Alaskan cruise. He kept informed of world developments principally through radio and television. During the day the radio was always tuned to CBC stereo, which was beamed in by satellite. The TV was tuned to CNN most of the time; that way Bryan had watched live coverage of the Oklahoma city bombing within minutes of it’s occurrence. But I got the feeling that he was also a profoundly lonely man. In this way, running a B & B may have been a way of meeting people. He confided in me that he was losing money on it; even at $100 a night he could not find enough guests to cover his costs. His big problem seemed to be marketing; everything was done by word of mouth.

My first night there he had wanted to chat. I was very tired, so I retired early. Bryan asked me what time I wanted breakfast, and when I said 7:30 his mouth dropped. I guess that like many northerners he was a night owl and late riser. When I turned down my sheets and slipped into bed, I felt something very warm. It was a hot water bottle, of all things. The place was so warm, I didn’t really need it, but it was a nice touch nonetheless. The next morning I woke up around 6 AM. I could hear someone in the kitchen; pots and pans were already being banged around. I couldn’t think why. I gazed outside my own picture window, and was delighted to see a family of caribou grazing not ten feet from the house. They were a rather ragged bunch, for although it was only April they were already molting. I threw some clothes on to go out and have a close-up look at them, but by the time I got outside they had wandered off, over the hill.

When I sat down at the exquisitely decorated dining room table for breakfast, Bryan appeared out of the kitchen. He was dressed from head to toe in chef’s garb: from the white hat and double-breasted jacket right down to the blue and white check pants. As I recall, he even had a red kerchief around his neck! I tried not to giggle as he took my order for breakfast. Could this possibly be the same man who had picked me up at the airport just yesterday? There were obviously at least two Bryan Pearsons under that scrabbly grey beard of his. For breakfast I was offered fresh-squeezed orange juice, piping hot homemade muffins ( that’s what all the banging had been about ), and Spanish omelet. This was one of the most delicious breakfasts I had ever eaten. I kept asking myself how I could have so misjudged this man. I had always reserved final judgment on him, but never in my wildest dreams did it cross my mind that he would turn out to be a gourmet chef. Later, when I told him that had I known he was such a good cook I would have asked him to cook me a meal that evening, he said, in his characteristic dismissive style, “Forget it, you could never afford it!” Apparently he insisted on using only fresh ingredients for everything, even if this meant buying produce that had been flown in from Montreal.

After the feast, he asked me what my plans were for the day. I told him that I had several meetings lined up, and that I thought I would catch a meal in town and then hang around until it was time to come back to the B & B and go to bed. The truth was that although I found him a fascinating guy, he was a bit suffocating. There was something terribly motherly or auntish about him, wanting to control your every movement, know your every thought, before coming down with the definitive word about everything. One thing about Bryan: he was going to give you his considered opinion about something, whether you asked him or not. But he was terribly crushed that I was planning to spend the evening out. He had rented a video that he thought I would like; he had already seen it himself once. There was no way out. I resigned myself to spending another evening with him. There was something touching about his need for companionship. Most places you stay at contact with the host or hostess is minimal; but not here. Here you are made to feel special. He may be there to serve you, but you are also there to serve him. So, after a long day of meetings in town, and a lousy meal at one of the hotels, I sauntered back to the B & B, arriving at around 8:30 PM.

In a way I was hoping that he had forgotten about the video, or had perhaps started it without me, so that at least then I wouldn’t have to watch the whole thing. But, oh, no! No such luck. Bryan gave me a mild reprimand for being late, just like any elderly aunt would. So, after freshening up, we sat down in a pitch black living room to watch Johnny Depp in a film about some grade B Hollywood director of Boris Carloff? horror films. Everything was in black and white. Sitting there watching this dreadful film was like a penance for me, like having to look at slide’s of someone’s vacation. To my utter amazement, my honourable host felt asleep about ten minutes into the film and never woke up until it was all over. I was afraid that if I got up to leave he would awake; so I just stayed there, stoic that I am. In all honesty, after about an hour and a half I started to enjoy the film, almost as a form of protest. I was not going to give Bryan the pleasure of knowing that I hated it, so I forced myself to like it. What my friend Pearson saw in this film I shall never know.

The next morning, another gourmet breakfast and I was off. I wanted to walk into town along the frozen shores of Frobisher Bay. So, Bryan graciously offered to drive my bags into the airport and leave them there for me to pick up at the First Air counter later on. My walk took me through the outer limits of Iqaluit and past the cemetery. A group of huskies chained to their doghouses on the ice yelped at me as I passed. Bryan Pearson had managed to be the most interesting part of my whole trip to Iqaluit.