Sir Godfrey Gregg

Life up here may be simple but it’s not easy, and it’s not for everyone. Water runs out; pipes freeze; engines won’t start; it’s dark for fourteen, fifteen hours a day, for months. Even longer in the far north. Up here it’s about having enough food to eat, and enough heat to stay alive through the winter. It’s about survival and enjoying the company of the people that surround us. It’s not about whose house is the biggest, or who has the nicest clothes, or the most money. We support each other because we’re all in this together.

“And people either like that way of life or they don’t; there’s no real in-between. Some people who have adapted to this life, they find they can’t stay away from it for too long. And other people have never warmed up to it. They fight the challenges instead of embracing them, or at least learning to adapt to them.” I don’t agree with the choices some people made where they’re concerned, but I know it was never a matter of them not caring about each other. And if you want to blame people for not trying, there’s plenty of it to go around.” So we are encouraged to focus on the here-and-now, and not on what you can’t change.