The longest night

Perhaps you know the pattern of internal emotions that you go through when waiting for a heavily delayed flight.

I was nice and early at London Heathrow terminal three yesterday morning, with more than three hours in hand for flight AC865, the daily 15h00 departure for Montréal. The previous week, hoardes of flightless masses grounded at Heathrow by dense fog had filled our television screens and newspaper cover stories. This time, however, the air was clear.

‘Landside’, Heathrow is almost always overwhelmed with queues as passengers wait to clear security. Once ‘airside’ of security, Heathrow is overwhelmed with duty free shopping. Terminal three is no different, with a large centralised holding lounge where passengers wait for their gates to be called. Every free meter of wall space has been punched through to create a retail or catering unit. Dozens of shops, including such high class units as Harrods and Chanel, all compete to distract you as you while away the now obligatory two hour wait. Windows do not provide rentable space, so the British Airport Authority does not encourage their use.

Abandon all hope, ye who enter. Sunlight became a distant memory, even more so as it became obvious that my flight was going to be delayed.

AC865 was some way down the list of departures when I arrived, and some way off from being assigned a gate. As preceding flights opened, boarded, closed and departed, AC865 gradually shunted up the departure screens. But then as the last sixty minutes began to tick away, it remained firmly unopen, and subsequent flights began to open, board, close and depart. AC865 remained stubbornly at the top of the screens, glued to the monitor with the same moronic largely useless:

Please Wait.

Two hours after the scheduled departure time, there was still no news of what was up, and only snippets of information were being circulated amongst passengers who had begun to recognise each other as the unlucky few who had still not left for Montréal. Eventually the waiting lounge grapevine reported that we had passed the magical three hour delay, and therefore food and drinks were being laid on for us (up to a value of £10, mind) at two concessions in the lounge. The sun had already set, and unusually for a westbound trans-Atlantic flight, this was going to be a flight in complete darkness.

At eight o’clock (five hours late) a gate is announced and a weary crowd of recognisable faces tramps to the gate. Once processed and shuttled to a remote stand (number 593) we find out what was holding us up. Two computers that controlled one of the engines of the Airbus A330 had developed irrecoverable faults, and had to be replaced. Had this happened at almost any other airport, spares would have had to have been flown in. As it was, ours were luckily found in the warehouse of another airline at Heathow.

Just after nine o’clock in the evening (fifteen hours after I woke up to begin to journey to Heathrow) we rolled onto Heathrow’s runway 27R and shot off towards Canada. On the in-flight ‘air show’, a small icon representing our plane began to edge across a map of the Atlantic, one pixel every few minutes. The map was elegantly coloured in the blues and greens of a childhood atlas, but outside everything was shrouded in night.

We flew for almost seven hours and lost five more as we crossed the time zones heading west. The first lights of New Brunswick and then Québec caught my eye through the window, before we began our descent over a wintry Montréal. The city’s orange phosphorous lights were particularly bright that night, as they reflected off the fresh snowfall (the first of the season, notably late this year) and into the sky.

There did not appear to be any other flights arriving when we did: the vast customs hall was empty of passengers when I strode through, and only one baggage belt was operating. I stepped out of arrivals and into a taxi just after 23h30 (04h30 London time). We flew along the autoroute into the city, and I considered this seemingly endless night.

I woke the next morning at 06h00, which I counted as a lie in considering that my body clock was still on English time. The sun rose a little after 07h30, closing a traveller’s night that had followed me for a full nineteen hours. It’s a wonder that travel doesn’t make me jaundiced.

Every cloud has its silver lining

From the letters page of the Independent newspaper, Saturday 23 December 2006:

Sir: As part of the 51 per cent of the population who did not take a flight this year, I cannot help but find a beautiful irony in fog grounding hundreds of planes at Heathrow (“A sorry story that highlights the flaw in aviation policy”, 22 December).

How nice to see the climate wrecking flights for a change, rather than, as usually happens, flights wrecking the climate.

R. GEORGE, LONDON SW19

Just before Christmas we were treated the sights of hundreds of emotional travellers left stranded at London Heathrow, as thick fog stubbornly refused to shift from the two rather unsophisticated stretches of concrete that sandwich the central complex of terminals at the airport.

Television newsreaders and newspaper copy writers were excitedly describing it as ‘travel chaos’, or even with as ‘travel misery’. Airlines were already being marked down as ‘beleagured’ before the inclement weather had settled in – it has not been a good year for commercial aviation in Europe. The much vaunted double deck Airbus A380 – which was supposed to relieve so much congestion at hub airports such as Heathrow – has slipped behind schedule, and governments across Europe are finally waking up to the rather late realisation that it’s time to start taxing people who fly for the environmental damage that their flights are causing (although Gordon Brown’s extra £5 a flight is not going to be nearly enough).

In order to loosen some slack at the airport, British Airways cut all domestic routes in and out of Heathrow for the duration of the heavy fog. What astonished so many bystanders was the sheer number of domestic flights that we have flying in and out of Heathrow every day. For an island nation whose length can barely justify overnight sleeper trains, it was incredible that this meant one hundred and fifty fewer flights would be operating than on a normal day.

While it is getting more and more socially acceptable to harang someone over the dinner table for flying with Easyjet from London Stantsed to Newcastle (almost as acceptable, in fact, as haranging a smoker, in fact) the fog at Heathrow revealed a problem. The vast proportion of BA’s affected passengers who were trying to fly on domestic routes were those who had just arrived or who were trying to depart on international long-haul services. The low cost airlines may have sewn up Europe from your local airport, but for long haul BA is still one of the most competitive and popular airlines from throughout Great Britain. Their business strategy of not fighting with the lo-co airlines has paid off: BA is now doing very well off strong long haul business, and their European and domestic network is primarily a feeder into this.

And here’s the rub. Door to door, from the centre of London to the centre of Newcastle, the train still edges it, as it does between London and Manchester, Glasgow, Paris and Brussels. But our skies are still going to be clogged with this insane volume of domestic routes for as long as our airports and rail networks exist independently of one another, each operated by independent (and increasingly private) organisations. If we’re serious about cutting aeroplane emissions, we need a whole new level of joined up thinking.

Next time you find yourself at Amsterdam Schipol airport (one of the world’s finest international hubs) have a look in the basement of the landside terminal. It’s one of the biggest railway stations you’ve even seen in an airport. And there are trains to every corner of the Netherlands twenty four hours a day. London’s airports at Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, and City all boast about their integrated railway stations, but until airports are plugged into a national network of intercity railway routes that operate in and out of the airports before the first and after the last flights, we’re going to be playing a second rate game. And a dense cloud of fog could foul up everyones’ Christmas all over again.

Connecting at Ely

“This must be the coldest place on earth,” says the businessman in the heavy and expensive looking duffel coat. He is stirring sugar into his cup of coffee at the small platform counter of the L.A. Wild Bean coffee shop at Ely railway station.

I attempt to engage in some polite and mildly witty conversation, suggesting that actually the coldest place on earth is about two metres to his right, where I’m sitting on a steel and wicker garden chair, optimistically provided by the café management for al fresco caffeine consumption in comfort. But the businessman does not hear me. The pretty young woman of non-descript Eastern European origin who is making his coffee hads evidently distracted him, although somewhat pleasingly, he isn’t having any luck starting a conversation with her either.

Ely, and its famous cathedral, is built on a small hill in the middle of the Cambridgeshire fens, once a vast area of marsh and coastal inlets that has been reclaimed over the course of a few centuries. Ely railway station sits on the edge of this low protrusion from the fins, and from the platform waiting passengers peer out into the vast landscape of intensively cultivated fields. Not only is it very cold today (barely above zero celius at midday), but there is thick fog blanketing the countryside for miles around us. It appears increasingly unlikely that the sun will burn it away before descending beneath the horizon again. On the island platform across the tracks from me, lonely passengers wait for trains to London King’s Cross and Stansted Airport against a pitch white backdrop of white. To my left, at one end of the station, a busy road passes underneath the northbound railway lines. A strip of tall, bare trees line on side of this road as it stretches away from us into the mist. Each tree is markedly less visible than the one before it: half an avenue vanishes into the fog.

The road passes under a low bridge, so any vehicle taller than a Transit van has to climb a sharp incline parallel to the road and cross the railway lines via a level crossing next to the bridge. Unfortunately for the long line of trucks, lorries and vans, Ely is a relatively important junction between north-south and east-west railway lines, and the gates of the crossing sometimes stay down for fifteen minutes or more, as successive freight and passenger trains pass by. In this jolly country of the privatised railway, every identical three car diesel sprinter that comes by has been dressed up in a different set of colours for a different commercial operator. One green and white train belongs to the singularly mis-named and uncapitalised ‘one railway’, as does another which has yet to be re-liveried from the colours of ‘Anglia Railways’. A green train belonging to ‘Central’ rumbles in, burbles for a few minutes, and then rumbles off again, back in the same direction that it came from. Then a sleek and mildly whining red, white and blue train glides in, carrying passengers on a fast service to London.

Two noisy freight trains pass in quick succession, and finally the level crossing gates go up. A flurry of heavy goods vehicles shoot across the line, knowing that they could be help up for another quarter of an hour if they’re not quick about it.

My toes are cold, and my train is still fifteen minutes away.

First published on jamesbrownontheroad.wordpress.com

A day out in Canada’s frozen north

This is an extract from my month long USA and Canada train trip travelogue, published live online as a blog at jamesbrownontherails.blogspot.com. Click on the highlighted links to see photographs from the trip. For details of the thrice-weekly ‘Hudson Bay’ train from Winnipeg to Churchill, Manitoba, contact VIA Rail Canada. Also previously published on the Lonely Planet Thorn Tree.

I’m the only person disembarking train 693 from the sleeper car. Further up, the thrice weekly arrival of the two locomotive, five coach train (one baggage car, two coaches, a restaurant car and a sleeper coach) is being met with great activity, as supplies and luggage are unloaded from the train. I hang around for a while, waiting for the station master to return from unloading the train so that I can leave my bags here for the day. It is bitterly cold. I check the printed weather forecast that is pinned inside the station, and today’s high is not predicted to be above -8C. This is in fact, unseasonally cold for Churchill, and just last week a period of warm sunshine and spring like temperatures was apparently broken by a sudden snow and ice storm. Regardless, I am hopelessly unprepared for this drop in temperature, and just waiting outside on the platform, my extremities are getting cold. I joke with one of the other passengers that this is quite a change from California the week before last. If I’d known I would have packed gloves and a hat. He replies that if he’d known he would have packed his thermal underwear. I fantacise about my soft silky long johns, far far away from here, stuffed in a drawer back in Montréal.

I manage to leave my bags with the station manager (no charge) and am told to be back before 20.00 to collect them. The return train to Winnipeg will be leaving tonight at 20.30. I have no intention of missing it. Just outside the large, beautifully restored station is a big sign, welcoming visitors to Churchill. It says that apart from being the ‘Polar Bear Capital of the World’, Churchill is a’ Bird Watchers Paradise’ (late May through September), ‘Belguga Whale Capital of the World’ (late June to late August) and home to the Aurora Borealis (late November through late March). So it’s no wonder that the train was empty – I’ve conveniently arrived at the one time of the year when there isn’t much going on in Churchill for the tourist.

I scamper up Kelsey Boulevard, the closest thing Churchill can claim to have to a busy shopping street. It’s a broad tarmac road, with wide unpaved strips either side. Low-lying one and two-storey buildings are dotted out along the street in both directions. I head straight for the ‘Northern’ supermarket and general store. I am fully prepared to pay a fortune for some gloves and hats, knowing full well how expensive things can become up here because of their long journey to get here. Much to my amusement, however, because it’s now the end of winter, there’s a clearance sale on all outerwear. I pick up a 75% discount on a pair of gloves and a toque (hat). Total price: C$3.13. I am now prepared.

I leave the Northern stores wrapped up snugly and prepared for a day out in Churchill. The Northern is Churchill’s biggest store, and it really is a ‘general’ store. It has a small supermarket with a surprisingly large selection of fresh fruit and vegetables, a small electrical department, a video rental store, a clothes department and just about every small thing you could need around the household.

I walk back towards the station and then turn left alongside a partly snowed over park, towards the Town Centre Complex. This large, low building hugs the crest of a low hill on the north-eastern side of town, stretching along the edge of the community for several blocks. It’s not particularly pretty, but then its large amorphous shape serves a purpose. As well as housing the town’s school, hospital, theatre, library and council rooms, the large complex forms a large barrier between the town and the shore of the Hudson Bay. As soon as I walk round the side of the building to visit the beach, I realise why that’s a good idea. As far as I can see, the bay is still frozen over. All my hopes of seeing the ocean at the end of my forty hour train ride evaporate.

And because the sea is still frozen, the wind that is coming off the bay is perishing. The moment I turn the corner and walk towards the beach, the temperature drops about another ten degrees with the wind-chill. Even with my extra layers, the icy wind cuts through me, and it feels about –15C. And remember, this is May. In January this icy wind-chill factor can push the perceived temperature down to nearly –60C.

I trudge down the track towards the sandy beach. The last time I saw sand, I was in California just over a week ago, when it was a rather agreeable 15C. I can’t believe that just a few weeks ago I considered that chilly. On the edge of the beach stands a stone Inuit sculpture. These beautiful abstract structures don’t require much explanation. In this inhospitable environment, these simple stone structures tell you that other people have been here before; that you are not alone. They are a friendly greeting, made from the materials found lying to hand, but arranged in a way that could only be made by another human being. The precise meanings of different sculptures revealed messages about hazards, territories or even good fishing grounds. Although Churchill’s population is now predominantly white and Anglo-Canadian, this sculpture is a beautiful reminder of this territory’s traditions and origins.

I feel like I should sit and consider this barren seascape for a bit longer; maybe stop and sketch for a while. But as they say back home, it’s brass monkeys out here and I’m cold. I scoot back towards the town, but take a right and walk a little way out of town towards Churchill’s most notable landmark. Out on the edge of town stand the enormous grain elevators of the Port of Churchill. It’s because of the port that Churchill has a railway line. Churchill handles tens of thousands of tonnes of grain and other freight every year, even though it is closed in by ice for almost half of the year. In a magazine article published in Montréal before I left on my trip, Omni-Trax (the new owners of the Port of Churchill) were openly optimistic about the opportunities for increasing the volume of freight that passes through the port. Over the next few decades, it is expected that the effect of global warming will be to allow sea passage to and from Churchill for longer every year. The period that the port is iced in has already been seen to be slowly reducing. Some of the Churchill residents I spoke to were pessimistic, however, and pointed out that despite the effect global warming on the polar ice, it’s still impossible to work outside in the winter when it gets below –40C, and the winters don’t appear to be getting any warmer up here..

Churchill is the only sea port in the Canadian prairies, and grain shipped through here can reach Europe two and a half days earlier than if shipped through eastern ports such as Montréal or Boston. Importing and exporting produce and products through Churchill avoids thousands of kilometres of railway and, because of the curvature of the Earth, allows for a quicker sea crossing to Europe.

But at this exact moment, the port stands silent. The winter ice is beginning to break up and melt, but it will be some time before shipping commences for the summer season of 2006.

I walk back into town, cutting down through some of the residential streets at this end of town. The architecture here tells you everything you need to know about the climate. In some cases, the windows are deeply set in thickly insulated walls. On some buildings, there are no windows or openings at all on the side facing the bay.

I return to Kelsey Boulevard and stop into a large shop selling souvenirs. I’ve spent much of the last winter experiencing much colder temperatures in Montréal, but to return to this climate again suddenly without any time to acclimatise is making me balance my time walking around town with my time inside. The shop is quiet, but I can imagine that in a busier time of year it’s hopping with tourists. All sorts of Canadiana is available to purchase, although it’s hard to find anything that you can honestly say is from Churchill. More or less everything is imported via the same long surface route that I came. Even the plastic polar bears are made in China.

I walk the length of Kelsey Boulevard, and decide that there’s no point holding out on a nice warm meal any longer. By the time I reach Gypsy’s Diner, I don’t need to be persuaded by the recommendation in my Lonely Planet guidebook. It’s already sold itself to me. It’s a basic diner and bakery with a solid menu. I choose today’s lunchtime special, a beef and pork stir fry, which reminds me to warn any vegetarians thinking of moving to Churchill not to underestimate the difficulties you’re likely to encounter here. I sit and write postcards over my coffee, listening in to the gossip from a group of retired ladies on the next table.

I spend the rest of the day exploring what’s left of the small town. The population of Churchill once numbered 7,000. It’s now less than 800, following the closure in 1979 of the large US Military base. American service men and women were dispatched to Churchill for cold weather training, since Churchill’s climate bore more than a passing semblance to much of that of the then Soviet Union.

The Eskimo Museum opens at 13.00, and I go in for a look round. Incredibly the museum is free, although it does depend on donations to help maintain the beautiful collection housed in the modest building next to the town’s Catholic church. The museum’s single large room is lined with glass display cabinets, and these are filled with hundreds of Inuit artefacts and sculptures. In fact the collection of ivory and soapstone figurines and carvings is easily the highlight of my trip. There are also a couple of stuffed arctic animals which sit in large cases, lamely caught in poses designed by a distant taxidermist.

The museum is also worth visiting for the large collection of books that are on sale. They cover the natural environment of Churchill and also the history of this town and the region. I bump into one of the other passengers who had travelled up from Winnipeg with me, and he was pleased to have finally found a copy of the book that chronicles the history of the construction of the Hudson Bay Railway.
After seeing the museum, I visit the library, which is inside the Town Centre Complex. You can use the internet here for free for up to thirty minutes. The lady at the counter raised her eyebrows and shrugged, saying that the computers were mainly for tourists who wanted to be able to check their e-mails every day while staying in Churchill. Apparently some people don’t take to the wilderness too well (myself included, it seems).

The rest of the day passes slowly but leisurely. Churchill seems to shut down outside the major tourist seasons, so I was able to spend a pleasant afternoon just walking and stopping off for a coffee from time to time in one of the town’s cafés. There are a handful of attractions outside town, such as the wreckage of a freight plane that crashed near Churchill Airport in the seventies. I’m told it was brought down because of a heavy load of Pepsi, but I suspect it might have had more to do with something more mundane. Seeing these requires transport, but I decide not to spend C$20 on a taxi tour.

I explore the town some more, stopping off in the post office for stamps (and to ensure my postcards get a suitably interesting postmark) and going back to the Northern store to get some supplies for the return trip. I go back to the library when it opens again at 19.00 for a second burst of blogging, having realised how far behind I am in my online travelogue. On my way out, I notice some boxes by the door. A large quantity of old books, some from Churchill Library, are being offered for free to anyone who can offer them a better home. So I rifle through, and pick out the Booker Prize winning paperback The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood, and an old hardback biography of the inventor of radar (something my father would doubtless approve of…). Having been turned off by the imported souvenirs I’d seen today, this would be an excellent souvenir of my trip. Inside the front cover, this decommissioned library book still carries it’s loan record and the insert library card. It was given to the For Churchill Library in 1953, and has spent the last fifty years being read by generations of Churchillers with a passing interest in radar. It adds quite a weight to my luggage, but I’m happy to leave with a special souvenir.

Just before returning to the station, I turn round the corner of the Town Complex once more and walk down to the beach. The sun is falling behind the pretty solid grey cloud cover, and the temperature is beginning to drop again. I crunch through the untouched banks of snow and down onto the sand. I stand alone, staring out across the frozen bay once more. Another cinematic reference pops into my mind – this time The Winter Guest, filmed on an unnamed Scottish island during a particularly cold winter, during which the straight between the island and the mainland freezes over. Despite being quite unbelievable for Scotland’s mild climate, it’s still an enchanting image, and throughout the film people do as I do, and come out to stare across the immensely solid yet dangerously fragile surface. I’ve never seen anything quite like this before, and the immensity of this frozen sea is almost overwhelming. Having lived in Montréal for almost eight months now, I have realised how much I miss being near to the sea. I miss the smells, the sounds, and the sense of enormity that borders seaside landscapes.

But here, there is no sound, other than the wind whistling off the ice and across my numbing cheeks. Every quality I associate with the sea has been obscured. Part of me agrees with a young female character in The Winter Guest, who runs out onto the ice, teasing her more cautious friend that he shouldn’t be afraid: he might never get the chance again to walk on the sea.

But fears of plummeting through a cracked ice flow overcome my subconscious urges. I turn my back to the sea, and walk back to the station.

Shortly after we arrived this morning, our train reversed out of Churchill station, and was turned in a triangular turning circuit just outside town. It subsequently backed into the station, and was left there with engines running all day. From time to time I would round a corner and hear the not too distant hum of the gently throbbing locomotives. It might seem like a waste of diesel, but it’s safer than shutting down the engines and then discovering that they can’t be re-started. This especially important in the depths of winter, when a train failure could be extremely difficult to fix, and a replacement locomotive could take days to reach us. Despite their normally short consist, trains 693 and 692 to and from Churchill operate with two locomotives not for pulling power, but for safety. If one were to break down, there would not be much chance for another to reach a stranded train for some time. And in the depths of winter, if a train with a single locomotive was to break down, the heating in the passenger cars would soon drop far below freezing. It would cease to be a matter of convenience, and soon become a matter of life or death.

I’m early at the station (old habits die hard) but there is already a hub-bub on the station platform as luggage is loaded into the baggage car. The tourist office inside the old station building has a single VIA Rail ticket desk, and it’s from here that a locally employed agent sells tickets and provides information to passengers. I notice that on the desk is a pile of the new Amtrak system timetable. Perhaps a few other long distance journeys have commenced here?

Most of the tickets being sold, however, are for Thompson. There is a small group of young teenagers here this evening, all with violin cases and luggage for a couple of days away. I learn through overheard conversations that they are actually fiddles, not violins, and that they are presumably going to play in a concert or competition.

Of the handful of passengers who travelled north with me, two are returning to Winnipeg this evening as well. The two gentlemen, who I’d already met on the first night, had taken advantage of a VIA Rail special offer, which allows one passenger over the age of sixty to take a companion of any age for free. Both being over sixty, they paid one fare and split it between the two. Having lived in Winnipeg for much of their lives, they had decided (much like me) to take a trip to Churchill just for the sake of it. They had had a similarly interesting day, but had also retreated indoors in the afternoon to warm up.

Our train begins boarding at about 20.15, preparing for a 20.30 departure. There is a healthy load of coach passengers, most going to Thompson and connecting to bus services from there. I board the sleeper car shortly afterwards.

When I arrived this morning, my sleeper attendant had mentioned that she would be making up one more berth for another passenger. So when I re-board the train and head to the familiar couchette end of the carriage, I meet a new travelling companion. Vera has lived in Churchill since 1979, and she runs a three room bed and breakfast on Hearne Street. She has two sons in the town, and ever since she arrived here almost thirty years ago following a period in the Wrens, has called Churchill her home. One son works on a pilot boat that guides ships into the harbour. The other is an engineer in the Town Complex, and helps with the maintenance of the water supply. Tap water is sourced from the Churchill River, at a point about two miles inland from the town. Part of his job is to maintain the water heaters that heat the water three times between the river and the two. Without these (and the element heaters that many houses have in the pipes where the water enters the house) the pipes would freeze solid throughout the winter. Along with heavy duty engine block heaters that require cars to be plugged in overnight to prevent them from freezing up, it’s just another practicality in the life of the town.

It’s rewarding to finally talk to a Churchill resident for a short while. She says she is yet to be convinced that the port will ever be open for much longer, but says that despite the bitter winters she enjoys living here. Everyone knows everyone, and it’s a tight community. I ask about the inevitable flip side of remote life in Canada: are there drug or alcohol problems in Churchill? Her answer is yes – there will always be a few heavy drinkers, but the drug problem is harder to solve. A town meeting later this week will be bringing together the officers of the RCMP and local residents. Until specific information can be brought against members of the community suspected of supplying drugs (such as fatally addictive crystal meths) not much can be done.

We leave a few minutes early, and together we watch the settlement slip away. In ten or fifteen minutes, we cross the level crossing that had announced our arrival to me this morning, and we’re on our way back across the wilderness once more. Ten hours in Churchill might seem a short justification for eighty hours of travelling, but at this time of the year I didn’t miss much in town. Besides, for me the journey has been as much the destination as the town itself.

Shortly after leaving Churchill, our attendant returns to make up the third pair of bunks. A passenger in coach class has decided to pay the night fare for a couchette through to Thompson, so we’ll be losing the spare pair of seats for the night. It’s fine with us – Vera goes forward to read in the coach car, and I decide to turn in early to read. For this half of the Churchill run, I’ve paid a bit more and booked a lower berth. Getting in and out of it is easier, and I get this time I get window. If there’s one complaint it’s that the lower bunk is just slightly too low: it’s not possible to lie in bed and look out of the window at anything other than the sky or the tops of the trees beside the track. But that’s hardly a major complaint. I curl up under the sheets, button the curtain closed and dive into The Blind Assassin. Beside me, my picture window fills with an ever deepening blue, as the sun sets and night falls. I’m back in my natural habitat, it seems, warm and cozy, gently falling asleep to the sound of the train rattling over the tracks. It’s Tuesday evening: I will arrive in Toronto in three days time.