Before going to Iceland in June of 2023 I had never been outside of North America. When I moved to Vancouver in 1992 I had started going down to Seattle every now and again.
Prior to that, and including all of the years that I lived on Canadian Forces Base Downsview in Ontario, I had never gone down to New York or even the American side of Niagara Falls.
Actually, I was over the American border once, but that was when I was on a job in the spring of 1990 and I had a stop over in the town of St. Stephen, New Brunswick. I had gone over the bridge into Calais, Maine a couple of times just to see what things were like.
I landed in Iceland a few days before the summer solstice in 2023.
I was in Iceland for just over a week.
Why did I go?
I had been expecting to be able to apply for medical assistance in dying back on March 17th, 2023 and going to Iceland was on my bucket list of things that I wanted to do before I kicked off this mortal coil.
Well, of course the Government of Canada chickened out at the last minute, so I’m still trapped here.
Why was Iceland on my bucket list?
Well, I talked about this before, but I’ll touch on it here again.
In 1976 my father had been posted from Canadian Forces Base Shearwater in Nova Scotia to Canadian Forces Base Summerside on Prince Edward Island. His drinking and his physical abuse of my mother started to get out of hand.
In the winter of 1977 my father had my mother booted out of the military housing. My father then had his mother come in from Edmonton, Alberta to live in the PMQ and raise my brother and I as he was frequently away from home on exercises.
By the late spring of 1978 my grandmother had returned back to Edmonton.
In July of 1978 I had been found unconscious in the middle of the road due to an incident involving my bicycle. Someone had picked me up and driven me to the Prince County Hospital. The only next-of-kin listed was my father. My grandmother’s name wasn’t on the admission papers.
What was on that papers was this little curiosity:
Apparently it’s somewhat of a straight shot from CFB Summerside the to US Base in Iceland
So, being the curious type, I had to go see what was so great about Iceland.
It was an 8 hour flight from YVR to KEF.
It was an interesting week and a bit in Iceland.
Never did figure out why Richard went, must have just been a routine flight.
I mainly stayed in Reykjavik.
I couldn’t really see anyone that resembled me, so doesn’t look like my father made any pleasure stops while he was there.
I might go back in the winter of 2026 for the Winter Solstice.
Beeshive 