Matt is a big bear of a man from Western Oz. A Teddy Bear actually. He arrived in the winter of 2007 and quickly gained a reputation as a mild-mannered, even-tempered gentleman.
He left before Christmas for a job in Timmins, Northern, Ontario, where he conducted seismic exploration traveling the northern bush alone, in the dead of winter using snowshoes working in temperatures of -40C! He literally dropped of our radar.
He had gone to the remote Timmins area of northern Ontario known only for Black Flies, Black Bears and the fact that it is the home town of Shania Twain. An easy place to get lost in!
He had accepted the job along with Thiago, a Brazilian who arrived back at the hostel within three weeks on crutches having been injured in the bush and rescued by snowmobile! We lost touch with Matt for almost a year!
He returned on Halloween 2008 (dressed as Batman) as he made his way east to Halifax. When he completes that journey he will be able to say safely, that he has covered Canada from coast to coast.
” Here’s your Bear Spray and some Bear Bangers” (big firecrackers) he was told before setting off in to the wilderness. He must have been comforted by the information that the last employee mauled to death by an enraged Grizzly had happened more than two years previously. But the job paid quite well as one might expect.
His work brought him to Calgary in the west; north to Yellowknife in the Northwest Territories to Whitehorse in the Yukon and on to the high Arctic (Polar Bear country; bigger, stronger, meaner and even more dangerous than Grizzly’s) still conducting surveys for mining exploration companies.
Matt’s plans are to visit Ottawa, our nation’s capital and head to Montreal, Quebec City then on to the Maritimes. And by then he will have seen Canada from north to south, east to west.
Big Matt with friends on the patio (just before Christmas 2007) before disappearing into the bush of northern Canada.
.
Halloween ’08. He returns to the hostel as the “Caped Crusader”! (So that’s what he’s been doing!)