THERE’ SAN interesting theory thai the future, the past and the present exist simultaneously. “In other words, our sense of time — as something that moves inexorably forward, never sideways or backwards —~ is an illusion. | buy into this. Not because of any fancy mathematics, or even. because of any philosophical flash- es. Just a vague sense that there is a certain quality of mysterious simul- _taneousness to life which ean ~ never put my finger on, but which leaves me feeling that J DO live, ° somehow, in the past, the present and the future at the same time. ‘This feeling got a nudge over “the last couple of weeks, bringing it a little more clearly into focus. I took three journeys, one on the heels of another, first onan L- 1014, then in an old Beaver bush i plane, and, finally, in a canoe. ‘The first was with my family, flying ‘between Vancouver and. Toronto, : I was’ sitting, chatting with my son near the rear of the jetliner, ~ when the steward, who recognized me from my media work, came / along and invited the entire family “up to the cockpit. I’ve been in the cockpit of a 747 “in flight before, but never an L- 1011. Not that I could much tell the “difference. The array of computer- “ized stuff was way beyond my comprehension, reminding me of a stage set for Star Wars or Star Trek. "So let us just say it was all magic to me. The pilot and co- pilot were sit- ting there with their arms folded - across their chests while the plane .:,. flew itself, its multiple computer: ;.. brains and sensors and monitors jabbering silently to each other. ‘The aircraft was just coming up : “on the eastern flank of the Rockies. “It was sunset. It had, in fact, been sunset for two or three hours. But now, the sun was glowing amid a ., gauze vortex of clouds spraying off “the silver peaks, and it was simply so beautiful that we all went into a kind of trance. When I Suggested to the captain ° “ that.we weren't really moving so much as hovering while the Earth + turned underneath us, he smiled jand said: “Sort of.” We were hurtling along, but the speed we had attained merely “matched the rotation speed of the : “planet, so the effect was that the: “Sun was staying stubbornly put on “the horizon. cag) ve sen, ‘this phenomenon’ ° "before: at Surse, But hunched over ‘inthe cackpit Of the jet, with a pale | golrtén-n pie haze of light playing . ° ‘on Our faces, and the nose of the “aircraft so Steeply, curved | i "seemed we were staring.¢ out ofa bubble suspended i in oroil, 1 was taken by a reverse deja vu sense of. being in some age that hadn't really “arrived. I mean, it was REAL — | " but only marginally, : ‘ANN & ROBERT. “for professional & expert” ~ service. in Real Estate | : SUTTON GROUP WEST coast REALTY Call 986-9321 or 988-2186 strictly personal Down below was a primeval world, all rock and ice and cloud, lit by @ strange, fading star, And we were just visitors from space. Less than a week later, I found myself clambering aboard a venera- ble single-engine Beaver float-. _ plane, an aircraft that had been designed in ‘1946. This particular plane had been built in 1952. The pilot, Nick Pipoli, was 72 years old. He was, | learned, the pilot who had taught Canadian astronaut Roberta Bondar to fly. The old floatplane’s interior was battered and bent. “Textured” would be a nice way to put il. , don't think there was a single. square inch of its surface that wasn’t dented from years of camp- ing equipment and supplies being crammed aboard. : Instead of flashing lights and digitized screens, the’dashboard featured a rosary, strung along its top. : ; : Nick’s opening line was: “There are bold pilots and old pilots, but ‘there are no old, bold pilots.” He advised me not to bump any- thing, not as easy a bit of instruc- tion as it might seem, given that my knees were pressing up against the dash. When | asked him, he said that - 1,700 of these durable craft had been built, and “about a thousand ~ of them are still operational.” {didn't ask what happened to the other 700. From the vantage point of the seat beside the pilot, | could mike out the individual trees below as we hauled up into the air and head- cd into the wind, bumping its though over large potholes, In contrast to the L- lO) 1, which had been eerily silent except for the faint hum of the air conditioning and che distant purr of the jet engines, the noise level inthe Beaver was such that { had to yell to make myself heard above the cucophony. It was hard to believe that the Beaver was really related to the suborbital spacecraft I'd been on board just a few days before. The old pilot’s gnarled fingers grasped handles and levers that made squeaking sounds, like some- One operating one of those old wringer washing machines before electric dryers were invented. _». The Beaver deposited me and a handful of camping buddies ona tiny lake, an hour's flight (at 90 knots) from the nearest town. From there, we set out in canoes for a week’s paddling through untouched wilderness. There is an art to canoeing, a certain way to handle the paddle in ’ the middie of a lake, which is dif- ferent from how you deal with it while “prying” in twisting streams or pushing off rocks in white water. There is a huge difference _ between the art of paddling in the front of the canoe, and being the person at the back, working on his J-stroke. ‘No one knows for sure when the native North Americans invented — the canoe, but it goes back many - thousands of years, perhaps. halfway to the last Ice Age, © From time to time, us I stroked, I heard fioutplanes droning over- heard, and a couple of times I saw jet trails up on the edge of the [PERSONAL INJURY| Free Initial Consultation _, Douglas W. Lahay CLARK, WILSON |” BARRISTERS & SOLICITORS -800- 885 West Georgia Street, Van. 687-5700: {24 HOUR MESSAGE 643-3161 H ICBC's policies are not daw. will get you a fair settlement or trial award. 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