A hint of the Olympics in the North (comment)

It was a cold day in Whitehorse – for me anyways.

It was a cold day in Whitehorse – for me anyways.

I returned home from B.C. on the red eye flight at 1 a.m.

Tuesday morning, and after dealing with a lost guitar and finding a hotel I was exhausted.

Four hours later, I was heading for work.

It was a big day in Whitehorse.

The Olympic Flame would be travelling through the city.

Being from B.C. during the planning stages of the Olympics I wasn’t all that bothered by it.

Everyone seemed excited in Whitehorse, but the truth is, in B.C. all we ever hear about in the news is the Olympics.

The flame touring through would probably be pretty neat, but I had no idea it would be such a massive community celebration in Whitehorse.

I started out at 3 p.m. to head up to the Beringia Centre to catch the first torch being lit. Just past Hamilton

Boulevard I noticed traffic was snarled up about as far as I could see up ahead.

The flame was supposed to start out at 3:20 p.m.

By the time I got in sight of the airport, I was stuck in the middle of the traffic.

I thought, maybe I should get my camera ready, just in case.

I grabbed it, threw it around my neck and that’s when the second torch bearer of the day, Julianna Campbell, ran right by my car, with a huge smile on her face, holding the flame high.

It occured to me at that moment that I didn’t even have a battery in my camera, and so began my insane day of chasing the Olympic flame.

It took me about a half an hour to get out of the traffic and back through town.

I decided to sit and wait up at the Canada Games Centre.

I thought I had missed the flame again; I could see the line of traffic working its way up towards Elijah Smith School.

I parked my car and waited in the crowd.

Outside the Games centre, mothers were telling their children all about the Olympics.

One in particular had three young boys with her who were playing in the snow, until she started excitedly pointing at the lights further down Hamilton.

Her boys stopped and started pointing with her.

Without my glasses on I couldn’t see it but the family had noticed the bright orange glow of the Olympic Torch as it was about to be passed on.

The mother then told her boys all about the Calgary Olympic Games in 1988, and what the flame meant being in Whitehorse.

As it got closer, the boys crowded the sidewalk, waving flags that had been given out and banging on little tamborines.

It was then that I realized how important it really was to have a piece of the Olympic Flame travel through Canada, especially the North.

Later in the evening, after spending about an hour in traffic again to get in front of the flame, I managed to park and get into Shipyards Park just as the second last torch bearer was heading towards community torch bearer Ramesh Ferris.

A huge crowd had gathered around him, like a celebrity.

The flame got closer, and once it was lit, the crowd jostled for position.

Cameras snapped like the paparrazzi were in town, and even my six-foot-tall advantage I had meant nothing to the spectators who wanted to get close to Ramesh and the flame.

The community celebration that followed in Shipyards Park was packed.

There must have been about 1,000 people waiting for Ramesh to light the cauldron that sat on stage.

The same kind of excited families and children I saw at the Canada Games Centre took photos with torch bearers and asked questions.

They all wanted to know how they got the honour to be a torch bearer, how heavy it was and how it felt.

It was an exciting day in Whitehorse, and despite the cold that froze people’s cameras (almost including my own), most people won’t forget it any time soon.

It was the day a piece of the Olympics stopped by and swept through the town.

When I finally got home around 8 p.m. that evening, I remembered how tired I had been that morning.