EARLY DAYS
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I enjoyed my junior and senior high school years. Growing up in a small town had many upsides. I had a small Arctic Cat Jag 2000 snowmobile which I drove to school and then sledded in the fields around town after school and on the weekends. How many kids can drive to school on their snowmobile! It was light enough that I could pick up the front end if I got stuck. I was rough on it and had to fiberglass cracks in the chassis and replace the windshield at least once per season. I put ice cleats on the track which gave me awesome gripping power. My “Jag” gave me independence.
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My highschool - WCHS
I only ended up in hospital once when I hit a diagonal snow drift and landed on my side with the sled on top of me. No permanent damage (that I know of).
Another advantage of growing up in a small town was having access to the science labs after hours. If you showed interest or aptitude you could conduct your own experiments and play with all the cool stuff. A group of us found a high voltage low amp spark generator in the physics lab. We decided to set up a Kirlian photography lab (what is this? see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirlian_photography) where we took “spark” photographs of people’s hands. Essentially we created an electrical current through people which caused fine sparks to come off of their hands resulting in funky pictures like the one below. We did convince one girl to take a picture of her lips and then nicknamed her "hot lips". She did not appreciate the experience.
In biology one of the local taxidermists gave me a beaver carcass which I dissected and created an organ specimen collection for class. There may still formalin jars with beaver organs floating around in the Wynyard Composite High School (WCHS) biology lab.
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​I had carefree childhood where every day was a new adventure. Out in the morning and back by supper