Going The Distance

• 7am, day starts early.
• Another brush with major celebrity, this time in the form of an appearance on the radio breakfast show of 970 AM KFBX Fairbanks news radio.
• On for half an hour. DJ opens it up to the listeners – who phone in with advice for us on how to make a marriage last. Answers range from the good American “pray together once a day” to the more practical – and very useful – “never share a two man kayak”. Done that. Got the knuckle scars.

• On to bask in yet more of our 15 minutes of fame, with an appearance on CBS 13’s morning TV news show. Wearing the bell end costumes, sitting at news desk, interviewed by nice lady with good teeth, and the kind of voice news anchormen keep in a jar by their beds.
• Mrs GTD puce of face. Mr GTD dodgy ginger of beard. Are we ready for superstardom? The question plays constantly on my mind.

• To the World Eskimo Indian Olympics. Team GTD catches the Ear Pull final. A loop of twine is wrapped around the ears of two people who sit close together, facing each other. This is like dental floss, so by round three, deep cuts appear at the back of the lucky contestants’ ears.
• The idea of the games is to preserve and celebrate the traditional games of the Eskimo and Indian cultures. Some of the games have their origin in necessity (the blanket toss, where a person is launched high into the air from a trampoline of seal gut?, has its roots in being able to see far into the distance for whales; the high kick, where contestants have to kick a suspended ball with on foot, high above them – which was the way that the news of a whale catch would be communicated over long distances) and some are games (the seal hop, where a contestant moves himself forward in the press up position on his knuckles to mimic the movement of a seal on ice).
• Much excitement: Team GTD gets press passes. Unlimited access to the ear pull. Score.

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