Extreme Frontiers: Racing Across Canada from Newfoundland to the Rockies (9 page)

A
fter the sweat lodge I felt great – refreshed, really at peace with myself, and that’s not something that happens very often.
Anyone who’s read my previous books will know how I worry, get the heebie-jeebies about stuff when probably there’s no need.
But after that experience in the lodge, I really was pretty chilled out.

The following morning I woke up thinking about the river trip – the rush of adrenalin as we hit the water for the first time
in those canoes; how to begin with, it was all a bit tough because we didn’t really know what we were doing and we’d everything
to learn. It’s the second day when you start to relax; you know, get over the fact that you have no phone signal, that kind
of thing. Pretty soon you don’t want a phone signal; pretty soon you begin to appreciate why people come here to this wilderness
and just lose themselves for a few weeks at a time. It’s therapeutic, an escape from the everyday stuff you have to deal with,
the pressures you put on yourself. You’re paddling, dealing with the river, and that takes all your concentration.
Your day is broken into pieces and it’s all you think about: getting up and paddling, making for the shore, paddling again.
After only a couple of days I was totally into it, and I suppose the longer you’re out here, the more that rhythm is established.

This morning the plan was to paddle the last stretch from the Bloodvein River Lodge to the point where the MV
Edgar Wood
ferry runs across Lake Winnipeg to the western shore. It was a short crossing, and when we landed, Cam’s base crew were there
to greet us with a van and trailer for the canoes. They drove us the three or so hours back to Winnipeg, where we spent another
night at the Fort Garry Hotel, although this time I steered clear of the haunted room.

After our few days in the wilderness, it was back on the bikes to our next stop: Regina, Manitoba, three hundred and fifty
miles west of Winnipeg. We were planning to hook up with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and I was going to see what it
would be like to be a cadet. It was a little daunting; the Mounties are iconic: think of Canada and you think of that red
jacket and flat-brimmed Stetson.

Driving into Regina, we passed branches of McDonald’s and Taco Bell – it seemed to me that the further west we travelled, the
more like America the cityscapes were becoming. I suppose it was bound to be that way; the States was just south of here and
there are a lot of similarities anyway. Having said that, when you hit the outskirts of most British cities these days, it’s
KFC and Burger King that greet you.

But we weren’t in Britain; we were crossing the second largest country in the world and the diversity so far had been incredible.
We’d seen the Atlantic coastline; we’d seen lakes and rivers and forests; and now the land was pancake flat as far as the
eye could see. Not only was Manitoba flat, it was very, very
hot. As we drove into town, the temperature was thirty-three degrees Celsius and I was in leather jacket, jeans and helmet.
Stopping at a set of lights, Canadian White Van Man pulled up alongside and yelled across to me: ‘Hey, Charley, what’re you
doing here?’ The second person to recognise me! ‘Man, I love your shows, dude. This is awesome.’

I told him that I was heading for training with the Mounties, and he wished me luck. It’s great that people do that: just
show up and chat away as if you’re an old friend. I was reminded of heading off on
Long Way Round
all those years ago with Ewan, when a similar guy in a white van in London wished us all the luck in the world.

Riding along, I kept thinking about the movie
Police Academy
and what might lie in store for me. The Mounties are tough and I knew their training was second to none; they’re renowned
for training police forces from all over the world. Hopefully they wouldn’t run me too ragged. I mean, I’m forty-five now
and a little portly. I’m bike-fit – I’m always bike-fit – but I wasn’t sure I was quite Mountie-fit, if you see what I mean.

Even though we got lost on the way (it was bound to happen at some point, I suppose), we eventually found the place. It was
a pretty splendid-looking red-brick building set back from the road in lush-looking lawns. Parking the BMW outside the front
doors, I climbed off, stripped off my helmet and wiped the sweat from my brow. Russ went in, but a few minutes later came
out again to tell us that this was the wrong place. This was their headquarters; we wanted the training centre. Apparently
the people he’d spoken to inside hadn’t been the most helpful – they didn’t actually give us the address of where we had to
go; they just told us to head back to the lights and turn left. Before
we did that, we took a breather; three bikes and four sweat-soaked travellers: we were all a little bushed after the heat
of this morning and those last few days in the canoe.

Just as our first impressions of the Mounties looked to be a little tainted, a cop in a marked white pickup swung by and told
us he’d take us to the training centre. Saddled up, we followed him down the street and made the turn suggested to Russ. I
thanked the cop and he told me that I’d better expect boot camp, because that’s what this place was. That made me nervous,
but I kept telling myself it couldn’t be that bad, and it was only a day after all.

We had to stop at some very tall gates in a very tall fence, ten feet at least, with barbed wire encircling the top. This
was the real deal, and I admit my stomach was churning. Checked through, we rode round to where they’d asked us to park the
bikes. Dan was waiting for us; he was a corporal from the communications section, wearing a blue uniform and a cap with a
yellow band. A cheery chappie, he told us that his job was to meet and greet people like us and delegates from other police
forces, and teach them how the RCMP did the things it did. He showed us into a red-brick building, ‘Centralized Training’,
where we would check in, then took me down to get kitted out in shorts and socks, all ready for my training day tomorrow.
Gulp! Now the nerves were really kicking in.

On the way down to the stores, we talked a little about the history of the RCMP and Dan explained about the horses, the mounted
bit of the mounted police. Apparently they were actually phased out between the mid sixties and early seventies, although
there was still an equine training centre in Ottawa. They were mostly used for ceremonial purposes these days, rather than
actual police work.

We were now in C Block; built in 1953, it’s the original leathercraft shop where the famous riding boots the Mounties wear
are made. Inside, the signs were both in French and English. Dan led me down to meet Sean, the stores guy, who said he had
some goodies lined up for me. Bringing out a blue kitbag, he revealed a white RCMP cadet T-shirt with my name emblazoned across
it.

‘Ah,’ I said. ‘You’ve been expecting me, haven’t you?’

‘Oh yeah, that we have.’

He gave me a red rubber gun, the size and shape of an automatic, to fit the holster he would also be issuing. Then he kitted
me out with trousers that were too long but would be taken up, and a pair of white RCMP socks, and told me I’d be getting
some body armour just like any other cadet. I was trying to take it in – all this for only one day. As I was thinking about
what they might have lined up for me, I glimpsed the iconic red jackets hanging on a rack. Now if I could just get one of
those …

With the amount of stuff Sean was piling on to the counter, I really was beginning to feel nervous, and I asked him if that
was normal. Did all ‘newbies’, as he called them, feel this way?

‘All of them,’ he said. ‘They sit up front there at the counter and it’s like a bunch of rabbits caught in the headlights,
really. Relax, Charley. Trust me, buddy, you’re not alone.’

Soon we got on to the fun stuff: the gear belt where the holster would fit, the radio, the mace spray and whatever else they
carried. Then it was the cap, blue with a yellow band – similar to Dan’s. That was all very well, but what about the Stetson?
The iconic hat of the Mountie? Sean found one for me to try on and told me that the cadets get issued with them pretty much
as soon as they arrive, but they have to earn the right to
wear them and that takes six long months. As I tried it on over my RCMP regulation-length hair (as if), Dan told me to tilt
it slightly to the right, as that was my saluting hand. Jaunty, then. I could be jaunty for sure.

Opening another box, Sean brought out the riding boots – knee-length, lace-up and a sort of chocolate brown. This was the raw
state, before they were brushed and polished to the point where you could see your face in them. These days the boots were
worn mostly at functions and ceremonies, but Sean did say that the motorcycle units wore them every day, along with the big
jodhpur-type pants that look so cool. When he added that they rode bespoke Harley-Davidsons, I decided that when my turn came
to ‘graduate’, I would opt for the bike division right away.

Next he showed me the winter hat; a fur cap that people think is beaver but is actually made from muskrat. The body armour
was much lighter than the stuff I’d been issued when I flew into Afghanistan to meet the troops. That had ceramic plates in
it, and as we flew into Kandahar, we were told to sit on the armour because the Taliban liked to shoot at the belly of the
plane. No wonder this was lighter, though; the bulletproof panels weren’t in it yet. Sean issued those separately and showed
me how to put the whole thing together – this is the most important piece of kit each cadet is given. The armour is Kevlar
and you think it’s solid, but it’s not. Kevlar is cloth, and there are twenty-one layers in each panel. Sean showed me a suit
that had been marked in three places, the result of being hit by 9mm rounds fired from three metres away. Only the first layer
of Kevlar had been penetrated; the wearer might’ve been bruised but they didn’t die. So they were going to shoot at me, were
they? Jesus, Russ: what are you doing to me, buddy?

The crime rate in Canada is nothing compared to America; the only really bad places are a handful of small towns in northern
British Columbia. The average murder rate in the capital, Ottawa, for example, is three homicides a year. That’s not very
many, nowhere near London, where last year 125 people were murdered. Even so, Sean reiterated that the body armour is the
most important piece of kit the cadets are issued, and we packed it into the bag. He almost forgot the judogi – the white suit
martial arts experts wear; he told me I was definitely going to need that.

Kitted out in my summer shirt and cadet epaulettes, I really was beginning to feel like a new, very raw recruit. Next we went
to the tailor’s shop, where my trousers had already been sent to be altered. At the counter I bumped into another brand-new
cadet. He was about thirty feet tall and he wasn’t even wearing the boots. He told me he had had his first drill yesterday
and it was hardcore.

‘So how long have you got here?’ I asked him.

‘Only another five months, three weeks and two days, but hey, who’s counting?’

He was so tall – six feet ten, or 208 centimetres, whichever you prefer – he’d had to have extra-long shirts specially made.
A little taller than me, then. I’d probably see him around; he was the tallest cadet they’d had in years and I was unlikely
to miss him, that’s for sure. When he was gone, I asked the woman behind the counter if she knew anything about my trousers;
with nineteen seamstresses working back there, she just handed them to me already done.

Dan told me that at 0600 tomorrow morning I had to be dressed correctly in shirt, pants, belt and cap – which you put on by
holding the crown, by the way, never the brim, otherwise
it would be perpetually smothered in fingerprints and you’d be hauled over the coals for that. Meeting up with the rest of
Troop 2, I would proceed to morning parade. The drill staff would be there to inspect me and make sure I was wearing the uniform
properly.

Further down the concourse we saw Troop 2 being drilled, kitted out in shirts, trousers and body armour with their blue kitbags
slung over their shoulders and the dummy guns in their holsters. A sergeant-major-type guy was yelling at them, although it
turned out he was just another cadet. I watched from a safe distance, taking shade under a tree; tomorrow and tomorrow and
tomorrow, as my dad used to say when he was quoting Shakespeare. They came marching down the block like a well-oiled machine.
I just knew I was going to let them down.

They halted right where we were filming, wheeled to the left then broke off. The guy drilling them was what they call a ‘right
marker’, someone facilitating their movements around the camp. He told me that although the day was officially over, that
evening some of them had firearms training, while others were doing patrol drives, and they had to get all their paperwork
squared away.

They gave me cell number D153 for the night. Not a cell actually, but a spacious room with its own bathroom and a comfortable
bed; given how hot it was outside, it was also reasonably cool. Dan told me that I was privileged: if I was a regular cadet,
I’d be in one of thirty-two beds in one long dormitory for the next six months of my life. I got some sleep, although not
much, and at 0600, as instructed, I hit the parade ground with the rest of Troop 2. When I say 0600, I was perhaps a fraction
late … As the last one there, I had to walk past every other eagle-eyed recruit to find my place. Of course, they stuck
me in the front row. I made my introductions and promised them I would try not to let them down, but already it was looking
like a complete disaster. I had some buttons done up in the wrong places and others undone in the wrong places. I was wearing
my dummy gun, which apparently I shouldn’t be. We hadn’t even started yet.

I had no idea what to expect. I knew nothing about anything and Dan suggested to the other cadets that they ought to take
advantage of that, because I would be taking the brunt of everything that morning. I even got the stand to attention all wrong:
right foot instead of left. ‘I’m dyslexic,’ I said. ‘I get muddled.’ My cap wasn’t on straight and I was considerably chubbier
than the other recruits. My hair was long, my expression nowhere near as serious as it should be.