Profile of Michael Johansen

Biography

MIchael Johansen is a resident of North West River, Labrador. His column "North of Here" appears every Monday.

All articles of Michael Johansen

• Don’t mention the war
  At one time, it was easy to discover when Labrador’s annual low-level flying season had begun. All you had to do was sleep soundly somewhere in ...
• Back of the book no more — or not
  Tourism guides published about this region of Canada (including my own guide, I add with humility) teach travellers and others that if you’re ...
• This one all goes to taxes
  T4. T4a. T5. T5a? Where’s the T5a? Oh, there isn’t one.Back to Line 12, then, on Chart A of the Statement of Business or Professional Activities, ...
• Wagering against the wilderness
  Dear Ed Martin, please seek help for your gambling addiction before you bankrupt the province and make the Labrador woods a nasty place. Please ...
• Hello, welcome and goodbye
  A little over two dozen people stood or sat in small clusters around several tables in the brightly lit community hall. More than half were local ...
• Springtime snow job alert
  Going outside in Labrador these days, walking the countryside or driving the roads has become a big wet sloppy pain. Everywhere else in Canada - ...
• Third time gone
  Katimavik has never stood a chance against a federal Conservative government, Progressive or otherwise. The demise of the 35-year-old volunteer ...
• One chamber now or both later
  The Senate may be broken, but it's the House of Commons that's out of control. Despite appearances to the contrary, Canada's upper chamber of ...
• A karmic lesson in Internet fraud
  Call it weird karma: my gullibility saved me from my own neglectfulness and in return my neg
• Change is better than a rest
  "The answer is no." Ottawa has spoken. There will be no Burton Winters Search and Rescue Centre in Labrador. The Department of National Defence ...
• Voter scams and Conservative fairy tales
  Labrador has been left out again, a friend lamented the other day. Nobody here, he complained with mock disappointment, got any fraudulent ...
• Frozen until spring - or summer
  The axe head and much of the handle was encrusted with ice, doubling its weight in my hands, but as long as the blade remained free, I kept ...
• Only if you don't need it
  This debtor I know - let's call him Hank. This debtor, Hank, hates being in debt. He's not in as deep as other people he knows, but he still ...
• Tinkering won't save lives
  In the aftermath of the failure of Canada's search and rescue service to save the life of a lost boy in Labrador, federal government officials ...
• Taking hope out of the equation
  The news was local, but it briefly went national. A snowmobile trail groomer crossing previously safe ice on the Terrington Basin broke ...
• The corpse dances at midnight
  Creak, creak, creak ... rattle, rattle, rattle ... snap! Screeeeeeech ... kerplunk! Hear that? That's the sound of the wheels once again ...
• Wallowing in a winter wonderland
  Sometimes strangers look like friends. That is to say, appearances can deceive. People north of the Strait of Belle Isle are looking out their ...
• Thanks to the kindness of strangers
  At first, I thought I'd run out of gas. The engine of my old Yamaha Bravo was rumbling over fine for an hour or so as I sped through the ...
• The brilliant spark of dissension
  This month, the people of Sheshatshiu are being required to do something many haven't done in a long, long time: pay their electricity bills. ...
• One out of two ain't bad
  The year 2012 is a whole week old, and so far I've broken only five of my 12 annual resolutions. Well, six now, since No. 4 was to stop ...
• Number one and number two
  I like to brag about my cabin. And why not? I designed it myself and largely built it myself, using materials either cut from the surrounding ...
• On the high end of homeless
  Oh, the benefits of development. Boom times are good times, they say. Jobs, jobs, jobs! Spinoff profits! Riches for all! That's what they say. ...
• The goldfish and the castle
  When the weather turns bad it turns fast. A lot of snow was forecast for the day of my first trip this season by snowmobile to my cabin, but ...
• An even worstier case scenario
  Some friends are insufferable. Well, actually, most are fine. There's one friend in particular - she's insufferable. She hardly ever reads this ...
• With apologies to Joni Mitchel
  "I've looked at chickens from both side now From up and down, and still somehow It's chicken illusions I recall I really don't know chickens at ...
• Trans-Canada musings, Labrador style
  Once autumn arrives, the sparse entertainment on the MV Apollo becomes even sparser. There’s a fancy restaurant visible through white curtains, ...
• The book is dead; long live the book
  Once upon a time a convalescing novelist, an upbeat poet and a grumpy publisher were worried about their mutual friend, the book. They thought ...
• The silence of the land
  Sounds carry marvelously well in the quiet forest. Tires hum along pavement south of my camp. Machinery growls in a quarry to the east. Voices ...
• Letter to the future past
  Dear future self, How’s it going? How long has it been: five, six, seven days? The ...
• Preacher John’s Worldwide
  Reason tells me there is no God — that, in­deed, one would be irrelevant. I arrived at that conclusion through ob­serving that a natural ...