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For reasons that still aren’t entirely clear to me, I got up this morning – actually tomorrow morning which will be this morning by the time Pique rolls onto its stands sometime later tomorrow, which is to say today… unless you waited until Friday to
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For reasons that still aren’t entirely clear to me, I got up this morning – actually tomorrow morning which will be this morning by the time Pique rolls onto its stands sometime later tomorrow, which is to say today… unless you waited until Friday to pick one up which is two days from now or yesterday depending on how far you want to carry this farce – at an hour so early it would be best described as last night, except that would really confuse matters, so I could catch a flight that’ll take all day to reach Minnesota, wherever that is.

Why, I hear you ask, would anyone in their right mind go to Minnesota in what would be best described as the middle of winter? Good question. And one I can’t really answer being, as I said earlier, not entirely clear on the reasons for this trip.

Technically, I’m going to Minnesota to – and I promise I’m not making this up – go skiing. That’s right. I’m leaving Whistler, which I’m proud to say is definitely one of the best places in the world to ski today, tomorrow or yesterday, just to drive a thin joke into the ground, to go skiing someplace that’s recycling last season’s snow they’ve kept in a warehouse over the summer. This is entirely possible since the place I’m going skiing isn’t much bigger than some of the homes in Whistler and has far less vertical.

Needless to say, having not entirely taken leave of my senses, I’m being forced to make this trip. Okay, forced is perhaps too strong a word. I’m being asked to make this trip. Actually the request ran something like this.

Ski magazine editor: "Hey Max, I’ve got an assignment that’s right up your alley. In fact, there are only two people in the whole universe who can really do justice to this story – you and me. And since I’m committed to touring the resorts of Utah, there’s really only one person in the universe who can do this story. You!"

Me: "This sucks, doesn’t it? Where you sending me, Kansas?"

"Hell no. Minnesota! Land o’ 10,000 frozen lakes."

"And, if I’m not mistaken, absolutely no mountains. Is this a joke?"

"Gotta go; pack warm."

Living in a place where nature’s malevolent sense of humour runs more to rain-to-the-top than -40° with a windchill factor that’ll flashfreeze the snot in your nose, there is not a feather of down in my closet except a lightweight vest my folks sent me for Christmas last month. In Minneapolis – Motto: Who the hell was St. Paul and why did he move next door? – businessmen wear down suits and moon boots to work. Women and crossdressers can buy pantyhose in sheer, any colour of the rainbow and downfilled. Small children spend half the year in snowsuits so protective they come with rebreathing apparatus built in.

But Minnesota’s famed Herring and Sauerkraut Ski Festival awaits and somebody has to write the story. Guess it’s me.

Maybe.

First I have to lie my way into the United States, my home and native land.

You’d think carrying an American passport and knowing the difference between uh-huh and un-uh – American for yes and no, respectively – would be enough to get me back in the country for the 72 hours this ordeal encompasses. But the last time I crossed the border and was stupid enough to admit to (a) living in Whistler and (b) entering the U.S. for the purpose of skiing, it took all my considerable charm to avoid a trip to the poke and probe room. And that was before the Patriot Acts I and II and the uncomfortable feeling the NSA’s been combing my e-mails and phone calls to friends and family and quite possibly mistaking my invitations to come to Canada and ski with, quite understandably, threats to homeland security. What could they imagine bush skiing is?

It also involved a trip to Mammoth, California. Mammoth is indisputably both a mountain and a ski resort. Where I’m going in Minnesota is, arguably, neither. So I need a better cover story.

I could say I’m going into the U.S. on a business trip but that opens up a whole other can of worms since the only business I look like I have any business conducting is probably of the questionably legal variety and/or involves an implied threat to homeland security, as does virtually everything if you believe the rationale coming out of the Vice President’s cubbyhole.

I could rummage through my closet and find the business suit I kept from my past life and claim to be a lobbyist for British Columbia’s softwood lumber industry, but with the Republican’s post-Abramoff renewed interest in ethics(sic), that too runs the risk of embarrassing questions.

Or, I could simply say I’m on a fact-finding mission to see what the future might hold for Canada now that it seems the country is about to take a turn to the right and elect a Conservative government of either the minority or majority kind.

I want to remind myself what it’ll be like to live in a country eager to join the next Coalition of the Willing. After all, if Stephen Hapless had been leading the country when Mr. Bush was hammering together his current ill-fated adventure, there would be Canadian soldiers fighting and dying in Iraq right now to ensure none of us will ever live long enough to see the end of radical Islamic petroterrorism.

I want to remind myself how warm and fuzzy it feels to be someplace where homosexuals are still legislatively and judicially-approved second-class citizens because that’s what they’d still be in Canada if the queerfearin’ Mr. Harper had been able to get his hands on the Notwithstanding Clause 18 months ago.

I want to remind myself how a society feels when it locks up a sizable portion of its population in a failed attempt to be "tough on crime" instead of trying to rationally deal with the root causes of crime. And while, Mr. Harper will surely lead us down that ineffectual path, I can’t fault him alone since all of the pandering party leaders have jumped on that brokendown bandwagon.

I want to remind myself what it’s like to be ruled by fiscal conservatives who spend like drunken sailors – apologies to drunken sailors everywhere – cut taxes for the wealthy and believe prudent fiscal policy is just code for deficit spending.

With any luck, and I use the word advisedly, I’ll be back in time to cast my very first Canadian vote. I wish I could say it’s something I look forward to but I fear it’s going to be one of those lesser of two evils exercises.

O Canada, what have we done to deserve this fate?