NORTH BATTLEFORD - You can compare it to a much-anticipated space mission that has been sitting on the launch pad delayed for months.
Finally, some 18 months after it was originally scheduled for April 24, 2020, it is liftoff for the Rotary Club of the Battlefords "Out of This World" anniversary celebration with renowned Canadian astronaut Col. Chris Hadfield as the star attraction.
Hadfield was scheduled for two events on Friday, Oct. 22: one was an afternoon event speaking to high school students at the North Battleford Comprehensive High School, and the other a celebration gala at the Dekker Centre for the Performing Arts.
Along with the local Rotary Club, Col. Hadfield is excited to see the long struggle to stage the event finally come to fruition. The event had long been delayed due to COVID-19 gathering limit restrictions.
"We're putting the 'battle' in Battlefords, for sure," said Col. Hadfield, speaking to SASKTODAY.ca prior to his arrival.
"This has been a battle, but I'm really delighted. It's about time. Everyone's been battling COVID(-19) and all of the restrictions and implications, and illnesses and deaths and all that. It's been a really demanding time for a lot of people, and it's taken unusual levels of patience and grace and kindness to make it through it all. So I'm really happy that finally we are just at the level where I think we can safely do what Rotary has been asking me to do for a while now."
Folks attending the events on Friday anticipated plenty of stories from Hadfield about his time as the first Canadian to be commander of the International Space Station, as well as his time on the Space Shuttle. But Hadfield said he had a larger message he wanted to share in the Battlefords as well.
"I want people to come away with a real understanding of where we are in history. What is happening globally, what is technology enabling us to do. What have we learned in the last year and a half about those changes, and what are we on the precipice of right now. What technologies do we need, which are the ones supporting us, what's the future of the world for the next 20 years, and how can we as individual Canadians or people around the world start thinking about our own individual actions. What can a person in the Battlefords do in order to have that sort of local and global view with the local and global outcome."
Hadfield added the future "always sort of sneaks us and surprises us, and then we accept it as normal and then we are surprised again when something else changes... A pause like COVID is maybe giving us a better opportunity to take stock and get ready for all the other things that are coming."
Hadfield also hoped the two different audiences, at the high school and the gala event, would come away with a "clearer sense of purpose and how we are facing up to the problems that are in front ot us all."
Events such as the North Battleford high school presentation are something Hadfield does often, as he feels an obligation to give back.
"Everybody needs motivation and everybody needs inspiration. I've been a very lucky Canadian to have done the things that I've done. And so I have a big responsibility, I think, as the lucky recipient of all that experience, to try and not squander it, to try and present it in a way that people can maybe learn some lessons from it and work those lessons into their own lives and their own choices. So I've been doing that for about 30 years. It's why I've written four books. It's why I taught a master class online, it's on all of those topics. It's why I did the National Geographic series -- I helped to create and host National Geographic series and BBC series. I tie in with students all the time, I use Skype and tie into classrooms all across the country, I have ever since Skype was invented. Because people need to see something bigger than themselves in order to dream and inspire. And it's why I'm coming to the Battlefords as well, is to talk on those topics."
While he has been no stranger to "virtual" appearances as of late, Hadfield looked forward to the chance in the Battlefords to be able to appear live.
"It's been a long time since I was able to stand in a high school and talk. The virtual world is fine and has some advantages but there is nothing like physical presence and direct Q and A and interaction with people, especially in their formative years," said Hadfield.
He also welcomed being part of the gala event in the evening at the Dekker Centre, commemorating 100 years of the Rotary Club in the Battlefords.
"It's a nice indicator of getting back to a new normal, and I'm glad to be part of that in North Battleford."
While the sold-out event in the Battlefords was long delayed, it couldn't come at a more timely moment as interest in space exploration has hit new heights.
Leading the charge has been the involvement of private companies such as SpaceX led by Elon Musk, Virgin Galactic led by Richard Branson, and Blue Origin led by Jeff Bezos, in sending passengers to space.
Just last Wednesday, the latter company blasted off William Shatner of Star Trek fame as a passenger on its latest mission. After reaching the edge of space, the Blue Origin spacecraft touched back down in Texas where an emotional Shatner was welcomed back by Bezos.
That follows other notable private missions in which Bezos and Branson also blasted themselves off into space.
"It's been an amazing summer," said Hadfield. "After 10,000 years of civilization and a few hundred years of industrialization and only 118 years of flight and 60 years of space flight, suddenly this summer three companies all within six weeks of each other - three separate companies, all of them over 20 years old, but they all came together this summer, and all three of those companies have created spaceships based on all of that historic legacy that are now simple enough and safe enough that they can start to take passengers. That's new, that's like the first airlines or the Model T or something. We are at that stage. It's completely imperfect and it's early days, and I'm not sure any of them has the right business model, but someone's got to go first and try and figure this out."
Hadfield can relate to Shatner's emotional reaction to his space flight.
"I think his gut reaction right after landing, the way that he expressed himself --- his wonder at it and his recalibration at his understanding of the fragility of the particular type of life in the world and the fact that he said 'I hope I never get over this'-- I understand those emotions perfectly, after all of my experience. But it was lovely to hear him express so eloquently, especially as an experienced man of 90 years old."
Shatner's experience, as well as those of other space travellers, also illustrates why it was needed to have more than "just literal test pilots fly in space," said Hadfield. "It shifts your understanding of the world in a way that makes you feel more informed and more responsible, and we need more of that right now, especially as there are more and more people and we rely on each other there more and more."
Hadfield's Battlefords visit is also timely for another reason: he just launched a new book last week called The Apollo Murders, published by Mulholland Books.
While Hadfield is no stranger to writing and publishing, with his first three books being international best-sellers, those were all non-fiction. This is his first fiction work.
"I thought it would be a real interesting personal challenge but also a lot of fun, but also a great way to share kind of a nitty-gritty of space -- what does it really feel like, how do people react. If I'm just recounting my own experience or talking theoretically, it's much more cut and dried, but if you write fiction you can expound how everyone reacts. And all the different personalities at the same time. And so that gave me a real freedom to tell the reality of spaceflight in a way I never could before, but also to teach a lot of history. Because it is almost 100 per cent factual. Probably about 90 to 95 per cent of the stuff in The Apollo Murders really happened. And I had twisted my plot in amongst real anchor stones of real historical events, so that when you're reading the book you have a really hard time picking out fact from fiction. That's why I stuck the author's guide at the end so that it's clear which of all of these things are actual fact.
"So yeah, it was a great delight. I've learned a lot about writing. I didn't know if I could write fiction, but there's been a big write up in the New York Times and the London Times. Just top reviews -- it's already a best seller in multiple countries including Canada. It's only been out for a week so I'm just super delighted at the entire project."
This week, Hadfield was down in Las Vegas -- in part to do research for his next book, of which he has already written about 10,000 words.
"I chose the characters in The Apollo Murders so that there was a chance to have a recurring protagonist and so yeah. The next one, obviously I haven't finished it yet, but I'm intending it to be like a serial continuation. And who knows? I really enjoyed it, and there's lots of stories out there. So it definitely won't be my last book. My intent is to write the next one in the series, but until you get it written you never really know. But it's coming along well."
