An Arctic Adventure: A Story about Nordic Walking

by Brad MacDonald

My nordic walking instructor Carl is always on my case. “Brad, you’re gripping your poles too loosely!” “Brad, smooth out your stride and straighten your gait!” Then he’d talk about his other student Lucy and what a great gait she had. “Amazing gait, gosh the gait on that girl, probably the greatest and most awe-inspiring gait I’ve ever witnessed in my life. At the very least, she would make my short list for top five gaits.”

After he was tired of talking about gaits, Carl liked to pretend that we were walking through a mountainous, arctic climate rather than downtown Montreal. On one particular day, I had head him say “Ah, the mountain air is clear and crisp but it is also an unforgiving, merciless bastard child of the she-whore we call mother nature,” one too many times (seven or eight) and I lost it.

“Hey Carl, what is that I see near those mountains? Why, it’s a Thai Express! We’re saved! And over there? It couldn’t be. Do my eyes deceived me? It’s Montreal’s hot new discotheque, Super Club Chocolate Bar Hotdog Gravy Sex Trio, shrouded ‘neath a blanket of alpine snow.”

Typically this would simply break the spell Carl was under and he’d be mildly irritated but today he seemed unusually sullen. Afterwards, I learned that this was perhaps due to an episode with Lucy when she quite sharply asked him to stop complimenting her gait. In any event, it was clear that today Carl was vulnerable to my jabs when he suddenly let his two hundred dollar Nordic walking poles fall to the ground. His body soon followed and I watched in horror as Carl knelt on his knees, lowered his toque insulated head and wept.

I felt bad. As we all know, the true spirit of Nordic walking is based upon principles of comradery, friendship, and a collective willingness to look like a clueless dumbfuck in a public setting. I had not only broken this code but I had broken Carl’s heart. I quickly tried to make amends. I reached down, placed his poles back into his hands and spoke with the kind of tender warmth he wished Lucy had. Cause he wanted to have sex with her. Alpine sex. He wanted to make love to her gait.

“Carl, pick yourself back up buddy. The only thing that is falling to the earth out here in this harsh climate is a potentially life-threatening avalanche. If you don’t dry those tears, I’ll have to leave you to be eaten by rapid snow huskies or cannibalistic mountain gypsies.”

Carl sighed, smiled slowly, and got up. We then continued on our journey. After we were done for the day, we went to Thai Express. Carl got green curry with chicken and I got sushi. When I pretended that my Nordic poles were chopsticks, diet Pepsi came out of Carl’s nose and we both just cracked up. It was hilarious.

For information on nordic walking please consult this video the soundtrack of which was written by John Mayer: