Thursday, June 3, 2010

North Easterly.

I debated the future of this blog.

I know many faithful followers have expressed their disappointment over the last 2 months of lightweight blogging. And as I have just travelled across Canada, I discovered that far more of you were following my blog than I would have imagined. So I have a hard time letting it go.

The problem I have is with the expectation of context that comes with this blog's short history, and more evidently, in the blog title itself.... 'Northern Exposure'. It was a blog started for a number of reasons, all of them having to do with my adventurous hiatus in the North. It was a reason for me to keep up the discipline of writing, having public accountability. It was a project to keep me motivated to write while I (for once) actually had the time to do so, living so far from my regular life and lifestyle. It was a way of keeping friends and family informed on what was going on in my life. It was a way to keep people in touch with a part of the country they feel connected to in terms of cultural and national identity, but disconnected from in terms of actual knowledge.

So, having moved away from the Northwest Territories, I feel a bit weird about where to go with it now. I feel like a fraud keeping the title. I had my saturday morning rituals, I had my interesting northern tidbits complimented by random thoughts and perspectives...but they were somehow all connected to the North, or, at the very least, my northern experience. So the title of my blog is distracting me from moving forward.

BUT WAIT!

To most Canadians, I AM in the north! If I were to ask the bulk of the Ontarian population their opinion on the matter, they'd heartily agree that Thunder Bay qualifies as Northern Canada. Heck, they probably all assume it's north of 60 anyway. This from a group of people who think Barrie is the far north. (sorry, Torontonians - you don't have the best reputation as being the most geographically aware...but we are endeared to you for it).

So without further ado, I will continue my relationship with Northern Exposure. But I want you all to hit the reset button on your expectations, because there are no rules, and I don't want to to have to change my blog name and theme every time I move. Those of you who know me and my vagabond-y-ness well will understand why. I'll blog about whatever comes up, be it Northern (or not), Canadian (or not), or Exposure or...mmm, let's hope it's not the latter. Though could make for some saucy saturday mornings.

For now, I continue to justify the blog title by seeing the world through Torontonian eyes. Come september, I'm back to the drawing board. Thoughts?

Cheers friends.

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