“Never on land or by sea will you find,
the marvelous road to the feast of the Hyperborea.” – Pindar (a Roman)
Well, it was not for lack of trying that we failed. The fabled land of Hyperborea – North, North of the North Wind – was always rumoured to guard feasts for the hungry, and so it was no suprise when we discovered that gold ran in a lucky streak from California to the Cascades, and even further north to the Yukon, where compasses shivered and the light froze blue-green in the sky. Prospectors and no-hopers, we came in floods to the half-lit lands, looking for fur, whale-bone, timber, amber and gold, always gold.
We came by water too, but by the score our ships foundered on the spires of ice, always failing to find the Northwestern Passage.
Pindar was right – no matter how frantic our search, we were left stymied and unsatisfied. In time, we took what we could of the North’s gold to gild our cities, and we turned our avararice elsewhere, and
In time the North was forgotten.
And yet, “while history doesn’t repeat itself, it does rhyme.” – Mark Twain
There was more than one treasure lying beneath the permafrost. There is more than one colour of gold.
We are echoes of our ancestors: just like they did, we search for Hyperborea. The Artic markets are heating up again – and this time, the ice is melting.
We are switching myths. Soon the polar bears will be mere legends, like dinosaurs and dodos, but the Northwestern Passage will be real, and once more we shall feast in the lands of Hyperborea.
ANWR is ready for drilling, and poq mourns
the passing myth of the North.
