From a building nearby, York Factory, once a hub of Canada’s fur trade but now a historic site, a groundskeeper noticed what he thought was a wolf on the river’s edge. A Norwegian musher and adventurer, 29-year-old Steffen Skjottelvik, was due to arrive that day. They were sure he would have stories, especially from the coast, which people rarely traversed on foot. They would feed him burgers and offer him a bed. Steffen was crossing Canada in stages, trying to reach Alaska over a multiyear trek. A number of mushers found his journey through Facebook and were enamored by both the ambition and the charm of it. Steffen was dog-sledding in an old-fashioned way: human and dogs in the wilderness, not racing to a finish line but simply living on the trail. Upon reaching York Factory, he would have traveled nearly two years, crossing over 700 miles by foot, dog sled and canoe. But Steffen didn’t arrive. (via the New York Times)
The founders of Tears For Fears started a band so they could afford Primal Scream Therapy
What band’s saga is as richly absurd as that of Tears For Fears? Many bands’ histories are sadder — INXS, Joy Division, Nirvana, the Go-Betweens, the Band — and many are darker — the Stones, Zeppelin. Some unlucky bands carry with them a history that is both sad and dark — the Sex Pistols (murder-suicide), the Gits (femicide), The Beach Boys (ephebophilia, exploitation of the mentally ill), the Mamas and the Papas (incest). But no band’s story, I maintain, can be enjoyed so fully for its sheer zaniness, without making you hate any of the protagonists, as that of Tears For Fears. A normal band forms because the members love music and/or want to get laid. But by the time they quit Neon and Graduate to strike out on their own, they had another, overriding reason for being in a band: they wanted to make enough money to get Primal Scream therapy, in its pure and undiluted form, from Dr. Arthur Janov. (via Saccades and Fixations)
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You can get a real steal of a house in Japan as long as you’re willing to live with ghosts
While a house where there had been a murder or suicide would probably be harder to sell or rent out anywhere in the world, Tokyo estate agent Erik Oskamp says that Japanese people are particularly superstitious and averse to stigmatised properties. “An apartment next to a cemetery will be difficult to rent out, especially if you can see the tombs from the kitchen,” he explained. “The worst thing is if a suicide has happened in the apartment. Even if somebody has jumped from the roof, many renters will move out. Other issues are a serious crime or a lonely death.” The latter issue, a person dying alone, would not generally affect the price of a property in the UK or the US. But in rural Kagoshima, in Japan’s southwest, it enabled Diane Tincher to buy a large three-bedroom house for about half of what would have otherwise been the asking price. (via the BBC)
Hi everyone! Mathew Ingram here. I am able to continue writing this newsletter in part because of your financial help and support, which you can do either through my Patreon or by upgrading your subscription to a monthly contribution. I enjoy gathering all of these links and sharing them with you, but it does take time, and your support makes it possible for me to do that. I also write a weekly newsletter of technology analysis called The Torment Nexus.
People have been living on this tiny island off the British coast since at least the year 875
The island had one of the earliest Christian churches in Scotland. The current chapel on the site is dedicated to Saint Adrian of May. He died in AD 875 when marauding Vikings slaughtered the entire population of the monastery. The island was abandoned until the 12th century. One of the tasks of the monks was to pray for the souls of the Kings of Scots. The island, with its relics of St Adrian, became a popular destination for pilgrims. The shrine could help a woman become pregnant. It could also provide cures; the bones of pilgrims buried on the island showed that most had been seriously ill. Scotland’s oldest lighthouse, the remains of which can still be visited, was a coal-fired beacon that was established in 1635. In 1791, a light keepers family was suffocated by fumes from the coal ash piled up around the tower. The only survivor of six children was their eleven-month-old daughter Lucy, who was discovered alive three days later. The small boy who rescued Lucy later went on to marry her. (via Adcochrane)
Less than 5% of Canada’s long-haul trucker drivers are women. I’m one of them
Long-haul truckers can pull six-figure incomes, which helps to explain how Samta Makkar, 33, wound up hitting the open road. She moved to Toronto from New Delhi, India, in 2016 to study computer technology, but in 2023, she pivoted to trucking. “I had been doing IT for a couple of years, but I just felt like a corporate job was not right for me long-term. I had to do something else. So when two colleagues mentioned trucking, I looked into it. I didn’t tell my family, though — in India, you’re expected to be a doctor or an engineer, so I worried about what they’d say. It took me almost eight months to find a job after I got my trucking licence. Whenever someone heard a woman with no experience calling, they were like, “There is no job for you.” On the first trip, I was scared as hell. I’d never been to the U.S. before, and I didn’t know how to use my GPS. I ended up on a street with no exit except through a residential area. (via Wealthsimple)
This 8-storey high art installation is choreographed to the weather
Acknowledgements: I find a lot of these links myself, but I also get some from other places that I rely on as “serendipity engines,” such as The Morning News from Rosecrans Baldwin and Andrew Womack, Jodi Ettenberg’s Curious About Everything, Dan Lewis’s Now I Know, Robert Cottrell and Caroline Crampton’s The Browser, Clive Thompson’s Linkfest and Why Is This Interesting by Noah Brier and Colin Nagy. If you come across something you think should be included here, feel free to email me at mathew @ mathewingram dot com