My original journey-plan was that today one of Boyd's men would drive me to the airport, and from there I would fly the 800 mi. north to Holman, on Victoria Island.
But I have not been booked on to the flight; not by Cabela's, nor Boyd, nor anybody else. I'm stuck in Yellowknife. Today is Saturday and the next plane doesn't leave until Tuesday, the 25th.
My program would have been:
-22nd (today), travel to Holman.
-23rd, transfer to the huting camp.
-hunt until the 25th for two musk ox.
-26th, travel back to Holman.
-27th, return to Yellowknife, until morning of 29th.
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And then:
-morning of 29th: descend from the skies into the caribou camp.
-hunt for two caribou until 4th Sept.
-5th, back again to Yellowknife.
-6th, travel on to Montana.
So my plans have been upset.
Boyd is trying to move forward the two nights (27th-28th August) that I was originally to spend in Yellowknife (which because of my forced inactivity I must now pass here). This means that the period between my two hunts would be shorter. He has already booked my ticket to Holman, leaving on the 25th. With this new ticket I will return to Yellowknife on the 29th, which means that my original plans for the caribou hunt will still be valid. The big question is whether I will still have enough time to bag two musk ox.
Right now, we don't know how, or when, the mistake was made. Cabela's cannot be reached on Saturday, so we must wait until Monday to find out the truth.
My trip is at a critical point.
The question is not whether my hunt will be successful, but how I will cope with the next few days, and how I will react to these new situations. Whatever decisions I make are bound to affect the remainder of my trip. One possibility is that on Monday I make a very angry phone call to Cabela's the moment they open, demand to speak to the director and threaten to sue them, and have people fired. This would probably spoil the rest of my time hunting; it would make it awkward, at the very least.
I go for another option.
I will try to find a solution by co-operating with Boyd and Cabela's.
Being a good organizer doesn't mean you never make mistakes. Anyone doing a job - any job -
will make a mistake sooner or later. The important thing is what you do afterwards. Whether you try to blame someone else, or admit it and try to put it right. The company that I work for is able to weather the economic crisis because we do our utmost to provide the highest standard of service for our clients, as well as ensuring we maintain a good business relationship with them. Despite our best efforts, things do go wrong from time to time, and could result in the loss of orders. The main reason this doesn't happen, is that our clients trust us not to hide our errors; quite the opposite: we draw their attention to them, before they have time to discover them themselves.
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They also know that, in the internet media market, there is no situation that cannot be sorted out, and no mistake that cannot be rectified. But all this can only be done successfully and efficiently if our clients have a co-operative attitude to the problem and its solution.
Now, it's me that is on the other side; I have to be co-operative. And co-operation does not mean writing threatening letters to every Tom, Dick and Harry. There's no way of going back two days, and such an attitude leads nowhere.
Back at the hotel, I learn that my stay here will be paid for by Boyd. I wait for further developments. There's no WIFI in the room, only cable internet.
In 2009! Only cable!
I've found a prehistoric fossil in Canada. In a hotel that the staff claim is the 2nd best in Yellowknife (what on earth can the third be like?). I try to connect the cable I've been given by the receptionist into the socket, but the whole thing sinks into the wall, and half my hand goes with it.
I try to call reception, but the phone doesn't work. I go down to the desk and they promise that the hotel handyman will come soon, but he doesn't. I go down again: the handyman does not work over the weekend. I have to move to another room. Now I'm in room 305. But here the desk lamp isn't working; I have to bring the one from 309.
Damn and blast the Chateau Nova Hotel!
This would never happen in the Anchorage Hilton.
Alaska! Hunting paradise! Why did I ever leave you?