One of Canada’s most famous national sons met and spoke with hundreds of East Kootenay and Columbia Basin residents this past weekend.

In Kimberley as keynote speaker at Columbia Basin Trust’s Symposium Oct. 13-15, Col. Chris Hadfield made several special appearances, including one for roughly 800 Cranbrook and area students at Western Financial Place on Friday, Oct. 13.

The rock star astronaut, former commander of the International Space Station and the only Canadian to ever walk in space, had plenty of time and positive and motivating messages for the students, and hundreds of adults. Fittingly, he was able to utilize Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s concert stage for his talk and performance.

Take care of your body and watch what you eat; don’t stop learning, push yourself to be better and know that you can achieve what you want if you put in the work, are among some of the messages Col. Hadfield related.

He said he hoped to impart on students, and others, “a slightly more expanded view of the world and their place in it. The things that we accomplish in life are, I think, at the edges of our expectations. Often, our accomplishments in life are also limited by the horizons that we’ve seen growing up.”

Prior to his one-hour talk with the students, Col. Hadfield took time to meet with regional and nearby media.

He refreshingly exudes optimism and hope for the future; a viewpoint surely in part developed among the 2,600 times he orbited the Earth during his three trips into space.

“There’s a lot of amazing stuff happening right now with human invention We are at an absolute zenith of quality of life around the world. We’ve eliminated major diseases; the world’s literacy has gone from 50% to 80% in the last 25 years. In the last century the entire population of Europe died of small pox and we’ve eliminated that disease on Earth. And polio is just about eliminated around the world. There are so many wonderful successes that our civilization has accomplished. But our task hasn’t gotten any easier. The more of us that are alive; the more difficult that task gets. So it is technology and human inventiveness that allow those things to happen,” he said.

Hadfield pressed home the message that if you reach for the stars and work hard, you can get there.

“When I was a kid, space flight was almost pretend. It was all comic books and science fiction and Star Trek and stuff like that. But it was also, for the first time in history, to start to become real; when (Yuri) Gagarin flew and then Al Shepherd and then people walked on the moon! And that transition from historic fantasy to a present reality really changed what I chose to do with my life.

“I made different choices in my life as the result of the people who inspired me and I would have love to have talked to one of the astronauts when I was 10-years-old. To hear what it was really like. Is this a real person? Is this a pretend person? I think it would have helped me make choices in my life, and then clarify what I needed to do.

“The reason I have been speaking all around the world and all across Canada for about the last 25 years is mostly just to try and share some of the ideas; to let people see the reality of what’s going on,” he said, as local school children started to file into Western Financial Place.

“Every single student seated down there is going to turn themselves into an adult and the more influence you can put in front of them helps them to make an informed decision, so that they recognize that they’re part of that process and that their incremental daily and weekly decisions actually turn them into the adult they’re going to be, I think the healthier we’re all going to be and the better chance they will have.”

The person who is now on the back of the $5 bill for his involvement in space exploration, said he was initially drawn to space by comic books, novels and television shows as Star Trek.

“Those really got me imagining a world that didn’t exist yet. You know, sort of pretending that I was part of it. My brother and I use to have bunk beds and when the lights were out we would both, in our beds, pull our knees up into our chest and that would be our control panel and we’d fly space ships through the universe. And that is, I think, a really important part of creating the future for yourself. At some point you need to stop being pretend and start being real.

“And the beauty of that was when I was nine-years-old when the first moon landing happened. That anchor of fantasy versus a new reality – that was really influential for me. That this isn’t just X-Men – this is real.

“Imagine if, while we are giving the talk today, if three of the X-Men actually walked in and they were no longer just pretend TV entities but that this was something that you could somehow turn yourself into. That would change people’s decision-making and change their vision of who they might be, rather than just being pretend. That crossover between youthful fantasy and the reality of what the adult world offers, that’s what really influenced me – the Apollo program.”

Hadfield said Canadians remain lucky to be Canadian.

“There are so many opportunities in Canada. We do a wonderful job of giving our kids chances to pursue the things that are important to them. I took advantage of those and went to different schools, was an Air Cadet, learned to fly and all of that built together the opportunity to eventually command a space ship on my third space flight.

“But that’s not an end game. That’s just the start. Canadians command space ships. When you go down the hall to the guidance counsellor, it’s on the list of jobs; ‘space ship commander!’ It’s one of the things Canadians do. Canadians do space walks; we celebrate our ability to do something right on the edge of the impossible. We celebrate it on our most common folding money and I think that is great. That is how we ought to see ourselves.

“It was definitely the actions of others who influenced me as a kid.”

He also noted that when the first Canadian astronauts such as Roberta Bondar and Marc Garneau were making their mark, he began to fine tune his actions and experiences in order to prepare himself for the next ‘call’ for astronauts.

Col. Hadfield also mused over the question: Are we alone in the universe?

“I think that’s kind of an interesting question. It should affect our decision-making. We’ve never found evidence anywhere of life except for on Earth; we’re looking and there is lots of pretend stuff but we’ve never actually found life anywhere but here. But we’re driving around Mars! And four billion years ago when life first developed on Earth, the oldest fossils we’ve ever found were up on the shores of Hudson’s Bay” and conditions on both planets are believed to have been the same, he noted.

“So maybe there is fossilized life of Mars. Maybe we can answer the question just from our nearest neighbour.”

Saturn moon Enceladus is another possibility for life, he said.

“If we could find one fossil or one little worm on any of these other places, then we know that the universe if full of life, which I think existentially, should give us a slightly more accurate perception of where we are.”

Hadfield continues to hold the distinction of being the only human being to produce a work of art in space – an album called ‘Space Sessions: Songs from a Tin Can.’

The life-long musician gained international renown for performing David Bowie’s Space Oddity while weightless in space.

This video version has had 37.6 million views thus far.

Art reflects human experience, Hadfield said, something computers and drones cannot achieve.

The fact of being in space and orbiting the earth every 92 minutes had a profound impact on him, he said, and music was a way to express it.

“There are people who know nothing about space flight, know nothing about space travel; it’s not in their concern. But they understand what it is like to be on a space ship a little differently as a result of having seen that song sung and recorded in that place. They get a sense of the magic of it; the grace of weightlessness, the silent enormous beauty of the world turning next to us. I think music is really important to me; it has been my whole life. It’s how I explain the world to myself. And to be able to share that was important,” he said.

Hadfield said he opted to attend the Columbia Basin Trust Symposium to enable him to reach the people of this particular part of the country and share his experiences.

As an astronaut your main job is flying space ships and no one will ever forgive you if you do that part improperly. But a tiny part of it is also sharing the experience. It’s the part that most people see. I’ve spoken in communities all over the country and every opportunity I get to go to a part of Canada where I haven’t yet met folk, I really try and take advantage of it. Because each one of those little places is our country.

“The Columbia Basin Trust you folks have; what a lovely legacy. What an enabling organization,” he said, adding high praise for the region.

“This part of the world is so lovely,” said the former downhill ski racer and instructor. “I’ve always loved elevation change!” He stated.

Hadfield said he vividly remembers crossing the Canadian Rockies while orbiting Earth.

“A lot of the Rockies look sort of the same because there’s not really a simply recognizable feature other than the fundamental shape of the crumbling of the crust here reveals itself. But if you go a little bit south, you see all the big volcanoes, Mount Baker or Mount Hood. Those are obvious. You can see them because they are unique. But the whole (Columbia) Basin is a deep cleft in the rock. Erosion that has happened in the Basin, which I guess David Thompson mapped, it’s visible from space. Especially if you get a view of it at dawn or dusk when the shadows are the deepest. So you get that sense of three dimensional relief,” he explained.

During his talk with the students he showed an image of Cranbrook from space.

While he could see the Columbia Basin from space, the looks were always fleeting.

“You cross the Rockies in 10 minutes, so it becomes pretty overwhelming to try and see everything. You can’t possibly keep up with the stimulation of what’s going by,” he said.

Lead image: Chris Hadfield performs a song (see video above) for about 1,000 people during an afternoon talk at Western Financial Place Oct. 13.

Photos and video by Carrie Schafer and Ian Cobb/e-KNOW

Ian Cobb/e-KNOW

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