A Canadian in Sweden

Cultural differences as seen through a compass

Over at the OKansas blog there have been a few posts recently about the differences between orienteers in the U.S. (which I will extend to Canada) and Sweden. There are a few interesting and valid points brought up, but one of the stories he recounts made me think of something almost identical that happened to me last fall.

I was running a classic distance race just outside of Umeå and was doing reasonably well. For me, that means running fast and just being on the edge of losing track of where I am on the map. I was running in a beautiful open forest with some good rock features and was just finishing a fairly long (1 km or so) leg. I was on the edge of losing contact with the map, and some of the features weren't lining up the way I expected, so I stopped to relocate. I was standing there for maybe 5 seconds when a little kid (I would guess maybe 11 to 13 years old) ran up to me and asked (in English) if I knew where we were. I felt kind of bad because I wanted to help him, but I really wasn't 100% sure where we were. So just as I was about to say this, he points at my map and says "We are here, just beside that rock."

Ah. How to make a grown Canadian feel like a moron in 1 easy step. And I agree with OKansas: that would never, ever happen in North America.

posted by Jeff @ 8:05 AM