That Wasn’t the Plan. Reg Sherren

      Copyright © 2020 Reg Sherren

      All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without prior permission of the publisher or, in the case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from Access Copyright, www.accesscopyright.ca, 1-800-893-5777, [email protected].

      Douglas and McIntyre (2013) Ltd.

      P.O. Box 219, Madeira Park, BC, V0N 2H0

       www.douglas-mcintyre.com

      Edited by Arlene Prunkl

      Cover design by Anna Comfort O’Keeffe

      Text design by Shed Simas / Onça Design

      Printed and bound in Canada

      Printed on paper certified by the Forest Stewardship Council

      Douglas and McIntyre (2013) Ltd. acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Government of Canada, and the Province of British Columbia through the BC Arts Council.

      Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

      Title: That wasn’t the plan : a memoir / Reg Sherren.

      Other titles: That was not the plan.

      Names: Sherren, Reg, 1959- author.

      Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20200200410 | Canadiana (ebook) 20200200429 | ISBN 9781771622547 (softcover) | ISBN 9781771622554 (HTML)

      Subjects: LCSH: Sherren, Reg, 1959- | LCSH: Television journalists—Canada—Biography.

      Classification: LCC PN4913.S47 A3 2020 | DDC 070.4/3092—dc23

      To my family … my dear wife Pamela, and my great source of joy and pride, our children Mitchell and Emma.

      And for my dad, Nelson, who passed away while I was writing this book. Dad loved books, loved reading and absorbing what they had to offer. I wish he was here to read this one. Love you, Dad.

      Introduction

      Does anybody really have a plan? I don’t think most people do. I certainly didn’t. You can never really predict what life will throw at you. I didn’t even try—much.

      But when you find yourself on a Canadian warship less than a hundred kilometres off the coast of Kuwait, and the Navy kid lying in the bunk next to you says, “Jeez, there’s twice as many Iraqi planes in the air today, and we don’t know where they’re coming from …”

      Or you’re riding on the back of a humpback whale in a small rubber boat, through no fault of your own, and the beast nearly knocks you into the North Atlantic …

      Or when you and your camera operator are stuck in the middle of several hundred angry, protesting crab plant workers, and one of them turns on you both and says, “Let’s throw these two in the harbour!”

      At moments like those, you can’t help but find yourself thinking, “That wasn’t the plan!”

      How did I go from a freckle-faced, red-headed kid growing up in small-town Western Labrador to a journalist travelling the world and telling stories for the CBC’s flagship news program, The National? That path certainly wasn’t part of any plan I was aware of. As the middle child, in my early years, the plan was simply survival. And with two older brothers and two younger sisters, I had to be quick on my feet, and I became something of an artful dodger. Acting out, pulling pranks, performing, goofing off—anything to get attention—yes, that became my strategy, every day.

      But the truth about how I became a journalist—well, that’s another story altogether.

      I am one of those increasingly rare journalists who began in the era of film, worked through the age of video, and then evolved into using the digital platforms that have become such a big part of our lives. Each offered its own challenges and opportunities.

      These days, the brain sometimes creaks, just like my knees. But in the pages that follow, to the best of my memory, here are some of my most interesting stories from the road, and it is a great honour and pleasure to share them with you.

      I was barely three when I got the inkling that a career in television might be in my future!

      Chapter 1 And So It Begins

      Growing Up in Wabush

      I grew up in the wilds of Labrador, in remote Wabush, where the idea of becoming a journalist was probably the furthest thing from my mind. As the middle child of five, I found myself constantly competing for attention.

      Although remote, Wabush was the land of plenty. Yet the image most folks have of Labrador is of a frozen wasteland with polar bears and long cold winters. I remember visiting Montreal once with my mother, and she was asked if we lived in igloos. But in the land of rich iron-ore deposits, the only igloo was the Igloo Restaurant.

      Everyone who wanted a job had one. The townsite—offering cheap, sturdy houses to anyone who ventured north—was built even before the people got there. The mine took care of everything. If a window broke, the mine fixed it. If the furnace failed, the mine installed another one. You worked for them, and they took care of you.

      The modern all-grades school had everything a kid could ask for. Music, sports, art and my personal favourite, theatre. The local recreation centre had another huge gymnasium and stage, plus a bowling alley, a library and a darn near Olympic-sized swimming pool. Right next door was the ice rink, where you could also roller skate in the summer. All for fewer than five thousand people.

      The land of plenty indeed—if you didn’t mind freezing to death eight months of the year. It often snowed the first week of school, and it stayed. I can remember going trick-or-treating on a Ski-Doo. In the Labrador Trough, as it was known, four metres of snow was not unusual in winter. We would tunnel under it like moles, creating a whole other world beneath the surface of the snow. You had to. Wind chills approaching −70°C were not uncommon. Even with a block heater or two, sometimes you had to take the battery out of your car at night and bring it into the house if you wanted the engine to start in the morning.

      We didn’t seem to mind—we always had something to do. I loved to perform, whether in front of Dad’s eight-millimetre-film camera or as one of the designated class clowns. I was in the Christmas play nearly every year, starting with kindergarten. One year I was chief snowbird, the next an elf. Every chance I got to “act,” I did. On my report card one year the teacher had written, “Reg is an attention seeker,” and I thought with amusement, “That’s true!” I also came by my willingness to tell stories or act them out honestly. My mother wrote and told many stories, as did my aunt and my grandmother.

      My father, who was one of the iron-ore mine managers, was ahead of his time. He had purchased a reel-to-reel tape recorder—well, it was more than that. It was one of those big polished-wood