Down south, “networking” is all business. It’s key for making connections and building social capital, so you reach out, rub elbows, do the old schmoozing routine, exchanging names and cards and contact info. It’s not easy, but you’ve gotta do it: just one of the many demands of the modern world.
***
Up here, it’s nothing like that. Up here, “networking” is all pleasure.
It’s the final transcendent step in landing a fish – the moment when the long battle is over, when you and your quarry come to a truce, and the magnificent creature rises from its world into yours, strange and powerful and gleaming.
You work the net and lift it from the deep. For a few brief moments, you meet. A few photos, maybe a measurement, and then release it. Gone.
Here’s seven reasons “networking” in the Northwest Territories is enthralling, fleeting, and perfect.
