Lynn Coady / novelist / Canada
Public figure you’d like to take a Caribbean cruise with:
This is probably a really obvious answer, but Barack Obama. Also, he looks good with his shirt off; there were pictures on the cover of USA Today when he went to Hawaii.
Last book you read that you didn’t finish:
Cormac McCarthy’s No Country for Old Men. It wasn’t that I wasn’t enjoying it; I was almost at the end and I just stopped reading. That’s a phenomenon that I can’t explain.
Favourite explorer:
Shackleton. And not just for the fact that he survived after being stranded on the South Pole, but because he was out there so long and he ate his dogs, in a place that nobody should have to come back from. Unlike Franklin.
Dr. Robert Thirsk / astronaut / Japan
Childhood hero:
Bobby Orr. Not only because he was a great player, but because he was a real gentleman off the ice. Some people say he was a better human being than hockey player.
On racking up post-secondary degrees (he has four):
I was fascinated, I guess, as I was going to the University of Calgary, with self-discovery. Some of the professors introduced me to how the human body works, to some anatomy, some physiology. It transfixed me. I was curious about not only how the world works but how our body, this inner world, works.
Least exciting thing about going to live on the International Space Station in May:
Six months is a long time to be away. I’ll be missing two graduation ceremonies. I’ll be missing all my family’s birthdays. I’ll be missing Scout camp-outs. I’ll be missing the walk to the park with my wife every day. My family understands, but of course, there’s
a tinge of sadness. It’s six months I won’t get back.
Hayley Wickenheiser / hockey player / Sweden
The world’s hardest language to learn:
Living in Finland [to play forward with a men’s hockey team] was a different experience. The Finnish language is nothing like any other language in the world, except maybe Hungarian. Finland was my first experience living abroad by myself. That was a pretty interesting yet isolating experience at the same time.
On the other half of the equation:
My partner, Thomas [Pacina], is a skills coach with the Florida Panthers. He’s been doing some scouting over here with the pro and junior ranks and he’s done some work with some of the younger players in our organization. We’re kind of a hockey family.
What Canadians could learn from the Swedes:
People here don’t have a lot of worries. This is an easy life. You’re well taken care of in terms of the social welfare system. There’s not a lot of stress of living here. It’s more laid back than North America. U
