By Way of Castor: A Prairie Boy’s Journey Across Six Continents

Looking back on a life that has taken me from the prairies of Alberta to the Arctic ice, from the deserts of Niger to the mountains of Kenya, I am often asked what I have learned from all those years of travel.

The answer is simple: almost every person on Earth is fair, honest, helpful, and affable.

I did not always know this. As a boy in Castor, Alberta, I was skeptical of the wider world. But travel has a way of breaking down barriers. Here are a few moments that changed my perspective.

One night in rural Japan, I arrived at a train station, wet and cold. I found a small Japanese inn. The man on duty gave me a dry kimono and a room. He returned later and waved his hand up and down, which I mistook for a signal to lie down and sleep. The next morning, I learned that he had prepared a meal for me and was inviting me to join him. In the Orient, waving an extended arm up and down means "come" or "follow." I had made a cultural mistake, but the man's kindness had remained.

In London, I stood on a street corner looking lost. A Chinese couple drove by, saw me, went around the block, and came back. They said, "You look lost, please get in and we will take you where you are going." And they did.

In Singapore, I was riding a bus when my prepaid card slipped out of my pocket. The driver let me off without paying. Fifteen minutes later, in a terminal with 1,000 people, he found me and handed me the card. He had searched for it in a crack in a bus seat.

On a train trip across Russia, I was alone in a coach car when a huge Russian fisherman sat down across from me. We shared pantomimes, laughs, and endless cups of tea from a samovar. He told me, as best he could, that this was the first time in two years he had visited his family. I was the first non-Russian he had ever met. When he changed trains, he hugged me firmly and cried. As our train pulled out, he stood on the platform and waved until we were out of sight.

These experiences taught me something profound. We are all more alike than we are different. Language barriers, cultural differences, and political boundaries fade away when we treat each other with simple human decency.

My grandmother Schnell once took me aside after seeing me mistreat a friend. In her Volga German dialect, she said, "Russell, in life you will go much further by using a little sugar than a lot of salt." Her advice has proven true time and time again.

I also learned the importance of being prepared. As a young man, I applied for an Air Cadet scholarship. I studied a year's worth of social studies pamphlets and read the Edmonton Journal every day as I delivered it. When the interviewers asked me about a large iron ore discovery in northern Alberta, I told them I had never heard of it. That was the correct answer—there was no such discovery, and they were testing whether I would lie. I was selected.

These lessons have stayed with me throughout my life. My autobiography, A Prairie Boy Growing Up in Castor, Alberta; And Then the World, tells these stories and many more. It is available now for pre-order.