Reader\'s Digest Canada - 04.2020

parachutes will open properly. We do

not guarantee that individuals at Sky-

diveBC North or Guardian Aerospace

Holdings Inc. will function without

error. We do not guarantee that any of

our backup devices will function prop-

erly, and we certainly do not guarantee

that you won’t get hurt. You may get

hurt or killed, even if you do every-

thing correctly.”

The form did nothing to calm me

down. I signed my name and handed

it over. With the paperwork completed,

there was nothing much left to do but

wait my turn—and stew.

When the Cessna was ready for us,

Barry showed me how we would enter

and exit. The plane was tiny, and when

we launched ourselves through its

low doorway, we would be harnessed

together. There was a careful protocol to

follow. I’d pictured us stepping out of

a full-height doorway, or even a yawn-

ing garage-style opening, like in the

movies. But the small plane, plus our

joined bodies, demanded an awkward

crouch-and-roll. For some reason, the

sheer impossibility of the manoeuvre—

really, I was going to tandem-somersault

out of a tiny opening in midflight?—

calmed me down. This couldn’t be real.

It seemed like a joke.

Then, suddenly, it was time. I pulled

on my fluorescent jumpsuit, helmet and

goggles and got cinched into my har-

ness. I faced the camera, declared my

intentions and climbed into the plane.

we were airborne, rising up above the

desert, with Carcross and Bennett Lake

stretching away into the mountains. The

landscape below me was familiar, com-

forting. Countless times, I had hiked it,

biked it, paddled it, driven it, flown

over it in commercial jets. I’ve never

minded flying; it was the falling I was

worried about. I tried to breathe deeply

and focus on the scenery. There was

the train bridge. There was the beach.

There was the highway leading home.

Somewhere on the way up, shivering

with cold and fear, I noticed something:

I wasn’t sweating. I had expected to be

clammy with fear-sweat, but instead I

was bone dry. Perspiration was on my

mind because I’d recently heard about

a scientific study that used the sweat of

first-time skydivers to answer a single

question: can humans smell fear?

We’ve long known that animals can

THE SMALL PLANE, PLUS OUR JOINED

BODIES, DEMANDED AN AWKWARD CROUCH-

AND-ROLL. IT SEEMED LIKE A JOKE.

reader’s digest

88 april 2020