Some form of wireless telephony has been available for dozens of years as two way radios are dial phone interconnected at base stations. You can make or receive international calls from any radio equipped vehicle. Many units actually have the touch number pad on the hand-held mic.

Cell towers and the supporting infrastructure don’t come cheap and as a rule have a 7 kilometer radius. That will give cell owners coverage as far as our airport but extremely spotty service past that. It’s not that the towers can’t reach further but the limits of the cell unit itself. At best you might receive the rare text message in a fringe area.

Cell phones like the newer Droid, or Experia X10 and the popular iPhone are Wi Fi capable and can install Skype. Even though we do not have cell service yet, many customers make local and long distance Skype calls from their dining room chairs.

Unfortunately, tour guides will need to make a new ruling. Leave the cell behind or else it is bound to interrupt the local culture tours, Parks Canada presentations and dinner parties.

As a guide with Frontiers North (aka Tundra Buggies) I have watched as guests, at first befuddled by lack of instantaneous communication, begin to appreciate then even relish being ‘out of touch.’

It is a joy to walk down the streets of Churchill and say hi to the locals — not have everyones attentions on text messages & Blackberries.

It is more than the experience of seeing your first polar bear in the relative stillness of the Buggies … it is truely a holiday of a lifetime and I hope people will take the time to ‘get away from it all’ …. to really be in the moment.

Hard to stop progress but every second of beauty should be absorbed on the Tundra Buggy. I’d like to think that your guests would cooperate.