...and in walks old Mr, Thomas and Mr. Gorr, two knarly old business men, entrepeneurs in their youth, quietly discussing how to fit old Malcolm into his kayak casket, a Guillemot Great Auk design created by Nick Shade Mortokayak, Inc., a subsiduary of his own, Guillemot Kayaks.

At 88 yrs of age, old man Malcolm finally got his Darwin Award while paddling through that narrow pass during rough weather. A rogue wave tumbled old man Malcolm over; he never came back up, he just rolled over to the other side of existence.

That was a whole 27 years after young Mr. Pruden met his end, when a great Hudson Bay polar bear suddenly rose up like a great white to chew through the crunchy exterior of the VJ's cockpit to get at the yummy soft center. Mr Pruden was almost done paddling from the Alberta Rockies to Churchill. He was never heard from again but the bear was shot that winter by an Innuit during a hunt. They found Mr. Pruden's wallet in the bears stomach, still wrapped in the double ziplock baggies he stored them in. Apparently, so the story goes, there was also the skeleton of a hand gripping the bears gall bladder from the inside. It is said that when the bear attacked the VJ, Mr. Pruden apparently, by all accounts, must have put up quite a fight to stay alive. It is said that he invested so much of his spirit trying to stay alive that when the bear bit off his hand and he knew he was in for real trouble, his spirit invested its full strength in that hand and as it slid down the hungry bears throat, the hand grabbed for anything it could find that was vital to the bear's life and took a grip at last on the bears gall bladder. Apparently the bear was found to be gaunt from severe digestion problems, a symptom of a sick gall bladder. Well, that's how the story is told. It's up to you to believe what you want.

George