When I begin my journey’s the creative task is always to find a way to do it with what I have or what I can make or find. The focus isn’t on what is lacking, it is building upon what I have. The tent I departed with was a five year old tent from MEC. It was a three season tent so I new before winter I would need another but it had already been on many excursions and it was light, roomy and ready.
I left St. Johns July 1st and rode into Newfoundland’s worst summer in 57 years and by the end of the first week the windows in the tents tarp fell out, the glue gave away on the same day for both windows.
I pulled into a small town called Placentia Junction where a local boy named Cole and his mom helped me duct tape the windows back on but that didn’t last two nights. So when I had cell reception I called MEC and they put me in touch with some guys considered to be their tech experts on the matter. I asked for advice on how to fix the tarp windows and they said, ” will ship you another today, express.” Just like that, no fuss, no excuses, just a fix to a problem.
Two weeks later I lost that tent and when MEC heard the story, they shipped another. I wrote two blog posts about it which you can read here http://500daysinthewild.com.nmsrv.com/the-story-of-the-tent-and-the-saint-of-st-fintan/ and here http://500daysinthewild.com.nmsrv.com/the-moose-the-lost-tent-day-26-27/
And we made a webisode about it which you can see here. https://vimeo.com/137199247
High five and gratitude to MEC for kind staff, good service and integrity. cheers.
It sucks when you run into trouble like that… but what awesome, friendly folks you ran into and incredible customer service from MEC.
Thanks for sharing