Departing alone for Baffin Island in the Canadian arctic, I reflect on how a street kid from the city learned outdoors skills in the mountains as a Boy Scout. This segues into the arctic trek where the focus is on fear. Several incidents form the basis of a discussion about the different kinds of fear, how one reacts to it, what can be learned from it, etc., all told from the perspective of a guy with a lot of  firsthand experience being alone and scared in the wilderness.