Down to earth

Astronaut Chris Hadfield tells Rachel Lees about the trip that changed him, and the place he feels most at home.

SilverKris

Chris Hadfield aka the “singing spaceman” tends to live life to the strum of his own guitar. The now retired astronaut became an Internet celebrity when he recorded a version of David Bowie’s Space Oddity onboard the International Space Station, on his final mission in 2013.

During his time in outer space, with his craft moving at 8km per second, Hadfield lapped the globe every 92 minutes. “In one minute on the spaceship, you can cross entire nations; you cross Australia in four minutes,” says Hadfield with a hint of wonder in his voice. “Several hundred miles from Earth, you can’t see the whole world, but you can see a lot of it.” 

Back on Earth, 56-year-old Hadfield has visited 70 countries, and lived on the ocean floor off the coast of Florida, USA. But it was a backpacking trip through Europe at age 17 that is among his most memorable travels. “I spent six months on trains, hitchhiking, and on foot,” says Hadfield, who took in locations as varied as the Arctic Circle, Italy and Spain, along with east Berlin, Bulgaria and the former Yugoslavia before the fall of the Iron Curtain. 

“It was to make real a youth of studying names and places in history and geography classes,” says Hadfield. “To walk around the Temple of Artemis in Turkey, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, with a shepherd who was herding his goats, it changed my fundamental understanding of time and of people.” 

These days, Hadfield travels up to five days a week. Among his repeat destinations: Portugal. “I love driving through the countryside. It’s an ancient part of Europe, with a proud history.” But it’s clear his heart belongs to Canada. “Our summer home is on an island on a river,” says Hadfield. “I cherish sitting on the porch with the sun on my feet.”

This interview was originally published in the January 2016 issue of SilverKris.