An Adventurer’s Contemplation

As I sit here early on a weekday morning, I am dreaming of my next adventure. I have many options to choose from: Perhaps I should take a 9-day canoe camping trip to the Eastern  Arm of the Great Slave Lake within the Northwest Territories? Maybe, I should continue my exploration of the Inside Passage by paddling the islands of Haida Gwaii? But what about my desire to explore somewhere in the Canadian Arctic? Or, is Alaska, my next destination?

I read an article in Issue 70 of Paddling magazine by Kevin Callan. He pointed out some startling statistics about adventures like the ones I dream about. He states that in the 1930’s, the average trip lasted about a month long. By the 70’s, it was about 10-days in duration and by the 1980’s it was down to five. Today, the average is 2-3 days. What it says to me is that only true explorers / adventurers are left to crave the isolation that comes from extended trips in the wilderness.

He further goes on to professing that it isn’t until the fourth day that we get into the rhythm of an adventure. I experienced this during my adventure recently in Desolation Sound. We had to leave on the fourth day, just as I was getting my body and mind attuned to my surroundings and the daily paddling that before this adventure, I had not been able to experience a rhythm anywhere close to it. By day 5, Kevin suggests that we no longer crave television or other modern electronic conveniences or fast-food fixes. By the 9^th day, we are one with the environment and the natural world we are now immersed in. His final point (jokingly of course): that if you hadn’t needed to use a toilet trowel, then it wasn’t a real trip.

I wonder what Jeff Wueste (a member of the Arctic Cowboys) was thinking as he flew out from the icy waters of the Arctic Ocean to the safety of Inuvik? Was it a shower with hot water, and a hot meal not constituted with boiling water? Was he recalling the last 3+ months of braving the ocean, the weather, the remoteness, or merely what an incredible feat he and his team accomplished (the first people to traverse the Northwest Passage by human power in a single season)?

As an adventurer, I don’t think I will ever consider my wanderings complete until I get dropped off in some boreal forest, or experiencing the cold and ice of the arctic, or being deposited on a remote lake somewhere only a float plane can land. And for an extended period of time, I will be alone with my thoughts and marvel at the majesty I’m surrounded by. How eerie it will feel watching “my ride” disappear, leaving me with only this experience as I get through the duration of the adventure and knowing that in some amount of time, I will get picked up again to head home. I will contemplate the indigenous peoples that called this place home. I hope, like them, I will be at one with the land and the wildlife. What I take away with will remain in my heart and mind for the remaining trips around the sun I have left.