I recently returned from an amazing 10-day solo canoe trip in Temagami, Ontario.

I was rained on, attacked by birds (nesting time) and bit by hundreds of bugs. I canoed under rainbows. I ran out of food and had to fast for a day and skip several meals over the course of three days.

It was one of the best times of my life.

Below is a video I made of the footage I captured, as well as a piece I wrote while contemplating my time up north.

I go into nature not to escape the world, but to meet myself, face-to-face. 

Some people seek wisdom from establishments; I look to the windswept skies and wild forests.

My greatest teacher is the wild north. I go there to learn, to de-construct, to transform and renew.

I am not running from life, I am living life. It takes courage, strength and humility to run wholeheartedly into the wild.

Beneath the rainstorm, nestled in between roots and rocks with the bugs, surrounded by water and sprouting life, beneath the unforgiving sun and struck by the humbling winds, the corners of my eyes soften and yet my gaze intensifies.

All that is untrue falls away until only the bone of spirit remains. I am nothing and I am everything.

In the heart of destruction and in the birthplace of creation, the wild will forever be my home.

 “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”

~ Henry David Thoreau

 

 

 

Editor: Lara Chassin

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