A Life Changing Adventure

Before I left for this journey, I was told by many people that it would be a life changing experience. I knew it would be an incredible opportunity, but I wasn’t sure if it would change me. In the last days of this journey, I ask myself if it really has changed my life, and I have to answer yes.

I have a new appreciation for the natural world. I understand so much better what drove people like John Muir to explore the most beautiful and rugged parts of our world. I have been bewildered by the incredible beauty of the pristine lands we’ve travel through. I don’t think I can explain how impressive it is to cruise by thousands and thousands of acres forested with tall trees and framed by snow capped mountains. It is so inspiring to see how Canada has protected some of he most beautiful places in the world, being sure to preserve these places long into the future. It is so impressive to travel by water for three weeks seeing untouched land nearly every minute of that time. I have been thrilled to my core watching porpoises play in the wake of our bow, and seeing orca jump just a few hundred yards from our boat.

What made the greatest impression on me though, are the people I’ve come to know. I have met some amazing people on this journey and truly come to love several of them. Over the last 15 years or so, I feel like it has been harder to meet people with whom I can form fast and deep friendships, as I did when I was younger. But on this trip, I’ve met some people who I believe will always be a part of my life. I don’t know if it was just luck to be put together with like-minded people, or if sharing an amazing adventure put us all in some special shared space that pulled us together. Whatever it is, I’m so grateful to have shared this trip and so many intense emotions with these people.

Along the same lines, I remembered that who you share your adventure with is often more important than the adventure itself. There are some people that make any adventure fun. You can wash your car or grocery shop with them and it is just as much fun as traveling to Alaska together. I’ve remembered that we must choose our travel companions wisely, as they will likely color our journey more than any turning leaf will ever do.

This trip and my experiences on it have left me feeling more alive, more awake and aware. It can be so easy to get into a rut at home, walking the dogs, doing the dishes and eating the same meals. It takes energy to shake off the routine and look for new adventures, come to know new people and experience new emotions. Everything about this trip was so new, the means of travel, the area in which we traveled and the people with whom I traveled. All the newness shook me from my rut and made me see things differently and feel things more intensely. This may be one of the things I’m most grateful for.

There have been so many days on this trip when I have wanted to stop time; to stay wrapped in the incredible beauty around me, filled so intensely with emotion. But sadly, time doesn't work that way. We experience the moment and keep moving forward. If we are lucky, we can burn that memory - the feeling and sense of it - into our soul. We can carry it with us and return to it often for peace or joy or perspective. My greatest hope is that the incredible events and emotions I experienced on this trip will stay fresh and alive in my heart and that I’ll always be able to call on them to sustain me. I hope that in the coming years I will continue to feel the intensity of this trip as sharply as I feel it today.