It's beginning to feel a lot more like home

     Well, it took us more than a year but Victoria is starting to feel more like home.  Home is one of those multilayered words that can be true at any level or many levels simultaneously, and for us it is once again beginning to mean more than simply the place we sleep and a mailing address.  Though we've called Victoria home since day one, so much has happened these past two weeks a sense of becoming part of a community has finally started to settle in.

     There were a number of things getting in the way of deeply and truly feeling “at home” before.  So many forces were involved with our coming here – personal, cultural, political – and they were so mixed up with the stress of trying to make everything work it was difficult to find our bearings.  Fear of failure created a kind of fog that seemed to persist almost everywhere we went last year, making it hard to figure out how to begin integrating into the community.  For our first few months it felt as though we were in a dream. In spite of the fact we had brought our black lab Zeus and our cat Isis along, in many ways it was as though we had come here on vacation and decided to stay but could never quite shake the feeling we were still just tourists.  Having to return to the States over the summer only reinforced the notion that feeling had been justified all along. 
     It didn't help that we had isolated ourselves in the country during our first year here.  No doubt the fact we are now in the city where we are better able to meet people and become active in the community is a large part of what we are feeling today.  We've met more neighbours in two or three weeks here than we did all year in the country, isolated as we were on two acres atop a hill with forest hiding the local residents on two sides and distance separating us from them in every direction.  Even our landlord last year, who had lived there for more than five years, knew virtually none of his neighbours.  Becoming more active in Victoria's political and non-profit community and our greater ability to meet people in general is helping us stay more focused on our goal without leaving us much time to dwell on the fear of failure. 

     We’re still in transition, but it feels as though the beginning of the end of the transition has finally arrived.  There is still more uncertainty than we would prefer, but even that isn’t as stressful this time around.  Either we’re slowly getting better at dealing with it or becoming active in the community is making it easier to keep our minds off it.  Regardless, it sure feels good to be home.

On the 10th Anniversary of September 11, Zeus suggests a little forgetfulness can be a virtue

     "You humans do like to live in the past, don't you?" Zeus said out of the blue from his place on the futon next to me.  We were watching the evening news as one of the networks competed to be the first to show footage of the Twin Towers falling for the millionth time prior to midnight on September 11, 2011.

     "Well I guess."  I paused to think about that for a moment.  "But it's important we never forget."  Normally I would feel foolish replying with such a cliche, but since this was a conversation with a dog, I wasn't about to allow myself to become too bothered and immediately resumed mindlessly watching the news. They had begun playing footage of the collapse of the second tower now.

    "Never forget what exactly?" Zeus' tone indicated the fact he was a canine didn't inhibit his ability to be annoyed by glib responses to his questions.  "I mean remembering the dead is one thing, but it's not as though they're flashing the names of the victims on the screen or interviewing the families of the fallen here."  He gave a slight nod toward the television screen.  "It's just the same video of the buildings crashing to the ground over and over again and they've been running it since before I was born."

     I squirmed a bit in my seat.  I really didn't know how to answer him.  Though I was loath to admit it, the truth was the constant drumbeat of 9/11 video and references for the past ten years, together with all the war footage and commentary from the two conflicts that followed, had frankly left me numb.  I had long ago lost the ability to find any politician or reporter who gave a speech or did a story on the subject sincere.  It was like never being allowed to simply mourn and move on.  A person could almost come to resent the dead if all the guilt associated with doing so didn't keep getting in the way.

     "So tell me, does your species enjoy post traumatic stress disorder or something?"

     My god, he treats his questions the same way he does a rope.  Talk about someone who could do with learning to let go.  "I just don't think people want to ever see it happen again" I finally answered.

     "Seems to me it's more likely to happen again with you all constantly dwelling on it so much.  If you just put up a memorial or something and went on with your lives..." Zeus glanced back up at the television mid sentence.  "Oh good, they're replaying the scene at the Pentagon now."  He waved a paw mindlessly toward the screen.

     "One of our philosophers once said those who forget history are doomed to repeat it."  I replied.

   "Yea, well those that keep reliving it are doomed to repeat it a lot more often."  He raised his back leg and scratched an ear.  "Look, the terrorists couldn't forget American meddling in the Middle East, now America can't forget the terrorist's attacking them on 9/11 because the terrorist couldn't forget America's meddling, so America does some more meddling...Seems to me the answer here is someone doing some forgetting, or at least some forgiving."

     I opened my mouth to say something, but Zeus wasn't quite finished yet.  "Or more to the point, stop remembering only what the other guy did to you and start recalling a few of the things you've done to him."

      "Like what?" I asked.

     "Oh, I don't know - propping up dictators, overthrowing democratically elected governments in places like Iran.  That turned out well, didn't it?  You know, little things like that that really win over lots of hearts and minds."  He stuck his snout in the air.  He was obviously feeling he had once again demonstrated his species' superiority.  "Or you can just keep watching 9/11 reruns and spending trillions on wars until someone decides they've had enough and attacks you again providing you with a convenient justification for all those trillions you spent bombing the hell out of their country. Then you can do it all over again, except with a different attack to replay over and over for a decade or so.  If you can keep it going on long enough, maybe you'll at least be able to forget who started it."

     With that Zeus hopped down off the couch and headed down the hall, looking from side to side as he went.  "Anyone seen my bone?" He shouted.

      "Next time I want a pet I think I'm buying an ant farm" I mumbled to myself as I picked up the remote to begin channel surfing.  I'd heard somewhere they were rebroadcasting 'Apocalypse Now' this evening. 







    

I'm expecting I'll have fewer expectations in the future

“I am open to the guidance of synchronicity, and do not let expectations hinder my path.” Dalai Lama

     We do like to plan. Give a species the ability to think abstractly and PRESTO!, they start planning things and promoting the illusion they can actually control everything. If we're not altering the environment with our dams and skyscrapers or attempting to break land speed records and defy gravity, we're often rubbing a rabbit's foot or praying to something in hopes of somehow altering the course of events that way. Regardless, it's all motivated by the desire to control and shape human destiny, often with dire consequences.

      Hey, I'm not throwing stones here. I'm perhaps the biggest control freak of them all. I'm not obsessive-compulsive about small stuff, but I've nearly ruined everything from relationships to my own often precarious hold on sanity because I had such a strong attachment to some of my bigger dreams. It's taken me a while to get to the point where it may have finally sunk in virtually all the truly important events in my life were unexpected, and most of the less important stuff I was focused on either never happened or turned out much differently than I was expecting.

      I never expected to meet my wife when I did. I expected to get married eventually, but the timing and circumstances were entirely unplanned. Virtually every close friendship I have - probably virtually every close friendship any of us have - was unplanned. You can't expect to meet someone you didn't know existed or force a friendship even assuming you knew of them in advance and successfully arranged a meeting.  If there is a friendship out there that wasn't the consequence of a series of happy accidents, I'd love to hear about it.

     Then, of course, there's family. Who can write about failed expectations without mentioning family? We've all heard it said we can choose who to keep as friends, but not family.  I love them all, but talk about a random collection of people with genes in common and often little else... Hopefully my family won't take that the wrong way. After all, I suspect most people can say the same thing about their family. It just comes with the territory. In my case I have Republicans, Democrats, socialists, believers, non-believers, outdoor enthusiasts and people who wouldn't be caught dead within 10 meters of a tent.

      But when it comes to slowly learning to let go of expectations I think it's this move to Canada that has really been the straw that broke the camel's back. We're still here and doing reasonably well at the moment, but that's not because things have gone according to plan. In fact, almost nothing has gone according to plan. From what we thought we'd get from the sale of our home to our expectations when it came to job opportunities in Canada this summer, our expectations have been dashed time and again. It wasn't until recently when we let our expectations go on the grounds there was little to nothing left to lose that things suddenly turned around. In the course of a little over a week our financial situation improved and we found an apartment. I joked with Chris all that was needed was a blog post on dumb luck and literally within a few hours we were beginning to experience some.

      Now if I start to expect things will continue to improve I'll just be jinxing everything, so I'm not going to. One close friend recently reminded me of the Buddhist teaching to strive tirelessly, but not to expect or become attached. Doing so is the source of all suffering. In this spirit I'm expecting to have fewer expectations in the future and just keep striving. With school set to begin in a few days, there should be enough to keep me striving through at least early December. In the meantime, expect nothing from me and I'll try and return the favour.

Does it really just come down to dumb luck?

"We were on the roof on Monday, young Lisiek and I and we saw the Herr Kommandant come out of the house on the patio right there below us and he drew his gun and shot a woman who was passing by. Just a woman with a bundle, just shot her through the throat. She was just a woman on her way somewhere, she was no faster or slower or fatter or thinner than anyone else and I couldn't guess what had she done. The more you see of the Herr Kommandant the more you see there are no set rules you can live by, you cannot say to yourself, 'If I follow these rules, I will be safe.'"

This quote, from one of the most powerful scenes in the movie 'Schindler's List', portrays the powerlessness of living in an environment without rhyme or reason. Whether one does what they are told or not, follows the advice of those in power or not, it makes no difference. Obviously we are not living in a concentration camp, but our society none-the-less increasingly resembles the same inescapable powerlessness, even if in a much more diluted and subtle form.

I recognize I've said many times before the universe is a place governed by randomness, though within the bounds of the laws of physics. Nature has no more regard for Planet Earth in general or human beings in particular than it does for other planets or species. But humans were randomly "selected" to "receive" a sense of justice. Our cultures are ultimately a collective recognition that only together can we maximize everyone's odds in the face of an indifferent world that is as likely to sooner or later deliver a natural disaster to our doorstep as it is a bumper crop at harvest time. In short, we understand the virtues of cooperation and fairness, even if often we fail to apply them.

So I feel a bit peeved (understatement) at our increasing failure to apply justice - to allow injustice to persist in our relations with each other even in the face of collective exposure to an uncaring universe. Most societies are content with the minimum amount of cooperation and mutual regard necessary to get by and still, hopefully, hold themselves together. A dangerous game as leaders of the Middle East are learning today and the recent riots in London foreshadow.

Given what's going on in my own life I take it all a bit personally. I've applied for countless jobs, am seeking housing in a world that increasingly demands proof of employment before they'll rent to you, and generally seems hell bent on making sure you don't get a fresh start. If society says it rewards hard work, education, and encourages risk taking in the interest of fostering innovation and both personal and collective advancement, then it should actually deliver. People in such a society, if the rhetoric is be believed, shouldn't lose their shirt if things don't go according to plan. Paying a price for taking a risk and failing is one thing. Losing everything is another.

Chris and I haven't done everything right. Who ever does? But we've done more right than wrong. Unfortunately, there is not enough work and what work there is fails to cover the bills. In the absence of steady income housing is harder to come by, leaving us without a place from which to sell some of our excess stuff as planned. Student loans don't come close to covering all the costs associated with getting an education, especially if you're an older non-traditional student, and most of the scholarships out there are small, tend to be random drawings or essay contests (both time consuming and highly competitive) often targeting young students fresh out of high school. Being in Canada, at least we don't have the added disadvantage of having to worry about healthcare through it all, but millions in the US are not nearly so fortunate.

So for us it comes down to dumb luck, and we're hardly alone. Once you've applied for jobs, taken advantage of every available government aid program, researched and applied for scholarships and still nothing happens, it ultimately comes down to dumb luck. Winning the lottery or having a good day at the local casino or finding a wad of bills someone accidentally dropped on the sidewalk on their way to the bank. Or maybe you just bump into some incredibly generous soul willing to pay a truly decent wage in exchange for some yard work or something. Whatever. But planning and effort really have nothing to do with it. The fact you've done everything you've been advised to do doesn't really matter. Attempting to improve your life, an act praised by politicians and preachers alike, it turns out has odds increasingly resembling those found at a slot machine in your local gambling establishment. It doesn't have to, of course, but collectively we've all put up with it so far so here we are.

So are we going to make it Canada? Probably not. We probably can't make it in the US either. In two wealthy societies with so much work that needs to be done - infrastructure maintenance and replacement backlogs now totaling in the trillions of dollars, research opportunities galore, environmental restoration work desperately needing to be done - we are actually expected to believe there is no work available and to accept funding cuts in the interest of "shared sacrifice". In a culture that praises education we force students to graduate under the burden of staggering debt and allow tuition and fees to grow significantly faster than inflation year after year. Meanwhile, our politicians run on themes of hope while embracing tax cuts for the wealthy and spending cuts for the rest of us. Or worse, they run away from science, label the educated "elite", and call any suggestion the wealthy pay a bit more "class warfare". These will be our choices as long as we continue to tolerate them.

So if we make it here or anywhere else it will be as much or more due to dumb luck than any effort we exert. We've exerted plenty, to the point of giving it all we can in every way imaginable. Like a growing list of millions in the industrialized world and billions elsewhere, it comes down to dumb luck as our leaders embrace what amounts to the modern equivalent of Social Darwinism. But as many dictators in North Africa and the Middle East are currently learning, luck is a double edged sword. Eventually, if rhetoric and reality continue to diverge, our leaders' luck will run out as well. If Chris and I and millions more in our shoes are lucky, that day will be soon.

It's a small world after all

Chris, Zeus and I traveled 9,812 kilometers this summer, at least if Google Maps is to be believed. If I was able to accurately add up all the side trips the total would no doubt approach or perhaps exceed 11,000 km.

Over the course of three days this past weekend I personally added more than 3,000 additional kilometers returning our rental car to Salt Lake and then flying back to Seattle before ultimately returning to Victoria via high speed ferry. In order to diversify the mix of transportation methods employed this summer I fit in a few hours on a sailboat on Bear Lake between the drive and the flight, though I have nothing to show for it beyond a bad sunburn, some fond memories, and the addition of some sailing terms like "jib" to my vocabulary.

The flight to Seattle retraced from 35,000 feet much of the highway I had driven at a far more leisurely pace heading in the opposite direction less than 48 hours prior. After reaching Boise, Idaho in just over 20 minutes I began to follow the flight information provided on the small screen mounted on the back of the seat in front of me more carefully. The planet seems small indeed when in a little more than two hours you've covered a distance that just 48 hours before took about 13 hours to cover, and not much more than a century prior would have taken weeks or even months. It is remarkable that in a little over three months Chris, Zeus and I crossed the Cascades, prairies, and Rocky Mountains twice (first in Canada and then again in the US) and a large portion of the Canadian Shield once. Is it any wonder the struggles of the pioneers or explorers like Lewis and Clark seem nearly as much ancient history as the Babylonians?

Even more remarkable is the fact Chris and I, to say nothing of our dog, are beings of incredibly modest means. In fact, modest means is overstating it. Yet here we are having just completed approximately 11,000 kilometers of travel including most of the readily available means of modern transportation at human disposal. Some would see this fact as an indication of human progress. Regardless, I'm certainly glad we had the ability to take the opportunity to set out across Canada.

Unfortunately, this smaller more accessible planet of ours has somehow reinforced the impression we live on a planet of nearly infinite resources instead of teaching us our place in the universe is even tinier and more inconsequential than our ancestors sailing the seas on small slow moving boats or crossing the New World via horse drawn wagon thought it was. A hundred or so years ago we thought the world had infinite wealth because it was so big. Now we take the speed and relative ease with which we can encircle it as an indication our ancestors were right. Flying through a warming atmosphere over all too visible clear cuts, strip mines, and ribbons of highway seems to have done little to change human attitudes toward the limits and fragility of this tiny blue ball.

Regardless, our personal travels are over for the time being. It will probably be a while before we set out across Canada again, let alone visit Europe, the Australian outback, or the Amazon rainforest. Like the planet we have only limited resources, and even the accessibility afforded by what is almost certainly the tail end of the modern industrial age takes more resources than we currently have at our disposal. If all goes well we'll be content to just take our time letting our roots sink into the soil of Vancouver Island for a while. Next summer will, at best, probably see only weekend excursions into the woods and followup blogs about large slugs, mushrooms, tall trees, wildlife, and the biodiversity found in the intertidal zone between forest and sea.

Getting some more practice going with the flow

We had hoped this week's post would include pictures of our new apartment. Perhaps next week's will. After numerous phone calls and an eternity driving from one housing prospect to another all we really have to show for it is sufficient knowledge of Victoria to qualify for a job with one of the local taxi companies.

The transition to our new life in Canada has never been what you'd call smooth. In spite of that, we still can't seriously consider for more than a moment or two giving up. We are, if nothing else, living more intentionally now than ever. The challenges, as frustrating as they are, also perversely feed the hope of a large pay off at the end of it all. At its basest most fundamental level it's the same emotional pull a gambler feels waiting for his slot machine to come up '777' or a surfer feels waiting to finally catch that truly giant wave. It's tempting to cast it all in a nobler more romantic light, but the exhilaration one feels after any notion of security or significant control is given up, even briefly, is the same for the poker player pushing all her chips into the centre of the table as it probably was for Charles Darwin stepping onto the Beagle to sail around the world or, in our case, two lovers chucking it all and trying to make a go of it in Canada. The consequences of the relative outcomes may be different, but at the individual level the emotions and motivations are essentially the same.

So we wait and redraw our plans a bit more as needed with each passing day. Unless someone calls tomorrow - and they might - it's into a motel with a cheap weekly rate while we expand our search to include apartments not available until September 1st, or perhaps even a bit beyond. Zeus will be glad to not be spending so much time in the back of the rental car next week at any rate. He'll be even happier if we can find him a place close to a park or the ocean, though he may have to settle for regular walks and the chance to just sit on his futon again while chewing a bone. After all, all of us can always use more practice just going with the flow.

What I learned on my summer vacation

It started out as an eventful summer travelling across Canada, and will likely end as one with our return. The hunt for an apartment, job, and preparations for another year in school will no doubt keep us very occupied for the next few weeks. In between these busy bookends however, the summer has been relatively uneventful leaving considerable time for reflection and growth as well as, unfortunately, too much time for dwelling on the past.

In the interest of brevity, I’ve bullet pointed my list of what I’ve learned this summer:

• Humility: None of us is an island and we just can’t make it alone no matter how much we like to think we can. And to prove just how humble I’ve become, I’ll state for the record I’m still far from perfect in the humility department.
• Gratitude: I’m more grateful than ever before for friends and loved ones, many of whom were willing to give us a helping hand when our resources - both emotional and physical - were about exhausted (see also humility above).
• Acceptance: I’m still working on this one, but however much I may struggle with it, it became painfully obvious this summer there is nothing I can do but take people as they are and do my best to love them regardless.
• Indifference: I haven’t mastered this one, but I’m convinced it’s the only way to go. Other people’s issues are just exhausting to deal with if I allow them to become mine, and I’ve got enough issues of my own I’m working on, thank you very much. Because they’re your issues there’s not a damn thing I can do about them, so I’m trying hard not to care about them - unless they involve some sort of suffering I can actually help relieve you of, and they hardly ever do.
• Patience: I haven't so much learned patience as a greater appreciation for it and the relative lack of it I possess. Here would be a good place to insert the tired old cliche about wanting more patience and wanting it now, but I'll exercise some self control. Maybe patience will come as I perfect being indifferent.
• Love: For my wife, primarily. There is no way I could have made it this far without her. For friends who didn’t give up on me. For my daughter whom I miss more than ever. And finally for a dear friend that was nearly lost, but with whom reconciliation seems suddenly and surprisingly possible. And of course Zeus, the best dog on Earth.

I also read three books by Bill Bryson this summer and learned, among other things, that not too long ago they discovered a tribe with no history of contact with the outside world growing sweet potatoes deep in the jungles of New Guinea. Sweet potatoes are native to the Americas so, as Mr. Bryson would say, we should all stop and think about that for a minute. Mr. Bryson also taught me the Appalachian Trail is no walk in the park and that the history of science is as fascinating for its discoveries as for the personalities of some of the scientists. Of course, as life lessons go what I learned from Bill Bryson wasn’t quite as personally transformative as my list, but he sure helped the summer pass a bit quicker.

That’s all until Victoria. My next blog post will be from our new apartment.

Mowing the lawn for the last time

For each of the last eight or nine weeks, usually on Saturday morning, I've mowed our host's lawn. The lot is approximately half an acre, so it takes about an hour to complete. It wasn't until I'd been doing it about three weeks I felt comfortable enough with the lay of this small - in the big scheme of things - patch of land to allow myself the luxury and potential distraction of my MP3 player. It took about three weeks more to settle into a regular approach involving mowing in three uninterrupted stages: the east side, north facing backyard, and finally the western strip between the neighbouring lot together with the much smaller front yard.

I came to look forward to this regular hour or so dedicated to a clear, straightforward goal requiring little thought with even less threat of serious complications. I sat down to program my playlist prior to launch, and pleasantly discovered that without any conscious effort on my part the project ended about the time the music did. The playlist always lasted about a song or two longer than the lawn. By the time I'd opened and downed about a quarter of the weekly can of ice tea that completed the ritual, the music was over and I was able to sit back on the patio and enjoy the smell of freshly cut grass for a while.

But today was the last day I will likely ever cut this lawn, and it will almost certainly be quite some time before I touch a lawn mower again. Next weekend we return to Victoria, probably to live in a small apartment somewhere in the city. Opportunities for regular weekend routines involving the same simple straightforward solitary project week after week are not what that lifestyle is known for. While I wouldn't give up returning to Victoria for the world, let alone the chance to mow a lawn every weekend, I'll miss the alternating sun and shade as I pass under the birch tree with each trip across the backyard.

Realizing this morning was the last time I'd be cutting grass for a while brought home the fact Chris and I are again about to embark on a new adventure alone together. Letting the handle go and hearing the engine die signalled yet another approaching milestone in what is going on 18 months of milestones and challenges. It also marked the end of the illusion I knew, more or less, what the next weekend would bring. Once again, there's no denying we don't know what next weekend has in store for us. Even tomorrow is a mystery. Adventure always had a high degree of appeal, but now I have a somewhat better understanding of the comforts of ritual as well.

Sorry humanity, ambivalence is about all you inspire - at least at the moment

By the conclusion of this summer I see myself having a much more developed ambivalence about humanity than I did before. In the event any family or friends read this, I will immediately qualify the opening sentence by stating I’m talking ambivalence toward people generally, not any one of you in particular.

Over the course of the past three months I have been on the receiving end of acts of kindness by strangers, friends, and family alike. I have also been lied to by someone I consider a close friend, with little to no apparent regard for the pain caused or the circumstances in which that particular knife was thrust into my back.

More recently, and less personally, I’ve also witnessed a man by the name of Tim DeChristopher sentenced to two years in prison for his courageous act of civil disobedience in defence of the Earth. Meanwhile, in Washington, a significant number of the 'honourable' men and women making up the US Congress have been demonstrating humanity’s capacity for dogmatism, inflexibility, and disregard for those in need. All this is to say nothing of the spectrum of human behaviour on display during the so-called “Arab spring” halfway around the world or the events closer to home in Wisconsin. These examples and experiences, together with many more, have made me increasingly ambivalent about our species.

This attitude of mine has, I think, been interpreted by some who know and talk with me often as something of a callous absence of concern for human suffering. It isn’t. Rather it is merely an extension of my attitude toward nature to humanity as a whole. Nature is neither good nor evil. It simply is. Nature is as replete with examples of love, compassion and cooperation as it is with cruelty, suffering and selfishness. Animals have been known to deceive other members of their species as well as to put their lives on the line in the interest of the group. Humans, being as much a part of nature as any other animal, are no different - though we do tend to be both destructive and creative on a scale unmatched by any other creature. But it is a mistake to interpret a difference in degree as a difference in kind.

All of this is not to say we shouldn’t each strive to be on the side alleviating suffering rather than the side causing it. Just that taken as a whole we humans will always have our share of those on either end of the spectrum, and everywhere in between. Over the course of our lifetime we’ll all move along the spectrum ourselves, hopefully toward the more ethical end. But humanity, like the environment from which it arose, is neither inherently good nor inherently evil. It just is.

Lao Tzu wrote, “The greatest love seems indifferent.” Mary Chestnut wrote in her Civil War diary, “Forgiveness is indifferent.” Though ambivalence isn’t entirely synonymous with indifference, if Lao Tzu and Mary Chestnut are correct, my attitude is at least a bit healthier and more realistic than it used to be.

Zeus offers his two cents on the debt ceiling crisis

Zeus and I followed our usual routine this morning. After making myself a cup of coffee, I took him out for his morning pee and patrol around the perimeter of the yard. Everything was more or less as he had left it the night before. He detected no evidence any of the neighbourhood cats had invaded his territory. However, he did take notice of the robins tapping their feet on the metal roof covering the patio and exchange pleasantries with the squirrel in the corner pine tree.

After returning to our bedroom I sat down at the computer to check the morning news. This morning Zeus sat down next to me, watching as I looked anxiously over the reports of the continuing debt ceiling stalemate in Washington. After a minute or two of this he let out a little growl indicating his displeasure at something.

“What is it boy?” I asked, patting his head reassuringly.

“I don’t understand it” he replied. I wasn’t too taken back. Zeus often talks. This morning was only unusual because his voice was so clear.

“What don’t you understand?” I asked, now stroking his head to provide additional comfort.

“Why all this fuss about money? America is loaded with money.” He looked not just puzzled, but genuinely troubled.

“Well, if Congress allows the US to default then the dollar will fall in value, interest rates will go up…” He lifted his paw and set it on my leg to cut me off.

“Yea, yea. I’ve heard you talking to mom and others about all that. But we’re talking about paper here - or more likely numbers in a computer at a bank somewhere. Every dollar on Earth your species created and you can make trillions more in less time than it takes me to finish breakfast, and yet everyone seems worried you’re going to run out.”

“True” I replied. “But if we just make more some people are worried that could lead to inflation.” Zeus has never been able to roll his eyes, but he can glaze them into a particularly disinterested gaze at a moment’s notice - and he did. I’ve never been good at explaining macroeconomics, least of all to a species whose biggest concerns are food and the location of their ball.

“Don’t insult my intelligence,” he said as if reading my mind.

“I wasn’t”

“Yes you were.” He paused and tilted his head. “Let me ask you another question. If a giant asteroid was discovered that was going to slam right into the planet in a few years wiping out everything but a few bacteria and, perhaps, some lucky insects here and there would anyone be arguing against raising the debt ceiling to $50 trillion if necessary to finance the research, space ships and missiles needed to blow it into a million pieces or send it hurtling harmlessly past the planet?”

I looked at him for a long time, not sure what to say. Asteroid, eh? He must have been reading over my shoulder when I was logged on to the ScienceDaily website too.

“Well, would they?” he asked emphatically, raising his foot into the air and quickly thumping it back down on the ground.

“No. At least I’d like to think they wouldn’t.”

“Okay. Well just in this country you’ve got millions of people struggling to feed their families and living without health insurance. Outside your borders there are at least 2 billion more living on barely a dollar a day. You’ve wiped out God knows how many animals, plants and insects, and the climate is changing faster than most of us can keep up.” He placed his paw on his chest to show solidarity with his cousins in the animal kingdom. “Practically speaking, the asteroid is pretty damn close I’d say.” He let out a low “grrrr” as he finished, as if trying to scare away the looming threat he saw coming. That’s the most a dog can do under the circumstances I suppose.

As he turned to walk away he threw his head over his shoulder and tossed out one final thought. "As far as I can tell debt and taxes aren't the problem. The problem is you Homo sapiens foul everybody's nest, including your own, and then argue the cost of clean-up is the problem.” With that he flopped down on his blanket and began gnawing contentedly on a bone.

‘We never should’ve named him after a god’ I thought shaking my head before returning my attention to the computer. Then mumbling under my breath “I wonder what Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry have been saying these days” I typed in the address to The Huffington Post.

Waiting in America

Looking at this blog I realized today it has been ten days since I last wrote anything. But life here in the states seems to be in some kind of holding pattern, and I’ve gotten caught up in it myself.

The TV news each day and across the internet focuses with slightly more urgency than the day before on whether or not Congress will opt for a national suicide attempt by defaulting on August 2nd. The two sides of this issue are given more or less equal time to make their case. Like a debate between an astronomer and someone who believes the world is flat, this only adds to the surreal nature of it all.

No one quite seems to believe they are about to witness the most colossal failure of the US government since the Civil War, yet the fact they just might can almost be heard creeping to the font of everyone’s mind. The markets leap at the mere possibility of a breakthrough, taking it as an indication the unprecedented remains unthinkable, even as members of Congress think it out loud on the TV.

For my part, I watch as the value of my Canadian dollars slowly grows and the value of my US student loans slowly shrinks. At moments I find myself pondering what Chris and I might do should we wake up to economic collapse on August 3rd. Maybe we get the car fixed after all by some mechanic suddenly hungry for business and willing to give us a deal, then more slowly and deliberately than our earlier trip across Canada hit the road to record first-hand the cultural and natural transformation taking place in the formerly unsustainable and greedy America that brought all this about. Think Grapes of Wrath, only by a far less talented writer with a more ecological point of view.

But mainly I just sit and wait, like everyone else, knowing history is unfolding and all I can do is watch. Watch as a nation so committed to greed it would sooner die than tax wealth to help the growing ranks of the poor living within its borders. Watch a culture driven by consumption for its own sake fall on its sword before accepting regulation that might at least slow the hemorrhaging.

Perhaps the default question will be dealt with before the deadline. Regardless, the philosophical issues that brought us to this point will remain. Both parties still accept the capitalist premise, if to somewhat differing degrees, of never-ending economic growth in a world with finite resources. Whether it’s August 3rd or some later date, nature’s bill will come due, and what we are borrowing from the planet annually is a far greater crisis than what we are borrowing from each other. The seas are dying, the air is warming, and the clock is ticking. Only when we shift the debate to the question of how best to build and maintain a compassionate and sustainable society will we at least finally be asking the right questions.

A silver lining to a carless future - for us at least

So it looks like we’ll be returning to Canada later this summer without a car. It will be the first time in our married life we’ve gone without one. The nearly $2000 we were told it would take to fix it forced us to choose between jeopardizing our ability to return and stay in Canada or the car. While the decision caused us a day or so of angst, in the end it wasn’t that difficult and Canada won out.

However, facing life without a car did make me question my freedom. If you took a poll of Americans and Canadians asking what material possession they associated most with freedom, the car would likely get a majority of the votes. The sample size would probably need to be huge to find someone in either country who seriously questioned the premise of the question.

My own initial reaction was to make a mental list of all the inconveniences we would be enduring over the next two years or so without a vehicle. From trips to Costco to regular weekend hikes, the pending perceived decline in my own freedom was palpable. The “inability” to regularly escape into nature caused me the most dread.

But facing the inevitable can, if we let it, cause us to look at the situation from a different perspective. For one thing, the fact I had come to see regular walks to the store for a bag or two of groceries as an inconvenience, or nature as something necessarily far away and remote was, when I stopped to consider it, quite sad.

The idea we need to climb into a steel, glass, and plastic box resting on four synthetic rubber wheels and contribute to global warming in order to truly experience nature is, truth be told, insane. Humans have been around for nearly 250,000 years or so now. Automobiles are little more than 120 years old. It’s difficult to make the case they’re a necessity given those numbers. Add in statistics on the sheer tons of carbon dioxide emitted and almost weekly headlines about oil spills and the notion becomes even crazier. Besides, if we really want or need to go somewhere that requires a car we can rent one for far less than it would cost to own one.

The automobile has gotten untold millions of people that otherwise never would have gone to the Grand Canyon, Yosemite, Yellowstone, Banff and Jasper, just to name a few. But it’s not at all clear the thousands of kilometres of roads and hectares of parking lots built in those places to accommodate those people are an improvement. Nor is it obvious that 90% or more of those visitors have done anything other than park and walk a few hundred metres at most to the nearest scenic overlook or nearby attraction. One could learn more about nature and feel greater wonder by renting a DVD or reading a national park’s Wikipedia page. We’ve gotten a lot better at going places and a lot worse at developing a sense of place.

I’m not ruling out ever owning a car again, but not having one for the next year or so means I’m ruling in getting to know the world of southern Vancouver Island much more intimately. The worst possible outcome, as I see it, is only achieving a smaller carbon footprint for a year or two, and the experience is likely to prove more personally satisfying than that. Regardless, in this day and age, that’s justification enough for a silver lining to going carless for a while.

Celebrating the first bill of rights while forgetting the second

Well, it's that time of year again. Between Canada Day on the first day of the month and America's 4th of July holiday, everyone is busy celebrating freedom in North America. When we're not setting off fireworks we like to spend time congratulating ourselves for supposedly enjoying more freedom than anyone else, especially here in the states. But we've been taught to only look at one side of the coin when it comes to freedom. Negative liberty, the liberty provided by an absence of obstacles to action such as freedom from restrictions on speech or worship, gets almost all the press. Positive liberty, the freedom that comes with the ability to act, gets almost none.

The US Bill of Rights and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in Canada have both done an excellent job of articulating the limits of government power when it comes to placing legal restrictions on our right to speak out on an issue, assemble, worship, or to vote for the candidate of our choice - however limited the choice of candidates may sometimes be. The trend, at least until recently, was an expansion of individual liberty and greater checks on government intrusion or obstacles.

While freedom requires the government be prohibited from putting us in jail for publicly criticizing the president or prime minister, it also rests on our ability to effectively do so. If the poor and middle class are shut out of the electoral process because elections have become so expensive they can't effectively participate as candidates, or even donors, what difference does it make if the Constitution guarantees them the right to run for office provided they have reached a certain age? If we have the freedom to pursue any employment we choose, what good is that freedom if the list of jobs providing a living wage continues to shrink? Does it matter that we have the legal right to attend university provided our grades are good enough if the cost of tuition is so high most of the population can't even consider attending without facing years of staggering debt? The government of the UK acknowledged recently in a memo never intended to go public that up to 40,000 British families would be rendered homeless by proposed austerity measures. What good is it to them to have the legal right to purchase or rent a home? That choice has been or soon will be denied to them.

By focusing on individual negative liberty and forgetting positive liberty, we haven't merely put the cart before the horse; we've purchased the cart and failed to invest in a horse to pull it with. The legal right to do something is meaningless without the ability to do it. If our letters to the editor, votes, and even our volunteer hours or campaigns are drowned out by the rich because the supreme court has equated money with speech, the freedom to speak is trumped by wealth's ability to be heard, even if we don't want to listen.

Toward the end of World War II, FDR articulated a second bill of rights. These included the right to earn a living and to provide food, clothing, and shelter for ourselves and our families, the right to healthcare, and the right to an education. These together, FDR said, "spelled security", and were essential to the long-term maintenance of the other freedoms we hold dear. In a society where negative liberties are enshrined as sacred but the ability to effectively act on those liberties is increasingly denied, cynicism and despair are the inevitable result. Who among us would deny both are increasingly visible in the body politic today?

The current recession and the election of Barack Obama filled many of us with hope something like the second bill of rights was around the corner, but with the word 'austerity' filling the air, Gandhi's reminder that "to a hungry man, God comes in the form of a loaf of bread" seems more apt than the promise of change that seemed everywhere just over two years ago. The ability of more and more of our fellow citizens to provide for themselves, let alone take advantage of the rights guaranteed in our most important documents, is slipping away, and that means today there is significantly less freedom than there was just a few years ago.

In praise of dogs

There are a number of things one can say about dogs to make the case they are indeed our “best friend”. The advantages of having them around range from the purely utilitarian to the more emotional benefits. From guarding our homes, helping us herd our livestock, and flushing out birds on the hunt, to greeting us as though we were a long lost friend when we get home from work, the value of our relationship with dogs is nearly impossible to dispute. But fundamentally, I think what lies at the root of our friendship with Canis lupus familiaris is purely and simply their consistent capacity for unconditional love.

Dogs are perhaps the one friend we have in this world that come with virtually zero risk. With more than one out of every two marriages ending in divorce, and God knows how many relationships that never even make it to marriage, it is obvious even love stories that start out with the greatest passion frequently have unhappy endings. Humans, no matter how good at heart or well intentioned, might as well come with a “love at your own risk” label.

Our capacity to hurt those we love or to turn molehills into emotional mountains is almost unlimited. Bookstores would go out of business were it not for the volumes of fiction inspired by this all too human ability, to say nothing of the contemporary non-fiction offering ideas about how best to cope with it. Best friends and lovers alike all seem to get on each other’s nerves sooner or later.

Not so with dogs. Even people suffering from the deepest and most complex neuroses can usually find love and companionship in a dog. If they can’t, it’s the neurosis and not the dog that gets in the way. A dog just loves you for who you are, even happily adapting to our mental hang-ups by becoming a kind of enabler, validating our quirks by adjusting its behaviour to accommodate them while the rest of the world just thinks we’re crazy. Who wouldn’t consider such an animal humanity’s best friend?

Obviously, our dog Zeus - whose name appears in the title of this blog - is the inspiration for this post. From days spent in the wilderness to endless hours in the car to Zeus the office dog, he rolls with the punches like no human I’ve ever known, myself included. Only the introduction of another dog to the mix ruffles his feathers, but he accommodates himself to even that fairly quickly. Unlike dogs, we humans have too many stories running in our heads all the time. Frequently contradictory and usually far less than accurate reflections of reality, they make it difficult for us to remain conscious of our own motives, let alone remain secure about the motives of others, even those we love.

For canines it’s a different story. In Zeus’ case life boils down to a few simple pleasures: a ball to fetch or rope to tug on, a good bone, an occasional swim, food and water, and a place to lift his leg or take care of other business. Being with us is important too, though he would no doubt quickly share his love with another family if it became necessary. But as long as he is with us, we know that even if we were homeless and without a penny to our name, we would never have to question his fidelity. He would love us to the bitter end. How many people do you know with certainty would do the same unconditionally - no strings, shame, or guilt attached? And to think we still cling to the notion we’re the superior species on the planet.

Sunrise Meditations

Sunrise is my favourite time of day. After a good night’s sleep, alone on the patio where we are staying, facing east, listening to the chorus of birds and watching a squirrel perform a tight rope act along the electrical wire running from a pole in the neighbour's yard to the house. It is possible to set the whole tone for the day sitting quietly with a cup of steaming coffee.

Utah’s Mt. Olympus rises in the background behind the uneven V shaped space between two homes next door, turning, for a short time, light pink just before the sun breaks above the horizon to the north. The few conifers covering its limestone face appear almost black when the light hits them at this early summer angle.

I’ve gone back to meditating every morning, and when the mood matches the sites and sounds of dawn, it is possible to realize completely the oneness of nature. Even the slowly increasing sounds of city traffic as people travel to work in steadily growing numbers isn’t disturbing. They too are part of nature, and are no more separate from me than the squirrel, which momentarily has stopped along the high wire as if caught up in a meditation of its own.

If only every morning started this way, I think, I could handle anything. But the next morning is different. No, the morning is the same. My frame of mind is different; stress, a less than good night’s sleep, trying too hard to deal with expectations – my own and other’s that I have allowed to get to me. It’s gone now. Awakening is a process, not an event. Keep at it. There will be other mornings like it again because they’re all like it, if we take the time to see.

Memo to self: Life is a journey and Canada is a destination

Friends and family will tell you I’m fond of the expression “it’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey.” If the past two or three weeks have taught me anything, it is that I had forgotten, or perhaps never really understood in the first place, what that expression really means. Canada had become a destination I was focused on, and too many lessons the journey had to offer were ignored or overlooked.

We left Vancouver Island with relatively few resources. Economic circumstances and the expenses of our first year there had bled us dry. After applying for more than 40 summer jobs through the university, I submitted my application for an off campus work permit and we hit the road. I was as much or more determined to remain in Canada as long as possible in hopes things would turn around before we had to leave as I was to witness some of the endless beauty Canada provides and learn from experiences along the way. The possibility of needing to return to the states for a while to try to find work and save up a little money for the coming year was in the back of my mind, but I didn't want to acknowledge it directly because the goal was CANADA, and the journey was secondary. Leaving Canada meant defeat.

As a result, I began experiencing anxiety attacks as the reality we would soon be crossing the border back into the United States couldn’t be avoided any longer, and by the time our car finally seriously broke down in Brigham City, Utah, firing on only three of its four cylinders as we rolled to a stop at one of the city’s main intersections, I experienced a breakdown of my own unlike anything I’ve experienced before. If it hadn’t been for my wife, family, two good friends, and the fact Zeus wouldn’t know how to stop loving me if his life depended on it, I may not be here writing this today.

When you truly hit rock bottom, you’ve really got only two choices: adjust your attitude or give in to self-pity and quit. Fortunately for me, those just mentioned above were quite insistent I choose the former. As a result, over the past several days I have been reflecting more and more on what it really means to let go.

I read “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” for the first time when I was about 18, and have had an intellectual grasp of the basic teachings of both Buddhism and Taoism for years. But a basic intellectual awareness does not necessarily translate into an understanding. It was one thing to be able to wrap my mind around the concept that the key to inner peace was letting go of my expectations of others and of how life in general should go, but quite another to really know peace will be elusive until I do. Anger, resentment, a sense of moral superiority and false pride, just to name a few, are all the fruits of making my life about the destination and not the journey. I had allowed the goals I was striving for to become the goals I was living for.

I have a long ways to go yet. A nervous breakdown followed by a few days of significant reflection and rereading of Robert Pirsig’s timeless book on motorcycle (i.e. personal) maintenance is only the beginning of a new journey, one that hopefully will continue for the remainder of my life. But I’ve begun opening each day reminding myself to give my plans over to the care of the universe. Shit happens. Cars breakdown, money runs out, the best-laid plans encounter detours, or sometimes don’t work out at all. And all that is to say nothing of the fact that, being human, sometimes we just fuck up. While at the moment I know these are no reason to stop travelling altogether, I’ve also learned I need to constantly remind myself it’s no reason to stop travelling altogether or risk forgetting it. I had my doubts, but my existential GPS was really working all along after all. I’m exactly where I should be.

Niagara Falls: the final stop in Canada…for now

It’s been a few days since we posted about our travels because, well, we’ve been on the road and we’re no longer in Canada. I’ll explain more about that later. Our final stop before leaving our adopted home for a while was Niagara Falls, a place neither of us had visited in at least 25-30 years.

The power of waterfalls is always impressive. What Niagara lacks in total height compared with even many much smaller waterfalls, such as the one we witnessed pouring off the mountain near our campsite at Anderson Beach in BC, it more than makes up for in sheer volume and width. Looking at the bolder strewn base of both American and Horseshoe Falls, I was reminded of something I’d seen on television once regarding the steady retreat of Niagara Falls at a rate of about 3 feet a year up the gorge toward Lake Erie. As I recall, one of the scientists on the program indicated that around 7,000 years ago Niagara Falls was more than a mile downstream from its current location.

Zeus was one of only three dogs we saw mingling with the human crowd gathered taking pictures, eating ice cream or a hotdog, just watching the water plunge over the lip of the falls, or staring into the sky at the column of spray they produced. He could smell the water well before we had reached the walk above the river, and on several occasions he hopped up onto his hind legs setting is front paws on the stone wall along the sidewalk while trying desperately to gaze over it to the water he knew was below.

As with most black labs, Zeus’ behaviour around water is one of the things truly defining his personality. We humans like to give lip service to moderation, but like every other animal, we all have things we just can’t say ‘no’ to. Whether its bungee jumping, ice cream, cigarettes, candy, or sex – the list is endless – we all have something that, when given the opportunity, obliterates our will power like so much dynamite against the door of a bank safe. No amount of intellectual or emotional security, no matter how carefully built up and maintained over the years, can protect us in those instances. With Zeus, it’s water. Throw a ball into the river a few metres above the edge of Niagara and he would be gone, though he would have died a happy dog.

Our intent after Niagara was to find a campground and spend a day or two on the northern shores of Lake Erie. Our resources were nearly exhausted, and we knew our trip across Canada was coming to a close, but neither of us was quite ready to leave yet. We were also talking about looking up Craig and Mistee, the couple we had meant in Kingston, and see if we could take them up on their offer to spend a day or so with them at their home in London, Ontario. Whatever we decided to do, what we actually did was absolutely not on the list of ideas under consideration.

I had become a bit lost driving around Niagara, and was more than a little tired to begin with. While trying to find the route that would take us along the shores of Lake Erie, we found ourselves getting closer and closer to the US border. Suddenly a sign over the highway appeared reading “Final highway in Canada next exit”, but the first exit just beyond the sign was for the duty free store on the border. Once you’ve entered the duty free area, you’re crossing into the US whether you want to or not. Our time in Canada was up for now. The only thing that could have made our mood even worse was a search of our car, loaded to the hilt as it was with camping supplies, clothing, and food. We feared taking such a load into the US and being so far from home might be seen as a bit suspect. Between the BC plates, the Canadian and BC flags on our dashboard, and the American Passports, the customs officer seemed a wee bit confused about the actual status of our citizenship and asked us which country we were actually citizens of. But he let us through after we listed all the items we could think of stuffed in the bag on our roof or taking up our backseat and told him our passports and his computer were both correct, we were indeed US citizens, all the cognitive dissonance we were producing not withstanding.

Now we’re back in Salt Lake. We’re both staying with friends and looking for a little temporary work that will help us survive another school year in Canada. If you live in the Salt Lake City area and have anything that needs doing, we’re available. In the meantime, we’ll keep blogging now and again as something comes to mind to write about. Hey, it’s good therapy whether people read it or not. Thanks to all of you for following us on our all too brief journey across Canada. We’re still hoping to make it to the maritime provinces someday, and Churchill’s polar bears are a must see before they’re gone for good, so we hope there is much more to come in the months and years ahead.

Kingston, Ontario; friendships new and old

This post won’t be about a place so much as it will be about a turning point, or what feels like one at any rate. So much of what has happened here is deeply personal that it is difficult not to give in to the temptation to speculate how we will feel about our time in Kingston in the future.

In addition to the opportunity for me, at least, to reconnect with a friend, we continued our pattern of finding new and interesting people. Upon my return from Algonquin Provincial Park, Chris and I met Craig and Mistee, a couple who had moved in to the motel room next to ours for a day or two while taking a break from a long motorcycle trip through Ontario. We ended up spending a couple of days camping with them at the Loughborough Lake Campground just north of town.

There we spent a couple of late nights together talking, laughing (a lot), and generally having a great time. While we were the only ones in the tent section of the campground, we remain somewhat surprised those staying in trailers just below our adjoining campsites didn’t file a complaint regarding the noise on Monday night.

Zeus took to Craig and Mistee almost at once, even flirting at one point with the idea of going into their tent with Mistee. When Zeus takes to someone that way, it’s impossible not to conclude they are good people. We exchanged email addresses before parting, and though we’ve only known them for a few days, the opportunity to spend some time with them will likely be our fondest memory of our time here.

In all likelihood, we’ll never see again most of the people we’ve met so far, or those we have yet to meet on this journey, though Craig and Mistee have invited us to their home in London, Ontario. While this blog is something we willingly share with family, friends, or anyone who just happens to stumble across it on the web, it really is primarily a record of our experiences Chris and I can look back on in the future. Still, those we’ve encountered who took the time to help us out, offer some hospitality, or spend some time with us have us thinking a lot about being open to new friends, and the power and nature of relationships with others generally.

Encounters that cause us to try something new, develop into meaningful conversations, or see things from a new perspective can have a powerful effect, even if those involved never communicate again. When we allow prejudice or fear to filter people out until only those with a similar comfort zone remain, or define the terms of friendship narrowly, we shut the door on opportunities for growth and transformation. Everyone we meet, even if only briefly, changes our lives somehow, and you never know when that change may turn out to be huge.

But when we judge, insist people and relationships fit neatly into certain categories, and over analyze we limit our perspective and inhibit the potential for powerful relationships or experiences to emerge. At least at first blush, that’s what we’ve learned from our time in Kingston. This may seem a strange post for a travel blog, but then anyone can learn about the local points of interest simply by searching Google or buying a travel guide, and journeys should be about much more than just the scenery and tourist attractions.

A weekend in Algonquin Provincial Park

True wilderness requires a little bit of work to get to and from. It also includes a bit of discomfort and annoyance. However, it is worth every bit of it.

This weekend a good friend of mine, Adam Gregg, joined Zeus and I on a trek into Ontario's Algonquin Provincial Park while Chris enjoyed a much deserved break from camping with a couple of nights in a soft bed and access to a large bathtub. But initially I had a sense of foreboding when we arrived in Kingston early on Friday morning. It appeared the rain that had been following us across much of Canada had caught up to us once again. Sheets of it were falling throughout much of our drive from Toronto to Kingston, and we were told by the motel clerk when we checked in the past two weeks had seen nearly continuous rain. However, while it remained overcast until the final couple of hours of our time in Algonquin, rain was light and rare, and temperatures remained comfortable.

After a night in a developed campground, Adam and I got ourselves a permit for a backcountry site about 12.5 kilometres from the main road through Algonquin Park. Located on Eu Lake, ours was the only campsite on the lake. The lake itself was surrounded by hills blanketed beneath a sea of vibrant green, and, nourished by the recent rains, everything was pregnant with the promise of remaining that way through the summer. From maple, birch, and poplar to pine and hemlock, the thick woods made it easy to imagine the nearest person was much more likely to be hundreds of kilometres away than camping somewhere along the same trail we had just hiked.

The trail in, however, had also been heavily affected by all the recent moisture. The Oxtongue River passes immediately beneath the bridge next to the parking lot that marks the beginning of the Western Uplands network of trails. Well passed flood stage, it had inundated the trail on the other side of the bridge. It was impossible to roll our pants up high enough to avoid a good soaking. While Zeus relished the opportunity to hike through water, Adam and I weren't sure what a trail that just a couple of hundred metres from the parking lot required us to remove our shoes and roll up our pants might have in store for us. The water never got anywhere near that deep again, but we sank ankle deep into mud both coming and going more times than either of us would care to count.

Then there were the mosquitoes. We finished off what was left of the bug repellent about the time we reached Eu Lake some four hours or so after departing. Between the load we had carried in on our backs and the litre or so of blood it felt like we had each donated to the local insect population, we were both eager for a restful night in one of the most beautiful forest environments either of us had ever experienced. It wasn't long before the fire was going and the local loons were welcoming their most recent visitors to their home. But even with the high water, mud, insects, and the exhaustion we both felt upon returning to the car the next day, it was worth it. In truth, probably our biggest complaint is that we didn't have more time to spend in the area.

But even if the weekend was too short, it was good to reunite with a friend and hiking companion, and to both share in the experience of visiting a place we had never been before. Chris, Zeus, and I will likely be turning back to the west after our stay in Kingston, though our route back and the exact timing of our return, or where exactly we will be returning to, is yet to be determined. For one thing, watching game one of the Stanley Cup Finals (GO CANUCKS!) is a must before we hit the road. And there may be at least one more weekend of camping in the area in store as well. Time in the wilderness allows one to feel completely in the moment, and to forget what is behind the forested hills for a while. It is difficult to contemplate what next week brings, let alone the days and weeks after that, and it feels worthwhile not to be rushed any more than absolutely necessary; especially after some time in Algonquin.

One of the best ways to travel

Listening to a guest on a CBC program the other day talk about her experience at a US airport with the new body scanners, or more accurately how she was treated when she refused to use one, Chris and I both agreed our way was a better way to travel. Of course, we're not on a business trip and we don't have to be back to work in a week or two. There's no doubt such constraints impose themselves in ways we don't have to deal with.

But, if your goal is to get to know a place, region, or country getting out from under those constraints as best you can is a must. For one thing, you meet people and hear stories you won't hear on a guided tour or a more rushed trip planned to a fare-thee-well. The story of our two Keiths makes our point. We told you about the Keith we met in the Rockies in our May 20th post. We met Keith number two at Godson Lake south of Dryden, Ontario during our brief stay there the night of May 24th.

Keith 2 used to work at the paper mill in Dryden, but between modernization and the recession, the mill went from approximately 1,200 employees a few years back to little more than 200 now; a huge hit for a small, remote town in northwestern Ontario like Dryden. Keith had his trailer set up just off the road in a camp on crown lands typically used by local fisherman spending a day or two on Godson Lake, about 30 km south of Dryden. Unlike Keith number one, this Keith hasn't lost his home and was able to escape the paper mill with a severance package, but like Keith number one in the Rockies, Keith two isn't sure what he's going to do next and is just making it up as he goes. As a man in his mid 50s from northern Ontario, he doesn't see a lot of options out there.

That said, our experience with Keiths so far makes us believe there really is something in a name. Chris says she used to work with one, and he was a nice guy too. Keith two had me over for a couple of beers and played ball with Zeus. Spending as much time as he does living out of his trailer on crown land (that's public land to our American readers), he enjoys the opportunity to meet people passing through. But Keith's story isn't one you'll hear on a typical vacation.

Then, of course, there's the local environment. Another aspect of place typically flown over or simply passed through without much comment these days. How many of us take the time to really look into the night sky, for example? Godson Lake, being as remote as it was, didn't have a hint of light pollution. When it finally got really dark near midnight, the moonless sky was full of stars from horizon to horizon. The lake was so calm, the stars looked like tiny glowing stones laying on the bottom of the lake. One could almost as easily have enjoyed the night sky by sitting and staring at the surface of the water as by craning their neck to see what the heavens had on display.

The night was also regularly interrupted by the plaintive sound of the loons living nearby. By morning the loons were silent and the lake was shrouded in a low fog that burned off within an hour or so, but the hour spent watching the fog slowly retreat across the lake revealing each of the lakes three small islands, one after another, was not a wasted hour by any stretch of the imagination.

Now we sit in a small, some might say "cheap" motel called the Rongie Lake Motel about midway between Thunder Bay and Sault Ste Marie on the northern shore of Lake Superior. The owners run a restaurant below the motel's five or so rooms, and it was fun eating and actually feeling a bit like a part of this small community while doing so. We were the only ones at the restaurant last night beside the owners and two locals, and so we were often invited to join in the conversation and felt right at home. But again, this place wouldn't even get a second look on a tour or thoroughly planned vacation.

Finally, driving across the second largest country on earth is, outside walking or riding a bicycle, the best way to get a sense of its enormity. Ontario alone takes at least two or three days of solid driving just to get across, to say nothing of experiencing what it has to offer. While the transition from the Rockies to the prairies to boreal forest can be witnessed from a plane window, if you're lucky enough to have a flight taking you over all three, the transition can only truly be experienced on the ground. Likewise, driving through the record flooding along the Assiniboine River between a canyon of sandbags holding back the water on either side of you is a unique experience that we will likely never be able to repeat.

Chris, Zeus, and I are all looking forward to a relaxing weekend, with little to no automobile travel. We'll let you know what's coming next soon. We will also share with you some of Zeus' adaptions to life on the road in an upcoming post, and all of us are looking forward to watching the Stanley Cup finals with some Canadians - GO CANUCKS!!. That's all for now.

A few days on Lake Diefenbaker - Saskatchewan Landing Provincial Park

We are definitely not in the Pacific Northwest any more. Our location these past three days is more like Wyoming, or perhaps even some portions of the Great Basin, only without the islands in the sky rising up from the high desert floor. There is sage, prickly pear cactus, primrose, and milkvetch scattered among the short grass growing here on the low rolling hills. Last night [May 21st] a lone coyote started to howl, triggering a domino effect that ended with what must have been 15-20 others joining in, along with a few Canadian geese from the lake.

We’ve had a bit of rain, but now it feels more like interior western rain, as opposed to the steady north-western rain we’ve experienced over the past year, and which followed us on this trip all the way to the Rockies. Saturday night was the only heavy rain, and though it sounded the same against the walls of our tent, the air remained warmer and drier and the storm passed quickly by recent standards.

The birds seem nosier and more abundant here, though given the environment this is certainly an illusion. The wide open spaces uninterrupted by trees allows sounds to travel further, and what birds are present tend to concentrate in greater numbers in what shrubs and trees there are available. However, the lack of forest cover also makes bird watching easier than it was in the thick forests of British Columbia.

Among the several species we’ve seen, the largest by far were two American white pelicans. In flight against the short grass and sage that define the undeveloped portions of the park, they appear as though from another planet. Even the Canada geese seem relatively small next to the pelicans, especially when seen soaring overhead.

We are located in the campground located furthest from the entrance to the park, in a spot reserved for tent campers. Since there are well over 200 campsites designated for RVs and trailers, and only about 30 in our location 2km up the road from everyone else, tent campers are clearly considered a rare breed. In spite of the fact it is Canada’s first long weekend of the summer season, for quite a while after our arrival it appeared we would have the entire tent area to ourselves. Ultimately someone did take one other site for the weekend, with a third occupied briefly for about a day.

In spite of the fact we are largely alone, we have definitely noticed our provincial park experiences have a far different feel to them. There is an air of regimentation about them that is definitely lacking when camping in undeveloped natural areas. We’ve come to expect parks to represent an attempt to conserve nature, but when there’s a golf course, general store, laundromat, and showers just down the road, and only one unadvertised nature trail, it’s difficult to see them that way, the crow building its nest right next to our picnic table and coyotes howling at night not withstanding. Zeus and I are breaking the rules every time we venture off into the hills blazing our own trail or following the multiple paths cut through the grass by deer, and the only communication we’ve had with the local conservation officer regarded the need to keep Zeus on a leash even if there wasn’t anyone around. Looking like he was fresh out of high school, the conservation officer apparently had nothing better to do until holiday weekend activities really began to heat up then come by and check on us every couple of hours or so, begging the question what exactly he’s been hired to conserve.

Part of it is no doubt the relative size of most of these provincial parks. Limited to a few thousand hectares at most, they are too small to adequately serve as nature preserves and when situated on a lake, as in this case, are fated to become a playground rather than a sanctuary. While we delight in being the only ones out on the dirt road that traverses the final 2 or 3 kilometres of this park looking at the birds and flowers that make up the local environment, it is difficult to not also bemoan the fact that of the hundreds of people currently camping here we are the only ones doing any looking. Such seeming disregard reflects a larger attitude toward nature that humanity is apart from nature, not a part of it.

When the job of a young conservation officer is to make sure dogs are leashed, alcohol isn’t being consumed, and quiet time begins promptly at 10:00 PM, conservation is nothing more than glorified policing. I am reminded of a quote by Aldo Leopold from his 1948 classic A Sand County Almanac: “In 1909, when I first saw the West, there were grizzlies in every major mountain mass, but you could travel for months without meeting a conservation officer. Today there is some kind of conservation officer ‘behind every bush,’ yet as wildlife bureaus grow, our most magnificent mammal retreats steadily toward the Canadian border.” Until next time.

Learning to take what comes

It’s easy to love nature when your time in it is largely limited to weekend camping trips or annual vacations. To learn to respect it and really learn from it, however, takes more prolonged exposure, ideally under at least somewhat hostile conditions.

I never thought of myself as having overly romantic notions about nature, but the past couple of weeks have taught me otherwise. Chris, on the other hand, has surprised me with her ability to endure days of harsh weather conditions. Through it all she’s mended a tent, cooked excellent meals, and spent hours sitting in the tent waiting out storms without complaint, often reading a whole book in a single day while she does it. I, however, find myself responding to the almost unrelenting rain by wanting to accelerate our movement across Canada until finally conditions change. My patience has now worn thin to the point no camping spot gets more than 24 hours. If by then, conditions haven’t improved, we move on.

But yesterday morning we met a man by the name of Keith who lives year round in his trailer on the eastern slopes of the Rockies. About the time we were leaving our apartment in Metchosin, he was digging out of snow drifts at least as high as his trailer so he could move to a location just a few hundred metres from our last campsite. Keith had agreed to give us a jump-start, as our battery had died, and later, just as we were getting ready to leave, he brought us some hot stew. He declined the offer of money for his help, and asked us to look him up if we came back through the area on our return trip.

Keith lives in the Rockies because in 2005 he lost his job. Not long thereafter he lost his home and his wife left him. Now it’s just him, his 4WD Blazer, and a small trailer he moves from one place to the next as the seasons change and resources allow. In these times, it’s unfortunately not hard to believe Keith is far from alone.

Keith wasn’t complaining about the weather. In fact, after living through a winter that involved ten feet or more of snow, today’s rainstorm was to him a walk in the park. And his willingness to stay in one place for months at a time means he sees things the rest of us miss. He asked if we had seen the mother black bear with her two cubs living on the ridge right above our camp. We hadn’t. He mentioned a grizzly he had seen in the area not long ago as well. Then he gave us a couple of hand warmers, came back a little later with that hot stew, told us to keep the container and wished us a happy journey.

So I find myself a bit ashamed I’ve let nature get to me and how quickly after leaving camp yesterday morning I forgot all about Keith, who like Zeus sitting right behind while we drive from one place to the next, has learned to roll with the punches. Instead, when it appeared our sunroof had broken today, because something went wrong with the bag strapped to our roof rack, I got frustrated and angry. And when we got a large rock chip in our windshield, I decided I couldn’t take it any more and we called it a day. But reflecting back on Keith I realize nature and all its associated mishaps aren’t the problem, my attitude toward them is. So let it rain and rocks along the road fly where they may. Like most things in life, it’s beyond my control anyway. However, being a bit more like Keith - and Zeus - in the face of it is within my control.

We’ll be leaving Medicine Hat this morning, and entering the Central Time Zone upon crossing the border into Saskatchewan. We’re not sure where we’ll be tonight, or how long we’ll stay there. Regardless, it’s probably time to find a place to stop and experience for a while, no matter what the weather is like.