Sunday, June 21, 2015

Bellingham or Bust Episode One: Por Que Adventure?

[Though the Yukon series is already begun, and not yet finished, another series calls louder for explication. One year ago from tomorrow, construction of my kayak had just been completed and I was camped on Bainbridge Island, awaiting the rising sun to herald the start to a 130 mile solo paddle to Bellingham. 

In five parts (give or take a handful), please welcome Bainbridge to Bellingham or Bust - culled and edited from journals written in early-to-mid 2014, prior to and during the trip.]

14.May.2014 | Ketchikan, Alaska

​"When the great innovation appears, it will almost certainly be in a muddled, incomplete and confusing form. To the discoverer himself it will be only half-understood; to everybody else it will be a mystery. For any speculation which does not at first glance look crazy, there is no hope."
-Freeman Dyson​


Why does anyone take on an adventure? Why choose what appears to be largely fraught with privation and discomfort? Why forego your own bed for a bivouac with the bugs and snakes, amidst the rain and wind? Why will I trust a skin-on-frame boat built by my own flawed hands to carry me across deep and wide waterways for miles? 

For the realness, the understanding that each breath drawn is truly a gift, because all about is a world harsh to the soft existence of humanity; a world which bequeaths a whirlwind to all, whether prepared or not; where the perpetuation of living is more due to grit and fortune, than solely the result of technology and agriculture; where I am bereft of comfort, convenience and care, and thus learn to cherish each all the more.

Carlanna Lake, December 2013 - on the way up the mountain
Some have said that an individual who would take on such dangers for what they perceive to be a sadistic pleasure is lost and is needlessly searching for themselves.

On the contrary, my experience has been the opposite – that I am in fact seeking to lose myself, to enter a realm where I am entirely without meaning and become simply another element in a vast and coordinated environment. Where I am but a bit of flotsam, carried forth upon the tides and currents, pushed along by the winds; beached night after night, rolled about in the woods; carried on yet again with the rising tide and in this way progress across the face of the deep.

I first came to the wilderness in 2007. Then, it was the wooded spaces I entered for peace, trails snaking beneath outstretched greenery where perplexities were expelled as so much perspiration. Since that time, some seven years ago, the woods and other land-based wildernesses have been my chosen retreats, and I have been fortunate enough to find beauty in some of the most famed and wonderful parts of this country, as well as a few other countries besides. 

Carlanna Lake, December 2013 - on the way down
Coincidence brought these boots to live a year on an island - Revillagigedo Island, on which the town of Ketchikan, Alaska, churns and bubbles with activity. The water here, constantly filling the air, both in precipitation and in saltwater spray, gets into landlubber blood and boils until it and your blood are one, and causes your mind to become entirely immersed in this strange aquatic, intertidal wonderland. Kayaking seemed a natural progression of such a delusional infection. 

Now, a few short weeks await my return to yet another solo journey amidst the terrors and joys of a world my species has long sought to temper with four square walls and central heating. I, like so many before me, will become yet another fool upon a hill, a fool upon the cresting hill of a wave fetching from the force Japanese winds.

It is this paradox that keeps many returning to the unknowns of the great outdoors for adventures: that just as summer is made sweet by winter winds; just as light is even more cherished when absent and lost in the dark; so too a love for life is heightened when its easy continuation is threatened, and the sanctuary of terra firma is treasured even more for its absence in days spent upon the water waffling in the mindless molding of winds to waves to world.

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