For only then shall we know that the end of our explorations will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time. (T.S. Eliot)
I feel the anxiety building from my core, the result of the tension between knowing I’m living where I need to be, doing work that I need to be doing, and the desire to be off on a faraway adventure. Sometimes the desire to wander is so strong that I feel my nomadic nature is a curse. In these moments, I grab my gear and hike up into the hills above the Okanagan Valley, working my way through ponderosa pine forests, looking for rattlesnakes, bears, and cougars, while doing my best to avoid ticks and poison ivy. Hard climbing, followed by a rest on an outcrop overlooking one of the Okanagan Valley lakes – Osoyoos, Skaha, Okanagan, Wood, Kalamalka, or Swan – calms me. I may have found my permanent home in the Okanagan, but there is still travel and adventure in my blood.
Like many who see themselves as travelers or adventurers, I have a bucket list: places I’d like to visit, mountains I’d like to climb, long-distance trails I’d like to hike, and things I’d like to experience. The list is long, and gets longer after every article or book I read, and after every conversation I have with another traveler. When I look at the list, I don’t even know where to start. I want to narrow my options, but I’m not sure what criteria I would use to do so.
The world is vast, but it is also small. I have been on adventures all over the planet, some of which I’ve written about on this blog, and many more as a young man when I didn’t jot down even a single note in a journal. But I haven’t scratched the surface of the sheer number of adventures that can be had in the world. Indeed, not even in my own backyard.
I don’t regret the traveling I’ve done in my lifetime, but my disappointment (perhaps regret) is that I never really came to know a place well. Even after spending four years in Germany, I never learned to speak the language beyond that of a four-year-old. (I remember the confused look of a neighbour when I asked why there weren’t screens on the windows to keep out the mosquitoes. Seems the German word for ‘mosquito’ is very close to the word for ‘snake’).
I’ve spent countless hours hiking and scrambling in the Canadian Rockies – it’s been my adventure playground for a couple of weeks every summer for more than two decades – yet when I took a look at all the trails listed in Graeme Pole’s book, Classic Hikes in the Canadian Rockies, I realized that I had only hiked half of them. And of all the scrambles listed in Alan Kane’s bible, Scrambles in the Canadian Rockies, I’ve completed two-thirds. I’ve read numerous historical books about the Canadian Rockies, spent hours in the Banff Library and Archives, and I still haven’t heard of many of the places I overhear locals discussing in the town’s artisan cafes. And I’d be lucky to correctly identify the names of more than a handful of wildflowers and trees that cover the Canadian Rockies landscape. I’m embarrassed by my lack of knowledge.
What bothers me most is that I don’t feel like I know my own country well. I’ve spent most of my life on Canadian soil, completed all of my formal education in Canadian schools and universities, visited every Canadian province and territory, read countless books about the history of Canada, hiked thousands of kilometers of Canadian trails, and completed a full 20-year career in the Canadian Armed Forces, in a sense fighting for the glory of Canada and the freedom to be Canadian. I even walked across Canada from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific.
But I don’t speak French, one of our official languages, and I would likely struggle to correctly answer the questions that those who seek Canadian citizenship must answer. (What is the largest religious affiliation in Canada? What percentage of aboriginal people are First Nations? Yikes!) When I was hiking the Camino in Spain, a fellow pilgrim, thinking that she may want to visit Canada one day, asked me, “What is there to experience in Canada?” I provided a decidedly poor answer that included a number of silly Canadian symbols – Royal Canadian Mounted Police and Tim Horton’s doughnuts (usually found in the same place, I explain with a laugh), moose sightings, Niagara Falls.
But the question got me thinking about the near infinite number of experiences one could have in Canada. It’s the second largest country in the world after all, covering six time zones, and with such a rich history of exploration and adventure. A wanderer could spend years traveling around Canada without getting antsy.
As I sit looking at my huge bucket list for world travel, paralyzed with indecision, considering my future potential adventuring stamina after turning sixty, thinking about my limited financial envelope, I wonder to myself, What if I just focus my future travels on Canada? That would certainly shorten my bucket list, giving me a narrower theme on which to focus. I may even come to know my own country better.
The subtitle of Will Ferguson’s best-selling book, Beauty Tips from Moose Jaw, is Travels in Search of Canada. I love the sound of that – travels in search of Canada. It’s a niche that speaks to me.
But, gosh, there’s so much else in the world to discover, too. Decisions, decisions.