I came to the Alaskan Arctic for many reasons.
I had a hunger to see the landscape author Jonathan Waterman described as “Where the Mountains are Nameless” and a yearning to bring back adventure and mystery into my life. I was curious to see what the sun would look like shining from the North at 3:00 in the morning and whether a 100 year old, two foot birch tree would look like a perfect bonsai miniature of its brother in a milder climate. And finally, I felt the sands of my own life rushing downstream like the silt that washes down the Canning River, and I was gripped with a sense of urgency that the trip must be taken NOW.
So I booked it. Just like that.
Some people who don’t know me very well have commented I must be a risk taker to visit some of the places I have been. Actually, I feel it’s important for you to know that I am a total wuss. Activities like surfing, zip lines, rock climbing, running into grizzly bears and Class III rapids pretty much terrify me. So even booking this trip required me to be someone I am not typically, and in doing so, I felt reborn.
Once the decision was made, every detail fell into place. Our Cessna landed in the middle of the central Arctic caribou herd migration on the way in, and we saw musk oxen and wolves during the trip—the shyest of the Arctic animals. Our guide actually knew or had known many of the people that I had read about over the years: the incomparable Mardy Murie; Heimo Korth, legendary trapper; wildlife photographer Michio Hoshino. For ten days I was the central character in the book of my life having the adventure that others were reading about. And when it was over, I walked out of the bush still and forever this new me.
Is it possible I am inspiring you to have the very thought that occurred to me while reading yet another book about the Alaskan Arctic three years ago? “I could go there”, I had said to myself all at once one December night.
How about you? Could you go “there”…wherever your “there” is?
And who will you become in the moment you make that decision to go?
Nancy Adamson, LMFT is a coaching professional and therapist who finds the natural world a constant source of inspiration and instruction. She will be making her fourth trip to the Arctic in August of 2010.
