Winding My Way Through

It seems like forever and a day since I first arrived here Alaska. This will be the 4th summer. My free spirit has found an endless playground up here and an ability to obtain goals. Maybe a sense of direction, in a land that is vast, open and free. My reckless adrenaline seeking life that I led before moving here has now transitioned into a strange peace within and a fulfilling sense of awareness. I seem to have traded in the play outdoors thing for the real outdoors thing.

I have managed to move into to the wilderness instead of just spending time in it. I now get my adrenaline from the mere strategy of surviving in nature, not from playing here. Although I still play a lot- the sense of danger is heightened and the score a bit higher. I walk through dense woods with a shotgun instead of my water bottle. I dress like a fat mummy for the -40 degree winter instead of the trendy little snow bunny out for a few hours. I feel I am alive, I feel naked in a world that tests wisdom above all else. Maybe I feel alive because I am confronted with nature's ruthlessness and death here in the wild. This land is desolate, unforgiving, wild and merciless. My spirit feels tame in its reckless measure of life.

It is hard to imagine the disillusioned person I was. My values have not changed and I continue to experience life day to day with the direct attitude of obtaining happiness and knowledge before materialism. I have learned, however, that there is no extent to our potential if we continue to expand ourselves and remain open to all opportunities. We are able to walk anywhere if we leave doors open and bridges unburned. I find that with hope and confidence I am able to achieve more than I believed possible. That my visions become reality when I believe in myself. I owe a tremendous amount to those of you in my life that have pushed me onward. When we place ourselves in an environment that is challenging it fills us with a certain level of fear; thus bringing out our courage and a profound understanding of our self worth.

I am reminded every day of where I am and why I am here. All of us look around at other people and try to understand ourselves. I have found that for me it is the ability to be in the wild, away from society on a daily basis. Able to penetrate the level of raw self awareness in the natural realm of things. I have had to escape from my own mind in order to acknowledge what was inside of it. I felt lost in the city. My soul was lost when living there; I was never able to find it. I seemed to have no sense of who I was or why I was, I was missing the core values to my own self existence. I searched endlessly for something, not knowing what, only knowing there was something more. Always searching, always splintered, feeling alone and lost. I used to become so lost at times that when I would run away into the woods to put things back into perceptive- there was no perceptive. Now I am calm, at peace and free from my own mind that was becoming impenetrable.

All of us sacrifice something to get what we want. I consider things more as trade offs than sacrifices these days. I trade hormone injected meat for fresh fish and deer. Humble income for uncompromising happiness and experience. A cold winter for the Aurora Borealis. Daily social interaction for quiet solitude. Access to less fruit and vegetables in the winter time for no pollution or illness contracted from other people. Less access to those fruit and vegetables during the winter in exchange for wild raspberries, blueberries, strawberries in the summer! Fast paced traffic for the slow rhythms of life. Roads and cars for the bush plane. Ice cold rivers for the beautiful glaciers. People for the brown bears, fox, otters, seals, whales, deer, ermine, eagles, ravens, squirrels, moose, fireweed, wild salmon, halibut, wild flowers, oh the wild flowers! Did I mention people in exchange for the Brown Bear?!

We create our own power source out here with a generator. We control how much power we use. Soon solar and wind power will become our way of life. Each time I turn it on or off it gives me a true satisfaction to know how detached from society I am. When it is off, there is no communication with the outside world. There is no hot water, no electricity, no sound. I have also lived places in the bush without a generator and only propane gas, in which the sense of isolation and desperation settle in even further. It reminds me how far off the grid I am and how little or how much impact I am having on the environment around me.

My life has changed from an outdoorsy city girl to an outdoor wilderness girl. I used to consider myself an outdoor girl-an adventure guide that was always camping, backpacking, hiking, snowboarding, climbing and best of all whitewater rafting! But I wasn't really an outdoors girl; I was just a play outdoors girl. I have finally become one.

I have become more of a naturalist-adding intrinsic value to my purpose.
I have also become a bear guide. While this does provide me with a high dosage of adrenaline, it is more humbling than anything. The Brown Bear offers me a deeper understanding of the world in which I interact and why I chose to be here. It is from them that I have learned tolerance and grace. They have taught me that humans are not rational predators and there is an order of existence that we seem to have forgotten about. I love knowing that there is other intelligent beings out in the wilderness that are not human. One that is both reasoning and unpredictable. I can only hope that by guiding and educating people on the Brown Bear that it will aid in protecting the future of this magnificent animal. This has given me some purpose in life.

We have no road to get here, no path or trail to follow up the mountain, no trace of us on the map. I am happy here in this world of mountains and valleys, marine life and land animals. The land of air taxis and bush orders. It is here amidst the pristine wilderness where my mind has found a certain level of peace. It has led me away from wasting precious energy on things that don't really matter. It guides my inner conscious in the direction in which I continue to become increasingly humble and self aware.

I hear the water and the trees
I believe that they speak to me
Telling me of time
That has no capacity for the trivial.

~Susan Morrison~