On 'Outward Bound'

Around the middle of summer, one so like the spring before and the winter before that, which was spent working behind a computer screen eight- to ten-hours a day, I heard myself say on three different occasions, “When I was twelve I never dreamed of being an Office Manager.” Of course, that got me thinking about what I did dream being when I was twelve. The answer was immediate and came back to me with surprising clarity and quickness: I wanted to be a Mountain Guide.

Even before I was twelve, before I finally got a chance escape from Ontario, if only briefly, to visit British Columbia for the first time at the age of thirteen, I remember dreaming of helping people find their way through the mountains. When I envisioned what my house would look like, it was always set with the mountains in the background, and a stream running through the backyard. And when I first skied Whistler as a child, the wonder of actually being in the mountains, surrounded by them on all sides, sliding down the side of one of them, I knew immediately that I would grow up to be a mountain man.

Somehow, as often happens when children become adults, I forgot that dream in favour of a different dream ~ someone else’s dream. That dream meant mostly that I would ‘take life seriously’: have a serious relationship, get a serious job, just grow up and be serious. I was pretty serious all right. In some ways, I still am.

In January 1999, things got pretty serious indeed. A skiing accident left me with two broken heels [insert grimace here] and confined to a wheelchair for five months with extended rehab after that. I had a lot of time to consider – seriously consider – what I was doing with my life, how I was doing it, and whether I wanted to keep doing it the same way. I realized I didn’t, and within two years I had quit my job, tried (and failed) to start my own small business, started a new job, and ended my relationship of six years. I was serious about changing my life. So serious, that I forgot the one thing I really learned during my time in the wheelchair – it’s me that has to do the changing, not anyone or anything else.

When the realization that my reality was so far off my original dream and that I hadn’t ever really given it an honest chance, I knew I was going to have to do something about it. And so I did. I booked three weeks off work, enrolled in a 21-day backcountry hiking and mountaineering trip, with Outward Bound Canada (OBC), in the Coast Mountains of British Columbia and bought a plane ticket for Vancouver.

The trip is based out of OBC’s Pemberton Base Camp, where all technical gear and food is distributed among the group and everyone gets a chance to meet each other, as well as the instructors who will be guiding us into the mountains. The next twenty days were spent learning new mountain skills and putting them to use, but more importantly to challenge myself to go beyond my boundaries, push my limits, to learn about myself and grow as a person in the process. We rock climbed, hiked, traversed tricky forest slopes, forded rivers, crossed enormous talus slopes - and we summitted some mountains. We also got kicked off two mountains by bad weather and bad timing, had rivers of rainwater passing through our tent and got stuck in the fog, on a ridge with heavy iron deposits that rendered our compasses useless.

Of course, we also had time to make new friends, experience the magic of mountain stars at four in the morning, and learn to grow, to be responsible and compassionate. We got the chance to do some service work in a local community, helping people who could really use it, and being helped by them in the process. We learned to work as a team and to develop leadership skills. And we learned what it means to stand at the top of a mountain peak, not because we ‘conquered’ it, but because we know that the mountain allowed us a chance to visit for a short while, at its summit.

Now that I’ve spent some time in the mountains, I realize that my childhood dream still exists today – I want to be a Mountain Man. Maybe not a guide, at least not yet, and I don’t need to live on a mountain, just near enough that I remember they’re there, and can escape to them as often as I can. But being a Mountain Man is more than just living near the mountains. As I learned, it’s about being dedicated, persevering through difficult times, being compassionate and of service to others. It’s about taking responsibility for yourself, and to become aware of your impact. When it comes down to it, it’s about knowing thyself.

I’m still not quite sure whose dream I was living for awhile, but I’m sure they’re out there somewhere, living someone else’s dream, and not quite happy doing it. Hopefully, before too long, they’ll come across this spare one I’ve got lying around - I don’t think I’ll be needing it any longer.