Interviews
My mother-in-law recently sent me an email with a couple links to some outdoor adventure-loving family blogs. She obviously knows what I like ;-)
The first link she sent me was to Aaron Teasdale's blog and a family trip they did in the Rockies.
The second link she sent me was to a website about a family that did a trip across Canada by canoe and the film they made about it called Finding Farley. Their film was so good that it won the Grand Prize at the 2009 Banff Film Festival (a favorite yearly ritual for us). It is with great pleasure that I introduce to you Leanne, Karston, and Zev...
Leanne and Karsten met over thirty years ago in kindergarten in Calgary, Alberta. Fifteen years later they “re-met” by chance, and discovered they’d led parallel lives. After a decade of friendship and trips together (including the Y2Y Hike) they married and set off to honeymoon with the herd (Being Caribou). Shortly after returning from their Arctic adventure, Leanne gave birth to their son, Zev. They now live in Canmore, Alberta.
Finding Farley (62min) is a National Film Board of Canada production directed by Leanne Allison and written by Karsten Heuer. The film is about a cross-Canada family journey by canoe, train, and sailboat following the literary footsteps of one of Canada's most celebrated authors- Farley Mowat. The family, consisting of Dad (Karsten), Mom (Leanne), their two year old son Zev and dog Willow leave their home in Canmore, Alberta not exactly sure how they’ll make the trip to Mowat’s home in Cape Breton. “The hardest part about these trips is leaving,” says Heuer , “after that things always seem to fall in place.” And so they did on this remarkable necessary journey.
Any time someone gets out and does something really cool as a family, it gets our attention. So without a doubt, this family's story grabbed our attention. Below is our interview with them. Sit back, enjoy, be inspired (then go out and do) as they share their experience and wisdom. Be sure to check out their films, available for watching on their website necessaryjourneys.ca.
Who's crazy idea was it to embark on this trip?
It was both of ours. And Farley Mowat's (the famous Canadian author). He was the one who invited us, after all. But I think he was imagining we would fly or drive across the country to come meet him. But the more Leanne (my wife) and I thought about it, the more we realized we wanted to do the trip in a style that respected the characters and places Farley had written about in his 40+ books (e.g. Never Cry Wolf, Owls in the Family, People of the Deer). And we wanted to pay tribute to him, a living tribute, I guess, given that he is getting on in age (he'll turn 90 next spring). And we wanted to take a route that traveled through as many of the settings from his books as possible, of which many don't have road access. So we decided to mostly canoe and sail.
Did either of you need some convincing or some serious time to think about it? Or were both of you on board with the idea from the beginning?
I remember the night well. We were in bed, talking about the great letter and invitation we'd received from him. He's a childhood hero for both of us and we definitely weren't going to pass up on the opportunity to meet him. But we wanted it to be special. And then it just hit us. No sooner had we thought of it than we knew we were going. There was no question.
What was your reason/goal/purpose for doing this? Was it achieved?
At first I think we were most interested in two things: we wanted to meet Farley and we wanted to see and experience as many of the places he'd written about as possible on our way - to compare them now with Farley's descriptions in the previous decades, to see if, as a society, we'd tackled and resolved any of the issues he'd raised in his writings.
Are both of you equally adventurous?
Well Leanne was the one who first took me on a glacier and ski mountaineering, and the hardest whitewater river I've ever paddled was with her. Let me put it this way: when I proposed to her that we follow an Arctic caribou herd for five months on foot for our honeymoon she barely blinked (documented in another film and book called Being Caribou).
Have you ever done anything this big before?
Yes but not with a two-year-old child. In 2003 we skied and walked for 1500km with a caribou herd in Alaska and the Yukon (Being caribou). before that, in 1998/99 I walked 3,400km from Yellowstone to the Yukon to highlight the need for wildlife corridors. Leanne joined me for the second (and toughest) half of that journey.
Would you ever do anything like it again?
Nothing definite is planned at this time but it's fair to say it's in our blood; it's part of how we're wired.
If you were to do anything differently, what would it be?
Given all the time it took us to get there (5 months), it would've been nice to spend more time with Farley and his wife, Claire, on their farm on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia. He's an amazing down-to-earth and sincere guy once you connect with him (which we did through the letters we exchanged on our journey). Nothing like the crusty, gruff character he makes himself out to be in radio interviews and television. it would've been nice to spend more time with him but as it was we only had three days and three nights together.
What do you consider the most difficult aspect of the trip?
Doing it with a two-year-old AND filming ourselves. The two together was just too much sometimes. We would pull over to set up the camera, get back in the boat to paddle past it, then pull over again and run back upstream to retrieve it, all the while fighting off swarms of bugs. Throw in a hypoglycemic kid and a wound up Border Collie (we also had our dog along) and you have a recipe for sheer exhaustion. But it was also incredibly rewarding and inspiring to see this little kid completely at home in the outdoors, night after night, day after day.
Were there ever situations where you felt irresponsible as a parent to bring your child with you on such a journey?
No. I've felt a lot worse when I've had to drop him off at a sitters or a friend's house because I'm too "busy" to spend time with him. There's nothing irresponsible about committing to spending every moment of every hour with your toddler for five months straight. As for safety or potential injuries, we were pretty conservative. He never got sick in the five months we were out there and the worst injury was a small kit on his finger that resolved itself with a band-aid.
What did your son think about the trip? What was most difficult for him?
He didn't think; he simply accepted it as normal. That's what's so beautiful about that age. Leanne and I often commented that it might have been more difficult if he was 10 or 11 years old and had a concept of what other kids his age were doing and always wanted to be with his friends.
What things feel like home to you when you are not at your home?
Sleeping on the ground. Reading in a tent with the sound of wind and birds all around you. The sun on your back. Drinking out of a creek or river. Sitting by a fire with the stars spinning overhead.
What did you learn about yourselves? How has this trip changed you?
We learned that we're happiest when we're out there, interacting with the world around us, hearing and feeling stories embedded in place rising up through our feet and chests. Or maybe we didn't learn that - I think we knew it before. But it affirmed it for us, and introduced those things to our son at a time when he was most impressionable.
What do you guys do when you are not out adventuring?
A little bit of everything. I work six months a year as a wilderness ranger in Banff National Park here in Alberta, Leanne does some filmaking, I write and photograph, do some wildlife research on contract, chop wood for the wood stove, ski, read, hike, fish, hunt, garden...
Do you have any words of wisdom for other families that dream of going out and doing a big trip like this?
The hardest part is leaving. Everything works itself out and only gets easier once you take that big step, abandon your routines for something more exciting and meaningful and finally tear yourself away.
Artwork: Laurent Tougas
Inspired by the horned owl in the film, Finding Farley.
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[Photos curtesy of Leanne Allison and Karston Heuer. Used with permission.]
Recently, one of our readers asked us the following question:
We live in the Canadian prairies, though not too far from the Rocky Mountains (about 3 hrs). We are avid campers, but we cannot convince ourselves to start hiking with our 4 and 6 yr old kids, though we talk about it all the time. The prairies have cougars and the mountains have bear and cougar. Did this type of wildlife have any bearing on your decision to hike in the mountains of Maine? Any advice or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Where we live here in Maine, the only wild animal that we really have to worry about is black bears. While they can be dangerous, the more we read and learn, the less we fear them. In fact, we are all looking forward to the day when we get to see one on an excursion. Any wildlife besides squirrels would be nice... perhaps having 3 energetic kids on the trail contributes significantly to us not seeing much of anything.
When it comes to more dangerous animals such as grizzlies and cougars, we are not really in the position to speak with any authority on the matter. What I do know is that the more you learn, the better off you will be. Educating yourself from reputable sources will go a long way towards creating a healty fear (respect) and give you the tools you need to be more confident in the backcountry. To help out towards this end, I forwarded the question on to someone I with much more experience than I.
Ryan Jordan is the founder and CEO of Backpacking Light (http://www.backpackinglight.com/). Follow Ryan at http://www.ryanjordan.com or via Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/bigskyry. An Eagle Scout and former BSA High Adventure Program Director, Jordan lectures regularly to and trains Scouting leadership, outdoor education leaders, search and rescue organizations, and land management agency staff about the gear and skills required to go light while maintaining an appropriate balance of safety and comfort. This is what he had to say:
Your fear of grizzly bears is both healthy, and warranted, especially with kids. It's your protective nature kicking in. And that protective nature on behalf of grizzly bears is why we have conflict with them in the wilderness.
They need to eat, so they will raid caches of human food if given the opportunity. We can control that by having impeccable food preparation and storage practices in our camp.
But it's the bear attacks that I cannot control that cause some worry. So we try to minimize the risks of those happening, too.
The worst cases are when we surprise a bear. They don't cope real well with surprises and their protective response kicks in. The most dangerous human-bear conflicts occur when we surprise a bear (or worse, a momma bear and cubs) while hiking along the trail. As long as we make noise, we minimize (but do not necessarily) eliminate the chance of a surprise encounter. These surprise encounters are the ones I fear the most when hiking with kids, so I will often hike at the front, so I can be the one to confront the bear, rather than those who are less experienced.
The main question I ask when faced with the prospect of taking kids into grizzly bear country include: How much strength do I have in the rest of the party in case of a bear attack? Bears don't usually attack parties of 3 or more, and the reason attacks occur on parties of 2 is primarily because those 2 are split up by quite a bit of distance at the time of the attack.
Thus, I'd feel pretty comfortable with two adults and two kids if we all stayed together, and I might not worry at all if I could convince another family to come with me! That would be a lot more fun, too! There is strength in numbers and that is the best asset in grizzly country.
The worst case scenario of course, is the night time predatory attack where a grizzly bear wants to hunt you down and eat you. Fortunately, these are very rare occurrences, and while they do make for good campfire stories, the chance that they are happening is so infinitesimally low that it would be irresponsible for me to warn you about it and not warn you about the risk we take every day by the way we live and work, and the impacts that a stress-ridden, first-world lifestyle has on everything from emotional well being to heart disease.
Therein lies the primary reason I like to visit Wild Places, and the grizzly bear is a large part of that. It's a big, beautiful animal that deserves our respect. It's quite a sight to observe one in the wild, and you'd not be experiencing wilderness living to its fullest without that experience. It changes you.
Great advice, thanks Ryan!
Update 2010-05-25: I was recently reminded of a blog post that I read a while time ago called The Great Fear. A very worthwhile read, and very relevant to this topic.
Today's post is an interview with the Jones family (A.K.A. The Jonesberries) who are currently travelling around the world in Maggie, a truck which they converted into their home. We find the Jones' to be particularly inspiring for a number of reasons:
- They are minimalist; a family of seven living in a truck (sometimes with guests). You can't get much more minimalist, and that really appeals to us! We have a lot we can learn from them regarding what a family truly needs to thrive in the world (as it turns out, not a lot).
- They are adventurous; travelling the world, mostly avoiding the tourist areas, seeking out community and showing hospitality wherever they go... that appeals to us too! Getting out and exploring the world is more than just nature, there are people and cultures also. We love reading about their interactions with the world as they travel to new places.
- They are doing it together. We consider them to be great role models for shared family vision and togetherness. Kids and family aren't an inconvenient responsibility along the way, it is the core of who they are.
Who are they? Here is a brief introduction:
- Andrew (the dad) is a well known Christian blogger who's blog Tall Skinny Kiwi, covers a wide variety of topics including the Emerging Church, Missions, and Social Enterprise. You can find him on twitter as @tallskinnykiwi.
- Debbie (the mum) chronicles the family travels on the Jonesberries blog. You can find her on twitter as @jonesberries.
- The kids consist of Abi (14), Hannah (12), TJ (7), Liz (17), and Sam (19).
The Jones family with their friends Musa and Alana.
Can you describe, in a nutshell, the purpose of this journey or voyage you are on? I am having difficulty finding the right word to describe what it is you are doing. Is it an adventure, a journey, a pilgrimage, a lifestyle, or something else?
Andrew: A little bit of all of those. Its research, its learning, but definitely a lifestyle that allows us to travel and get to the places we want to be or need to be. My job involves a lot of travel and this is a way for us to stay together as a family.
Does this journey have a pre-defined duration? Is it open-ended? Or is this a lifestyle?
Andrew: Its a lifestyle that we started 15 years ago out of financial necessity but it grew on us. We liked living in small confined, mobile spaces like a tent or a motorhome. Much easier to clean and it keeps collecting junk to a minimum.
Doing something like this requires strong family unity. I would imagine having a family of seven means that there are a lot of different personalities in the mix, each with there own likes/dislikes/visions/goals/dreams. Is everyone pretty much on the same page with regards to this journey? Or are there some of you who are more into it than others?
Andrew: Well, our oldest (Samuel) just left us for university in Scotland so we are one less. And our daughter Elizabeth is spending 4 months in Houston working for a social enterprise. But she will be returning and joining the family again. I would say we are all into it - none of us want to settle down anywhere right now, and we dont really know where that would be. And we usually bring friends with us also so there is occasionally 9 of us in the motorhome. We check in with each other a lot to make sure everyone is on the same page and we are not rushing too much to get to the next place, or lingering too long. We dont seem to have many problems in this area. The real slowdowns happen when we are traveling in a group of vehicles together, like the hippie caravan we were a part of last month in Morocco. Each vehicle has its own pace and its very hard to synchronize them. It usually takes far longer to get anywhere but its a safer and more interesting way to travel so we often do it.
Debbie: I would like to add to this that because we have been doing this from the beginning it seems to be part of our family DNA. We expect to be rubbing shoulders with each other all the time. We have rarely lived in a big house that most people would have for a family our size. When we do have a big house we have almost always invited people to move in with us as well. We also have friends all over the world because we have traveled so much so even when we stay put we are missing friends and family all over the world. Last year TJ was talking about a birthday party and the friends she would want to invite. The list had kids from 5 countries.
Often in a family there are members who are adventurous and visionary and there are others who take comfort in the familiar and routine. Is that the case in your family? If so, how do you reconcile those differences? Do you have any advice for someone in a family who wants more adventure, but is encountering resistance from other family members?
Andrew: We dont really see it as adventurous. Its quite normal, for our kids to be in another country or culture. Yesterday we ate goat stew and there were no complaints. What we have tried to do all along was to build in certain rituals and routines that add stability and familiarity to our life. For example, we ALWAYS eat crepes on Sunday morning, French toast on Saturday morning, and Fridays are always pizza and movie nights. We meet people on the road who have heard of us and they already know our menu because friends have told them.
"Trekking up the mountains with our stuff on donkeys,
camping out with hippies, getting sick from bad water
when the only toilet was a dug-out trench in the mud,
and praying for a man with a demon."
Taken from The Adventures of Tall Skinny Kiwi in North Africa
Also, when we are stationary for a while in a house or an apartment, which happens to us at times, we try to keep the kids ready for adventure by bringing out our sleeping bags and camping in our living room every Friday and Saturday nights. It keeps us in the traveling mode.
Another thing that has helped us is that our daughters have never had their own room, ever, even when we stayed in an apartment. That makes it easier to adjust. I would advise families who want to travel later on to prepare for it by living in a small space and sharing bedrooms as much as possible.
Your family is very inspirational to us. Seeing what you are doing encourages us to think outside the box and step outside our comfort zone. Who are the people (any families?) that inspire and encourage you in that way?
Andrew: We dont know many families like us but we learn a lot from the global nomads and new age travelers about solar power, cooking on the road, getting in and out of countries, surviving on less money.
Debbie: We would love to find families that are traveling. We are looking. I really enjoy meeting families that are valuing their families and celebrating their individuality. Not simply accepting the world's values. Some of the most inspirational families are Paulo and Edna in Portugal who turned away from lots of money to time with family. Sam and Bryce in Switzerland who started Fuse Factory. It is a techno group where mom is the singer and dad is the VJ. Their family is very much part of the venture and one of her best songs is a love song to her daughter. Another family is the Stacey family in Oregon. They wanted to travel but had a child born with spinal bifida. They thought it would be too hard to travel with such a disabled child so they learned how to care for special needs kids and adopted 6 more kids with challenges. They are passionate about helping kids with special needs. Actually, seeing what we have seen, any family that stays together and loves each other are heroes to me. Unfortunately, it is way too rare these days.
Living in such a small space is quite different that what most westerners are used to. Was it difficult to downsize your family belongings to such a small space? Does everything you own fit in the van, or do you have stuff stored somewhere? Have you found the lack of space in the van a challenge for seven (or more) people?
Andrew: When we sold our house in 1994 in Oregon and moved into a tent, our motto was "If you can't carry it, you can't bring it." We thought we would need a big roof-rack for our car but actually, we didnt. We all had one bag and everything fitted in the car. 15 years on, our family is bigger and we have a motorhome which holds a lot more. But we still only have one small locker each and "if it doesn't fit in the locker, you can't bring it." And yes, we have some things stored in Scotland right now but most of it is tools and pottery equipment that we hope will rejoin us one day if we find a place for it.
The family living quarters.
Do you set limits on the amount of clothing, belongings, etc. that a person can have when traveling with you? Does everyone get a storage area for clothes and belongings? How do you keep the acquisition of "stuff" from getting out of hand?
Andrew: Everyone has 2 lockers, which are located behind and under the couch. The lower one is for clothes and about the size of a suitcase. The upper locker is for books and special things that we access through the day. That one is smaller than a carry-on. I actually prefer the constraints of a locker and the family has no need to go to the mall because they dont have room for any more clothes, unless they are replacing something that is worn out.
Debbie: Sometime in the morning we usually hear "Lockers are open - this is not a drill". This means those sleeping on the lockers are awake, the bedding is away, the big door over the lockers is open and it is time to get clothes for the day. You can get to your clothes later in the day but it normally involves shuffling people and stuff.
Renee asks: How does your family deal with issues of personal privacy? Getting dressed/undressed? What about having the time/space/privacy for marital intimacy? (If you consider that too personal, feel free to not answer!)
Andrew: This is even harder when we have non-family members traveling with us, which is most of the time. Getting dressed is not a big deal. I miss having a soundproof toilet or a closed off bedroom, but sometimes the whole family gets to put up tents for a night or two (hasn't happened for a few weeks now, unfortunately) and then we all get our own space for a short while.
Debbie: For marital intimacy, now that the kids are older, we can leave them for a bit and taking evening walks together can be quite fun. We tell the kids we are going to check out the area or that we are going on a date.
Brienne (our seven year-old) asks: Are you going all the way around the world?
Andrew: Hi Brienne. Eventually, we will have been around the world but not all in one trip. The hard part about going around the world in one trip is the horribly expensive ocean crossings on ships. So we are staying on the land as much as possible. From Europe. Africa is only a 2 hour ferry crossing so thats pretty easy. And also from Europe you can drive east into Turkey and keep going east until you get to Iran and Pakistan and India and before you know it you are in Asia. Thats what we would like to do very soon. But we might just drive back again instead of heading in the same direction because its so much cheaper. And anyway, we have already driven around USA (every state except 2 of them) and spent time in Central/South America and I have driven across Australia a few times.
Andrew's beautiful Hasselblad (old skool medium format camera) shot
of a waterfall - of which I don't know the name - in Africa.
Laurent (our nine year-old) asks: How do you guys get your money?
Debbie: Mostly through people who sponsor us to make a difference in the world. But we have also made some pottery and Andrew occasionally gets paid for writing or speaking. We just bought some fabric and hope to make some products to sell in Europe over the summer. We actually dont get very much money but then we dont have much to spend it on except for travel and food.
Celine (our 10 year-old) asks: Have you guys seen any castles?
Tamara: We have seen a few.
Andrew: In Portugal we saw a lot of old forts that the Romans built but most of the castles we have seen were in Scotland, France, Germany and Czech Republic. We went inside a castle once in Scotland and saw lots of amour and weapons of castle warfare. Pretty gory stuff. You dont want to know. Really. But you might be interested to hear of the castle toilet which was more like a round stone platform with a hole in the middle and a 100 foot drop. Great view but a little windy and cold in the winter. Better to be on the toilet than below it, thats for sure.
What do you like most about your families travels? What has been the best moment for you so far?
Tamara: I like lots of things, lots of moments, I liked seeing that waterpark (Morocco) I like the moment when we first started traveling and i was thinking of all the things i could do.
Hannah: The waterpark in Morocco that we went to on TJ's birthday.
Abigail: Eating camel couscous in the Sahara or that time in Portugal when we picked olives at our friends community.
What do you dislike the most about your families travels? What has been the worst moment for you?
TJ: When Hannah doesn't want to play with me and our toy animals.
Hannah: Getting caught in a rip tide on the boogie board
Abigail: Leaving Orkney, Scotland, the first time.
Alana (friend who has been with us for 4 months): Worst moment was getting detained at London airport for not having enough money.
Thanks for taking the time to answer our questions! We wish you all the best on your travels, and look forward to following your blogs to see where the journey takes you!
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