The 30 hour journey down from Haida Gwaii was surprisingly easy (especially compared to being diverted 500 km by forest fires on my drive up). I woke up in a forest in Southern BC. Had a flat tire, got my bike tire stolen while I went to get a tow truck, and then had mild issues…
Edge of the World Music Festival
Haida Gwaii has one giant hippy festival per year, and we scored the last campsite by the water before the rest of the hippies descended. Set up camp then walked over just in time to see the lantern parade, lighting up the night as the last rays of sun shone over the Tlell river. The…
Cape Fife and Sleeping Beauty Hiking
I pick up my housemates visiting from Calgary and we leave immediately for a 10 km hike out to Cape Fife, locally reputed to be a vortex, a place of high energy and myth. The logged forest looks so different from the places I hiked down south, small trees filling the gaps of long gone…
Thousand Year Trees and the Protests that Protected Them: Kayaking Day 4 – Hlk’yah GawGa (Windy Bay)
How did I forget? Yes I love paddling and am so stoked to learn about the ocean and the Haida culture and history, but as soon as we went walking through this ancient forest I remembered…I just love the trees. They are the real reason I came here. I lay against their massive trunks or…
Geology of the Edge of the World: Kayaking Day 2
How a “transform boundary” is really a transformational boundary between worlds, plus paddling through giant kelp and eating Moroccan food on the beach in the middle of nowhere.
Kamil’s recipes for a good life
The first thing I smell is fresh cedar, like being inside a hot sauna but crisper, mixed with sea air. I see an axe swing high and land – THUD, crack! “Hi Kamil!” “Hello girl! Come in! We will make tea!” Walking past stacks of cedar and piles of greens for his goat, I go up…
Making Friends, or, how I met a Soviet Indigenous healer picking berries on the roadside.
“Excuse me – do you know what these berries are?” His eyes light up as he turns. “Yes!!!” He opens his wrinkled hands over mine and sun coloured giant berries land in them. “Salmon berries! Deeeeeelicious! Absolutely phenomenal for jam!”
4 Ways to Celebrate Winter Solstice – The Return of the Light
Winter Solstice! The best day of the year – the shortest day/longest night, marking the movement back towards warmth, growth and rebirth. I love solstice because it’s the time when these “go-to-work-in-the-dark-go-home-in-the-dark” days begin to leave us. The time when we are reminded that no matter how much darkness is around, the light always comes…
Samhain (Halloween) Ceremony
Celebrate Halloween by creating your own ritual, inspired by the ancient Celtic tradition of Samhain. Here are details of how we celebrated in our house!
Gratitude for Food: A Practice to Give Thanks Before Each Meal
Before sitting down to eat the food prepared in front of me, I pause, take a breath, and silently give thanks. For me, this is part of a spiritual practice, but there is longstanding research on the numerous benefits to practising gratitude regardless of spiritual beliefs/faith – being grateful makes you happier, healthier and more mindful over time. Here is my most common form of gratitude
Volcanoes, Giant Trees, Hot Springs and the Eclipse – Washington to Oregon
Today I pass 3 volcanoes, hike 1000 year old trees, visit hot springs and arrive at the Oregon Eclipse festival. Up at 5:30am and packing as fast as I can so I can see the sunrise at SUNRISE RIM. I am more often in my life going to bed at this time than waking up…
Unexpected magic: Leaving Haida Gwaii (for now)
All my friends have left the island, both my housemates and my local friends, and I embrace my alone time with a hike up Tow Hill. Despite there being no service on this side of the island, from so high up I get a signal from the mainland 80 km across the Hecate Straight, and…
How to Relax: Shifting Plans and Moonlit Canoeing
I climb back to the rocks (no barnacles!) and a meditation enters my mind.
Inhale: Sun fills every cell with love and light
Exhale: All worry flows into the rocks
Inhale: Thank you for filling me with love and light
Exhale: Thank you for taking all my worry
Once again, learning to accept things as they come, not pushing to have things go the way I planned or imagined. Open to the flow of easy come, easy go, relaxing into the river of abundance without expectation or a white-knuckled need to control how it looks or when. (Ahhhhh what an easier exhale. SO much pressure taken off!)
My daily mantra this year (no matter how I fight it): I trust your process, and I trust your timing.
Haaw’a (thank you): Kayaking Day 8 – Leaving
I’m itchy and everything smells wet and gross…yet I’m not ready to leave at all. I would happily stay, given the chance. Once again, like leaving my house full of climbing best friends in the middle of a perfect summer to come here, I feel like I am leaving in a perfect era that won’t…
Heart and Spirit 