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…

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. 

Real Relaxation: Kayaking Day 5 – Windy Crossings and Nap Beach

Blustery and chilly and tired but still surrounded by water and huge trees, so still happy. I’m sitting beside a massive cedar that must be at least 800 years old, its base as wide as my car. Though it’s a blustery day and I feel creaky and depleted, I am so happy to be here…

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…

Mind Blowing Haida History Lessons: Kayaking Day 3 – T’aanuu Llnagaay (Tanu)

Our schedule has shifted to an efficient one: 6:30am wakeup call (ethereal flute played by Devjeet), 7am coffee and breakfast, then pack up tents and belongings, carry the boats to the water, load them with our stuff, and start paddling by 9-9:30. Paddle a few hours, taking advantage of the calm waters that always arrive…

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.

What are those totem poles all about? Kayaking Day 1: K’uuna Llnagaay (Skedans)

Awake at 5:30 am to pack my drybags, squeezing tights, raincoats, trailmix and ziplocked notebooks into 5 tiny 10L rolltops. Cross the 20 minute ferry to Moresby Island, my first time on the southern island of Haida Gwaii, and get to know the rest of my kayaking group in a 14 passenger bus as we…

Eating beach plants with Kamil and his goat

(See the first half of this visit here) After lunch we leave to walk the beach, and Kamil sighs. “In 3 years here, already 15 feet of beach disappear. The water keep rising. Ice caps keep melting. Your generation, you need to learn be independent. How to find wood to burn. How to cook your…

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…

“Absolutely nothing going on at all.” – Arriving in Haida Gwaii

Leaving the 7 hour ferry, I drive to my new home to find the door unlocked, lights on and a note on how to contact my hosts, a grandmother currently visiting her daughter on the mainland. I wander room to plant filled room, big windows shining and original wood floors creaking. I’m in heaven.