Diana Athill's Journey

It is of course a cliché, but "the journey of life" is the ultimate road trip; and from time to time, I encounter individuals in my travels who embody humanist principles of the highest order; and who also have a very special "talent" (for want of a better word) for expressing in words and deeds a worldview that is wisdom writ large.

These are not always well-known people. As a matter of fact they are more often than not "simple people" who seem to have absorbed something from their physical and ethical environments that challenges my own penchant for skepticism — or worse — pessimism.

They are also not always or necessarily happy people.

Recently, I was walking along a beach in Mexico and fell into conversation with an older gentleman, a 72-year-old man from Ohio who seemed to have been "tested" a lot by his God. He had suffered serious physical ailments, marriage breakdown, had spent years caring for an aging mother, and (I'm not sure why I found this strange), despite his age, he was still quite conflicted about sex.

He spoke easily and without guile to me as we moved slowly along the beach next to the beautiful turquoise sea. At one point he described, without any apparent ulterior motive, about the time not too many years ago when he had "reached his limit"; and had become suicidal. He began sleeping with a revolver under his pillow waiting for his courage to give him "permission" to end his life.

Of course, he managed to survive that tipping point, and now seems relatively content, although still resigned to being simply mortal.

When we were about to go our separate ways, he took me firmly by the arm and said, "I want to tell you the most important thing I have learned in life." Pausing for a brief moment to make sure that I had made full eye contact with him, he said, "It's not a battle of flesh and blood."

I suppose that what he might have been referring to is that it is a spiritual battle: of the mind, of the non-physical self, of the ephemeral self.

Whatever he meant, it is food for thought.

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One person's view of moral intelligence and other life lessons

I never met Diana Athill, but I have read her work; and very much admire her amazing facility with language — in all its forms.

I also admire her wisdom and her life's journey with all its ups and downs.

Diana was co-founder, and editor for many years, of the publishing company André Deutsch Ltd. In her autobiography Stet, (Granta Books, London, 2000), she expresses in a few paragraphs her view of the role that "intelligence" plays in people choosing to behave in a collaborative and reciprocal fashion. It would appear to be one of the most important lessons she has learned on her life's journey.

It is a proactive and conscious application of universal human values — in the face of what might seem insurmountable odds — that she suggests is the essence of true intelligence.

At the age of 93, she has just published another memoir, Somewhere Towards the End

In her previous memoir Stet about her life in the publishing business, she wrote:

"Years ago, in a pub near Baker Street, I heard a man say that humankind is seventy per cent brutish, thirty per cent intelligent, and though the thirty per cent is never going to win, it will always be able to leaven the mass just enough to keep us going. That rough and ready assessment of our plight has stayed with me as though it were true, given that one takes ‘intelligence' to mean not just intellectual agility, but whatever it is in beings that makes for readiness to understand, to look for the essence in other beings and things and events, to respect that essence, to collaborate, to discover, to endure when endurance is necessary, to enjoy: briefly to co-exist. It does, alas, seem likely that sooner or later, either through our own folly or a collision with some wandering heavenly body, we will all vanish in the wake of the dinosaurs; but until that happens I believe that the yeast of intelligence will continue to operate one way or another."

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To listen to Diana Athill in conversation with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's Eleanor Wachtel (Writers and Company), click on the link below, and scroll down to:

Listen to Diana Athill — 8 March 2009 in RealAudio

African-American Heritage Travel in “The Year of Obama”

It goes without saying that since the election of Barack Obama, the general travelling public has become even more aware of Black history than ever before. A frontier has been crossed; the United States of America and the world in general have moved forward. And, as is the case with all significant current events, history will assess how the “event” altered the course of events in human civilization.

Leading up to the election of Obama in the fall of 2008, I had the opportunity of visiting Albany, Georgia where many say the Civil Rights Movement in the U.S. really began.

A visit to that city’s Civil Rights Institute was a moving experience (given especially what was imminent) but it was also an opportunity to become aware of the significant niche market of African-America Heritage travel.

A literary connection

Shortly after my return from Georgia, I also had the opportunity of reading Lawrence Hill’s The Book of Negroes

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“Let me begin with a caveat to any and all who find these pages. Do not trust large bodies of water, and do not cross them. If you, Dear Reader, have an African hue and find yourself led toward water with vanishing shores, seize your freedom by any means necessary. And cultivate distrust of the colour pink. Pink is taken as the colour of innocence, the colour of childhood, but as it spills across the water in the light of the dying sun, do not fall into its pretty path. There, right underneath, lies a bottomless graveyard of children, mothers and men. I shudder to imagine all the Africans rocking in the deep. Every time I have sailed the seas, I have had the sense of gliding over the unburied. Some people call the sunset a creation of extraordinary beauty, and proof of God's existence. But what benevolent force would bewitch the human spirit by choosing pink to light the path of a slave vessel?”

─ From The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill

(Note: This book has been released in the United States, Australia, and New Zealand under the title Someone Knows My Name.)

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From a novelist’s point of view

Now I am going to go really out on a limb and declare that the most important lessons in life that I have learned, I have learned from novelists. And I will perhaps be even more provocative by saying that when novelists are especially adept at what they do, they fulfill many roles. They are philosophers, psychologists, sociologists, anthropologists, geographers (landscape shapes human culture), neuroscientists, idealists, and relentless humanitarians. The list could go on.

But what I admire most about novelists who engage in highly literate journeys is the power of their imagination; their ability to do excellent research but also to engage in imaginative identification. The latter of course is passed along to the reader.

There is no shortage of excellent to outstanding literature (fiction and non-fiction) written about the African-American experience and about the institution of slavery, but Hill’s book came at just the right time, in so many senses of the word.

The Book of Negroes is a both a story and history; also very comprehensive historically and dramatically. It is a story that is well-researched and which gives another important overview of Black history in North America.

But it is also a novel that takes the reader well beyond the obvious on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. And that is the freedom that good fiction permits; even though the more profound the impact of the subject matter on human civilization, the greater the responsibility of the novelist to “get it right.” And, although I had some minor reservations about the novel, in my view Lawrence Hill does get it right.

Fact and fiction

Integrating fact and fiction is always problematic; even in the conventional and non-fiction form of historical writing which is of course always subject to some interpretation. The New York Times called The Book of Negroes a “wonderfully written fictional slave narrative … populated by vivid characters and rendered in fascinating detail.”

And Hill’s “narrative” does indeed skilfully tell the full story at great length through a single character, Aminata Diallo, a young girl who is born in Bayo, West Africa, in 1745 and kidnapped and sold into slavery. The book follows her lifelong struggle to free herself and others from slavery. Her most significant achievement along the way may be learning to read, and using that primarily self-taught skill as a key tool in achieving her eventual personal emancipation, as ambiguousl as Hill depicts it.

But through his fictional account of the complex historical events that took an already existing slave trade to the Americas, Hill’s The Book of Negroes also serves as a touchstone for an exponential awareness of the proverbial “man’s inhumanity to man” especially as it devastated the lives of African slaves; and shaped forever the lives of so many of their descendants.

Understanding how African-Americans have played a pivotal and integral role in the evolution of North American history and culture, may well be the essential “travel experience” inherent in the African-American Heritage sites that now, more than ever, give us a critical outlook on human behaviour.

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African-American Heritage Sites

There is of course no shortage of such historic sites and destinations to visit; and if African-American Heritage travel interests you, a good place to start is the National Parks Service site Our Shared History

Another good site is AfricanAmericans.com

Albany, Georgia is certainly a destination that is replete with meaningfulness and a profound sense of history, and a destination that has many more travel stories just waiting to be told.

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The African-American-Canadian experience

But I would also like to draw your attention to two African-American Heritage sites here in Canada, both of which by the way are travel stories that may take you by surprise.

Birchtown/Shelburne, Nova Scotia

In 1775, the British were “losing it,” in more ways than one. Lord Dunmore, who at the time was the Royal Governor of Virginia, came up with a plan that he hoped might hamper the efforts of the rebellious colonists to achieve the independence that in hindsight is seen as inevitable; a tipping point had been passed.

Therefore, to any slave who would escape from his rebel master and fight on the side of the British Crown, Dunmore offered freedom. Almost immediately more than 300 Blacks made their way behind British Lines and formed what was known as the Ethiopian Regiment. In so doing they were hoping to strike a blow for the freedom of all Blacks.

When eventually the British realized they were losing the war, the British Commander-in-chief at New York, Sir Henry Clinton, issued the Philipsburg Proclamation. It stated that any Negro who deserted the rebel cause would receive full protection from the British, freedom, and land in Nova Scotia. Estimates suggest that many thousands of people of African descent joined the British. Ultimately however, they had to leave the United States and were subsequently evacuated from New York on a fleet of ships to Nova Scotia, and settled primarily in the area of what today is Shelburne County in the southeast part of Nova Scotia.

However, it was not as simple as it may appear. Anyone who chose to become a “Black Loyalist” and to emigrate to Nova Scotia had to have a bone fide certificate of freedom and to present it on boarding one of the vessels leaving New York harbour. This significant historical document is now called the Book of Negroes and is the title of Lawrence Hill’s book as it is published in Canada.

The Book of Negroes is considered the most important document relating to the immigration of African Americans to Nova Scotia following the War of Independence because it includes the names and descriptions of 3000 Black refugees who were registered as sailing on the vessels that left New York.

With a little poetic license and using a highly symbolic and dramatic device, Hill has his central character, Aminata Diallo, as one of the recorders who entered the names and descriptions of soon-to-be free African Americans in the Book of Negroes.

Birchtown , where Black Loyalists landed in 1783 was once the first and largest free African-American settlement in North America. Named after General Samuel Birch, who signed the papers to free Black refugees from slavery at the conclusion of the Revolutionary War, it is located in Shelburne County on the northwest arm of Shelburne Harbour. In its collection the Shelburne County Museum has numerous artifacts from an archeological dig in Birchtown.

For more information, see also Historic Shelburne, and The Black Loyalist Heritage Society .

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The Buxton National Historic Site and Museum

In southwestern Ontario, less than an hour from Detroit, is the Buxton National Historical Site . What was known as The Elgin Settlement was founded in 1849 and became a haven for the fugitives of the American system of slavery in the pre-Civil War years, in part because it was located near the northern terminus of the Underground Railroad.

Although Black people lived in Canada since the early days of transatlantic settlement, very few arrived directly from their ancestral homeland in Africa; the earliest arrivals were slaves brought from New England or the West Indies.

However between 1763 and 1865 most Blacks who migrated to Canada were fleeing slavery in the United States. After the War of 1812, the Black community in Ontario continued to grow as a steady influx of runaway slaves from the southern United States crossed over the border. And then in 1833 the British Parliament's Emancipation Act abolished slavery in all parts of the British Empire.

By 1851 there were more than 35,000 people of African descent living in Ontario; many of them in the southwestern part of the province, in the communities of Buxton, Dresden, Chatham, and Windsor.

Although these people had escaped slavery, life was never easy. They were refugees in many senses of the word. And even as late as the 20th century, there were documented cases of systemic discrimination against African-Canadians, especially in southwestern Ontario.

It has been said that “history hurts”; and the wounds are often grievous. However historical travel can also give a much-needed perspective on the past, the present, and the future.

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See also:

The Ontario Black History Society, a non-profit registered Canadian charity, dedicated to the study, preservation and promotion of Black History and heritage.

The Harriet Tubman Resource Centre on the African Diaspora.

The Civil Rights Institute of Albany, Georgia: Footsteps to Freedom

Transborder Sensibilities: Once Upon a Time in a Land Far Away

In The Uncommon Reader, Alan Bennett’s protagonist, Queen Elizabeth II, pays an official visit to Canada. Unfortunately for the royal born-again reader, the supply of books that she takes with her — her equerry advises that Canadians are not “a bookish people” — goes astray.

Now the case can be made that we in the New World came late to the business of developing our separate national literary canons — the rigours of frontier life leave little time for such refinements — but nonetheless we did manage to become lettered albeit belatedly. But when we did, Canadians and Americans achieved it in rather different ways

Our stories are similar, but I assure you they are not the same; and they entered our national consciousnesses along different timelines. Being of good British heritage, Canadians stayed loyal not only to the Crown but to what for a long time was considered the only real literature. It took us about 100 years to get our own indigenous literary act together. Americans on the other hand, started telling their stories far and wide in the most revolutionary style before the tea had even settled on the bottom of Boston Harbour. (They of course would spell it Harbor.)

We do have some literary commonalities. Thematically, just below our bookish surfaces you will find frontier life, nature and wilderness, and a search for our status in the world community. The first theme often presents itself in a culturally mythical form; the second is linked to the “Westward Ho” experience of both nations (although it happened quite differently in each); and the third “issue” is of course ongoing and one in which our literatures strike a universal chord.

Canada is very much an east-west experience because of the transcontinental railway (the natural extension of the Great Lakes), which opened up our West and in the process led to our “negotiating” less-than-fair land treaties with our First Nations people; whereas in the States, they tended to have Indian Wars. The latter used to make for better stories — the Hollywood “Cowboys and Indians” genre.

It has often been said that Canadian literature is remarkable for its sense of place: Maritime provinces; the largest fresh water inland waterway in the world; the rugged and blackfly-infested Canadian Shield; immense prairies; stupendous Rocky Mountains; a lush and laid-back Pacific West Coast (and culture), and I musn’t forget (as for some time we did) our vast Arctic storyboard. The Americans have similar geographical and topographical story starters and more; such as the languid regions of the Deep South. But in their rush for nationhood, they kind of went every which way, which had a direct impact on the themes and variations that emerged in their stories.

But the prime literary theme in both our storybooks is probably the question of identity. Will that be the parliamentary plate or the republican hot dog? And Canadians, who have struggled to get a good night’s sleep in bed with the elephant to the south, have always had an inferiority complex. In a literary sense, we used to “do” failure quite nicely, but we also are good at humour, especially if it is self-deprecating. And a somewhat benign anti-Americanism can often be found in our narratives. However what the literary world really needs to understand about CanLit is our “two solitudes”, that is, our two founding cultures of French and English; quite separate literary and cultural modes, don’t you know. And added to this, thanks in part to our membership in the British Commonwealth, is Canada’s “vertical mosaic” of boisterous multiculturalism. So what’s a Canadian eh? Ask the average citizen of the land of the maple leaf to sing “God Save the Queen” and you are likely to get a blank stare or perhaps a dredged-up memory of Freddie Mercury. Because we are adept at changing the subject when feeling disconcerted, you might also get a commentary on Canadian Michael Ondaatje’s Booker Prize-winning The English Patient.

Now Americans also do angst well, but theirs is louder and more expressive; after all, they had a Civil War that almost tore them apart. And if you have been following the melodrama of the upcoming U.S. election, you will have detected contextual subplots relating to issues such as ethnicity, civil rights baggage, unwinnable wars, fears of imperial decline — but also heroism. Now that last theme may well be where we really draw our literary 49th parallel. Traditionally Canadians are still a bit too British to do the dauntless hero or anti-hero thing. If you Google “The Canadian Dream” and “The American Dream” you will find lots of references, but there is no way the former has the literary and socio-cultural punch of the latter. Canadians tend not to ride off into the sunset; we quietly slip away muttering to ourselves about why Americans just don’t get it.

At one point in The Uncommon Reader, Queen Elizabeth manages to work in a little literary walkabout with Canadian author Alice Munro, who has been called the best fiction writer now working in North America. Her books are always bestsellers “abroad”; Her Majesty admires them very much. Well, need I say more?

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This article was first published in Emag, the inflight magazine of Eastern Airways, one of the UK's principal regional airlines.

To download a PDF copy of this inflight magazine, click here.

Cancun and Quintana Roo: Always a Work in Progress

2009-03-21 11:44:42 Add your comment.

Familiarity breeds insouciance

I have never liked the expression "familiarity breeds contempt," probably because I never really understood the etymological and root meaning of the word contempt. I can understand why neglect can lead to contempt; and as one source tells me the "familiarity breeds contempt" expression can also mean, "The better we know people, the more likely we are to find fault with them."

Or as Benjamin Franklin said, "Fish and visitors smell in three days."

And yet, one psychological study I read recently suggests quite the opposite; that in fact:

"Given how irritating other people sometimes are, it’s surprising how many of us are eternal optimists about forming new relationships. Indeed people seem primed to like others: the ‘mere exposure effect’ is a robust social psychological finding demonstrating that just being exposed to someone causes us to like them more."

Well I prefer to put my money on optimism and on using initial "familiarity" as the point of departure for finding out more about a travel destination, because I am convinced that more often than not, we only have time to skim the surface.

And yet, if we had the time, resources, and willingness to go deeper into the subject matter (i.e. the destination), we would probably learn a lot more and understand more about the very complex persona of any travel destination.

And while I am on my soapbox, I mustn't forget to mention "the fixed notion."

As I learned recently from Gregory Berns, author of the fascinating and very brain scientific book Iconoclast: A neuroscientist reveals how to think differently, the human brain is (neurologically-speaking) a lazy brain; it likes to take shortcuts. In part, this is because of all the information and sensory stimulation that bombards it. In brief, it can actually make erroneous judgments, jump to conclusions, indulge in over-generalizations and ... here's the core message folks ... apply unwarranted fixed notions to people, places, and other stuff.

And we do this with destinations, even if we have not visited them... or not re-visited them recently.

"Why would I want to go to India with all those people, all that poverty, and all that hot spicy food?" Well, I've been to India ... one of my all-time favourite destinations ... so what can I say other than you may be indulging in a fixed notion?

What I learned in Cancun and Quintana Roo

Well, I learned once again (my brain gets lazy too you know) not to apply fixed notions to a destination. I learned that there is always more than meets the eye ... and all the senses for that matter, including the conceptual sense.

I learned once again to be wary of dumbed down media coverage of travel destinations and hysterical "if it bleeds it leads" media coverage.

I learned that there is no single Cancun; that it is a multidimensional destination

And that is why Travelosophy is pleased to present the following stories from Cancun and Quintana Roo:

The Lessons of Cancun

The Lessons of the Maya

Kanché and Puerta Verde: A Role Model for Alternative, Grassroots, and Indigenous Travel

The Spatial Sense and Sensibility of Mexican Architect Ricardo Legorreta

Amen...

The Travel Educators: A Collaborative and Collective Approach to Marketing Our Wares

It started with a few kindred-spirited travel journalists shooting the breeze about this and that on a media trip.

But in hindsight, we now realize that what was really happening was a meeting of minds; and a gradual awareness that we shared personal values and general perceptions of the world (sociologically, culturally, and to some extent politically). And we also shared a common burning desire to get our hands on the real stuff; and write about it in as intelligent a fashion as we could.

However, the most common element was probably the wish on each of our parts to tell stories in a different way and with a particular focus to which we felt committed. We also wanted to raise the bar a bit if we could, and take a slightly more "scholarly" (whatever that means) approach to travel writing. And it started to dawn on us that each of us was also very much involved in the business of learning through travel.

And that "lifelong learning through travel" focus and concept became our principal qualifier.

And so we became ...

The Travel Educators: Lifelong Learning Through Travel.

Like just about everything else in life, one never knows where new ventures will end up, especially in these days of potential hell-in-a-handbasket economic times. However, we seem to be the type of people who don't give damn Scarlett, but instead think in a lateral (as opposed to linear) fashion — which means that there constantly is no end in sight but a lot of flexibility and room to maneuver conceptually.

We also all seem to understand that every endeavour we undertake is a process far more than an event; and I guess we are cool with that. Keep on truckin'; keep on travelling; keep on learning — and to some extent, stay two steps ahead of the cops. But what, in my estimation, is the real driving force in the group is the unwillingness to compromise on principles or quality.

Sound like Don Quixote dreaming his impossible dream? Maybe.

So here in more detail (copied and pasted from our promo material) is what The Travel Educators are really all about:

We believe that travel is the most experiential form of learning; the principal ways and means to achieve intercultural understanding; and essential to the economic development of any destination.

Each of our writing styles emphasizes quality travel experiences. Through a scholarly and innovative approach to travel journalism, we create a genuine identification on the part of the consumer with the destinations we profile; and our work communicates clearly a respect for the people in these destinations.

We believe that creative travel journalism enhances and clarifies perceptions; engenders interconnectivity with the grassroots culture of a destination; and — because of its inherent long-term strategic thinking — leads to exponential growth in a destination’s marketing strategy.

That's the basic pitch; and we mean it. We aren't just kidding around.

Now all of us are involved in just about every form of travel journalism you can think of: television, radio, print, non-print, blogging, photography, editing, newspapers, magazines, websites ... and the list probably goes on. (We don't do windows.) But I'm not telling you anything you probably don't already know — or do yourself, especially if you are a travel writer in these days of shrinking markets.

So at this point in our 15 minutes of travel fame (perhaps more, why should I be so pessimistic?), we have a clearly stated ethos and modus operandi that we stand by.

Emphasizing our collective networks, we propose to destinations that we will work with them collaboratively in order to:

(a) define and assess how or if what we The Travel Educators do fits their needs;

(b) engage as a group in pre-planning in terms of what their destination has to offer, resources that we can integrate into the experience, and how our various "specialities" blend with theirs;

and

(c) collaborate, brainstorm, and share knowledge, resources, and perceptions as a group before, during, and after the tour as opposed to participating in the media tour in the usual way in which the journalists are essentially individuals doing their own thing.

What we produce after the event depends of course on what outlets each of us contribute to. But even while we were in the process of figuring out and articulating what we were about, we found somewhat to our surprise that we were already in medias res, and that the little grey cells, the networking, and the generation of ideas was happening almost of its own accord.

So, you are probably now asking,"Got any gigs yet?"

Well yes we do actually. Two of them. And both have been "arranged" over the period of six months since we began this wild and crazy idea. I suspect we could have had more by now but, like all the rest of you, we are dancing as fast as we can.

And have you ever tried to get a bunch of busy travel journalists together at the same time and in the same destination?

It's like herding cats.

One last point. As we were creating this group and formulating the concept, we began to notice that we were not alone in doing the collective travel journalism thing. We started to notice that there were others who had similar small groups, although the nature and purpose of what they were doing was quite different from ours. And that's fine because there's lots of room out there in traveljournalismland; especially in the whole new world of electronic travel journalism.

So we aren't the only kids on the block. The Traveling Mamas, for example, have (it would appear) been a big success.

Hey! What about The Traveling Papas? Copyright infringement? Or maybe the Traveling Mamas and Papas?

Or am I just California Dreamin'?

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The Travel Educators

The Countdown Has Begun....

... to the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Winter Games and Paralympic Games

And just to let you know, everything is looking really good. And just to make absolutely sure, I have checked out the Richmond Oval where the speed skating will take place. (By the way, those are speed skates I'm wearing.)

It's an architecturally stunning venue; the wooden beams you see in the roof are all recycled lumber from trees lost to that pesky pine beetle.

And as always, the host city for the Olympics uses the opportunity to showcase so much more. For example, there is an advance Cultural Olympiad happening right now ... as we speak ... so to speak. (It's funded in part by the organizing committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games.)

Below is just a taste of the current line-up, which doesn't surprise me because Vancouver is an international arts destination.

And I have it on good authority that there will be an even bigger arts festival during the actual Olympics next year... in Vancouver in 2010!

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Broken Social Scene with Tegan and Sara: Toronto’s Broken Social Scene and Calgary’s Tegan and Sara set the stage with a hot double bill. Orpheum Theatre

Academy of St. Martin in the Fields: One of the world’s most revered orchestras, the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields performs a program of Bach, Mozart and Walton for its Vancouver debut. Orpheum Theatre

Bell Orchestre, featuring members of Arcade Fire: A triple-bill featuring Beast, The Besnard Lakes and Bell Orchestre (featuring members of Arcade Fire). Commodore Ballroom

Ballet BC presents Carmen: The tragic love story of a fiery Gypsy temptress who pushes the men in her life to the explosive limits of their passion. Queen Elizabeth Theatre

New Songs, New Voices: This series features four nights of music from a dozen of the next great Canadian singer/songwriters. Waterfront Theatre

Hawksley Workman with Chad VanGaalen: The diamond voice and gritty bass beats of this Juno award-winning Canadian rocker have won him legions of fans around the world. Commodore Ballroom

Esthero and K’NAAN: Somali-born rapper K’NAAN opens for Toronto-born Esthero who has been part of a number of high profile collaborations in 2008 including the Barack Obama-inspired "Yes We Can" song and Kanye West’s 808s & Heartbreak album. Commodore Ballroom

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Sport and the Arts?

Of course!

These are not strange bedfellows.

Au contraire mes chers!

Check out ...

The Fine Art of Cross-Country Skiing in British Columbia's Thompson Country

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Get on your mark. Get set. Go ... to the 2010 Winter Olympics

www.vancouver2010.com

Vicarious and Iconoclastic Adventure Travel

An iconoclastic traveller

In his book Iconoclast: a neuroscientist reveals how to think differently, Gregory Berns explores the "person who does something that others say can't be done."

He also explores the brain science of those who refuse to listen to those who say (literally and figuratively), "Don't go there."

Why would Meagan McGrath, or anyone for that matter, put themselves through the "journey" you are about to read about below? In part, Berns postulates that it is a question of perception:

"Fortunately, the networks that govern both perception and imagination can be reprogrammed. The frontal cortex, which contains rules for decision-making, can reconfigure neural networks in the visual pathways so that the individual can see things that she didn't see before simply by deploying her attention differently... getting out of the environment in which an indiviudal has become comfortable — to jolt attentional systems awake and reconfigure both perception and imagination. The more radical and novel the change, the greater the likelihood of new insights being generated. To think like an iconoclast, you need novel experiences."

Now I am not prepared to go where Meagan is going (or has already been), but it seems to me that the theme-issue-concept of the need for a novel experience to jolt us out of our "normal" way of perceiving things, is both process and product of really in-depth and content-rich participatory travel experiences.

Go for it Meagan!

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MEAGAN MCGRATH,
SUDBURY’S BEST-KNOWN ADVENTURER,
PREPARES FOR AN EXPEDITION TO THE NORTH POLE
HER BIGGEST ADVENTURE IS YET TO COME!

SUDBURY, ONTARIO, CANADA — What can possibly be as exhilarating and amazing as reaching the summit of the top of world, Mount Everest? How do you supersede climbing both versions of the seven highest peaks on seven continents? What could test a person’s physical and mental stamina more than a 7-day foot race through the Sahara desert? Leave it up to Meagan McGrath, Sudbury’s best-known adventurer, to think of something that may top them all!

In April 2009 Meagan, will be heading to the Arctic, for a short, two-and-a-half week expedition. The purpose of this Polar Adventure, scheduled for April 9-27, 2009, is to prepare Meagan for what is undoubtedly her biggest adventure to date; an adventure that will span 60 solitary days.

The Arctic expedition to the North Pole is part of Meagan’s training regime as she continues to prepare for her most ambitious endeavour thus far — an adventure, for which, further details will be announced at a later date. Meagan’s upcoming expedition in April is intended to test the limits of her physical and mental endurance and ensure that there are no faults with her equipment. The North Pole expedition is described as an adventure that includes several obstacles on the way to reaching the North Pole - from open water "leads" to huge pressure ridges of ice.

“I'm going to the gym and trying to build up my core strength, across my back, and my legs,” said Meagan. “It's going to require a lot of brute strength. Hauling over the Lead and pressure ridges will require a lot of grunt-effort.”

Meagan’s fans can log on to sciencenorth.ca/meaganl for regular podcasts that will document how she is preparing for her expedition.

The expedition begins in Longyearbyen, Norway, a remote yet modern village located well above the Arctic circle at 78 degrees North. Participants will spend the first day in town reviewing their equipment and safety procedures. A chartered flight will bring Meagan and the expedition group to 89 degrees north latitude, where they will depart towards their goal destination — the geographic North Pole. Skiing 7-10 hours a day over the dynamic pack ice, they’ll encounter many challenges and breathtaking scenery.

If conditions are good, the route will take them across large pans of flat ice that present few obstacles. When conditions are less than ideal, the group will have to maneuver around open water "leads" and over pressure ridges that can range from 1-5 metres in height.

Meagan will also be expected to pitch-in regarding all aspects of the expedition, including setting up camp, cooking, tracking progress, etc.

When the expedition team reaches the North Pole, they may be able to spend the night there, time permitting. The following morning a helicopter pick-up and charter flight will take them back to Longyearbyen . Meagan McGrath’s Polar Adventure is inspired by Science North.

About Meagan McGrath

Meagan is a 31-year old Sudburian, and a Captain in the Canadian Air Force. She is an aerospace engineer and works at the Air Force Experimentation Centre in Ottawa. As a child, Meagan regularly visited Science North and was a regular participant in Science North's summer camps and programs…and that inspired her to pursue a career in science.

Science North has been a proud supporter of Meagan during many of her greatest achievements.

In May 2007 she reached the summit of Mount Everest and achieved her dream of becoming the first Canadian Forces member and the youngest Canadian female to achieve the Seven Summits — the highest peaks on seven continents.

In December 2007, Meagan successfully climbed Carstensz Pyramid, the highest mountain in Oceania. In doing so she became the only Canadian female, and the first Canadian Forces Member to achieve both versions of the Seven Summits!

In April 2008, Meagan McGrath crossed the finish line at the 2008 Marathon des Sables — a gruelling 7-day race through the Sahara desert. She exceeded even her own expectations, placing 24th among the top 25 women in the race!

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For more information on the city of Sudbury and Science North (both historic and traveller-friendly destinations in Northern Ontario's "Nickel Belt," click on the preceding links.

And don't forget to visit Meagan's website.