We are not running away from anything, but toward something invisible, yet shimmering with possibility. A new way of being, a simpler life, a slower life…a life of more risk and adventure.

~Christine Valters Paintner

Crossing the invisible line into Canadian waters I felt a deep sigh of relief to be headed north at last. Due to a dingy issue that kept my husband and I circling back to Anacortes, Washington where our boat is normally moored, I was beginning to wonder if our adventure would ever get launched. Entering Canada near North Pender Island was the furthest away from our home marina we’d gotten thus far and the call of the deep fiords beyond the northern tip of Vancouver Island were tugging at my heart. Ultimately, Glacier Bay will be our final destination, the termination point of the waterway that connects the state of Washington to Alaska known as the Inside Passage, but for now, Fiord Land Provincial Park along the coast of British Columbia is where we plan to end our trek this year.

Sitting on the deck at Doc Morgan’s Pub overlooking the marina at Snug Cove, a short ferry ride away from the city of Vancouver, we settled into plastic green chairs with the sun warming our backs. When the cold draft beer, halibut fish-n-chips, and peel-and-eat shrimp arrive we toast our good fortune to at last be on our way to explore more of the western coast of Canada. Each year we make it a little further along our path towards Alaska, adding both time and distance as we prepare for our three-month voyage along the entire Inside Passage. This has been a dream that laid dormant for many years but now beckons us to make it real, pulling us towards a pared down life on a boat, one that includes a bit of adventure. It reminds me of my pilgrimage on land from Porto, Portugal to Santiago, Spain.

Once again I am moving north, this time on the water, aligning my inner compass as I follow my longing to be in the wilderness for a time and trusting it will lead me where I need to be, content that I don’t need to fully understand the purpose of it all. It feels a bit like an initiation into becoming the wise crone where all the extraneous stuff like titles, and labels, and achievements get stripped away, or at least put into perspective and something deeper and more important replaces it. Getting back in touch with nature recalibrates me. Perhaps that is why so many native initiation rites involve time alone in the wilderness? There is truth to be found there that cannot be learned any other way and it reintroduces me to myself, the part that transcends my ego and personality. I need to be reminded of her now-and-again, the person that appears so inconsequential in light of the vastness of ocean and the mountains and the shear age of the universe yet at the same time matters beyond measure.