Reflection, British Columbia, Canada

Squirrel taking an interest in our lunch, Stawamus Chief First Peak

 Recent posts have been a bit more "we did this, then we did that..." than "we did this, and I thought about that, and she said this...).  Blame it on the covid or the travel fatigue or the laziness, but as we come to the final stages of our year away, we're all reflecting a bit more and wondering what the indelible legacy of this grand foray will be.  It's hard to see the wood for the trees when you are in the forest and even harder not to let the day to day stresses and strains cloud your day to day enjoyment.  As is human nature, we have moments of wonder at what we have been given and of pride at what we have achieved.  We also have moments of regret and shame at what we didn't do more or less of.  

A recurring trigger for feelings of guilt and despair is human-caused climate change and environmental damage.  The three tracks of this story are broadly: we have seen so many wonderful places; we have seen a lot of hints of the degradation; we have binged on carbon spewing flights and other resource intensive pursuits.  We can point to covid as having prevented us from planning an efficient route and using less polluting transport options and we can rationalise that our behaviour is insignificant in the grand scheme of things and perhaps even a net benefit if we make the argument that our kids will take this experience and likely be better stewards of their planet as a result.  I don't much buy that - I know everything I need to know to make informed choices but I am still trapped in an unsustainable lifestyle, seemingly by both the global economic order and, more intangibly, my own psychology. Maybe we do 10% better than one neighbour or 10% less than another, but we are still doing 500% worse than people with the lowest incomes who, at the same time as not contributing to the problem, are also on the front line of the effects of the outcome.  This is a difficult moment to live in.  We know the problem, we are clearly seeing the changes in weather and climate and the impact that that is having on our ability to survive and thrive.  But we have made no progress in improving the situation (unless you consider a reduction in the pace of making things worse an improvement).  

There is a company dragging a huge net around in the Pacific to pick up garbage.  It's a really cool project and it's exciting and it teases at the possibility of those often promised technological solutions. But we're still increasing the amount of plastic we make every year. With a growing population and an ever rising global so-called middle-class, who are the drivers of increased consumption, there is no reason to hope that this will change.  We will increasingly find better ways of doing some things but great damage has already been done and damage will continue to be done.  The future is not hopeless but it is going to be more and more challenging.  

If I had a larger readership I might create a firestorm of controversy by suggesting that we may look back to somewhere around the 1990s as a golden age, a time when medical science and global institutions were giving many people a high quality of life and before the effects of environmental damage and their knock-on consequences began to be felt in any really tangible way. Of course progress is and always will be diverse and non-linear but we have big, unsolvable, globally systemic problems now, in a way that I just don't think we ever have had before.  Yes, we might have had a nuclear war in the 1960s but we could have recovered from that and it would not have caused any lasting systemic damage.  Best case scenario we stop damaging consumption patterns now and live in a degraded world.  But we can't stop because our infrastructure, homes, cities, jobs, day to day survival, depend on our continuing to consume in more or less the way we are now.  I could go on but then I might lose the will to go on, and in the unlikely event that you've read this far, you certainly will too...

Closer to home, how have we done?  We would have liked this year of upheaval and constant change for the kids to come on the back of a nice stable foundation of school routine and home life. But the pandemic had other ideas. So after two years of lock downs, learning interruptions, cancelled sports and impending doom, it does feel that this is yet another year of tumult in their young lives.  What has been gained? I don't think we will know for years to come.  The experiences of this year will percolate slowly through the day to day of our lives over the coming years, sometimes consciously but more often in the background.  For a start, there has just been too much to assimilate.  If I stop to think what we've done it is hard to think of a single thing.  But if I start one memory many others come cascading, one daisy-chained to the next.  I can't wait to ask the kids about this experience in a year from now and two and five...  We've wrestled with not doing enough "school" work, reassuring ourselves that they will somehow catch up, that these are experiences that will complement and perhaps even enrich their time in school.  We agonise about the sports and extra-curriculars that they missed through the pandemic and this year.  We worry about the social isolation, the distance from their friends.  We marvel at their ability to start conversations with adults in backcountry huts and to then regale them with all sorts of new knowledge and accounts of adventures.  I suppose this is the truth of taking any opportunity - to take an opportunity you must forgo another.  

And then there is a matter of style.  We have used Airbnb for the overwhelming majority of our stays and we have mixed feelings.  One of our regrets has been our social isolation.  Staying in more hostels and backpackers would have ameliorated this and has been fun when we have done it, but seemed impossible to do safely, at least at the beginning of the year and through Omicron.  Airbnb has also given us a kitchen of some sort which seemed essential and generally our stays have been relatively affordable, averaging out around C$150/night for the four of us.  On the transport side we have rented a lot of cars.  Again this is a hugely convenient but isolating and sterile way to get around.  The cars have often been our home as we move ourselves and our junk from one stop to another.  And again, travelling on public transport, certainly for much of the year, would have made us feel like covidiots.  When I was 18 I flew from London to Delhi and started walking with my backpack and in the midday sun towards the city, so afraid was I of getting ripped off by a taxi.  We traveled by bus and train and stayed in the cheapest places we could find, eating street food and getting diarrhea.  It was a formative experience.  I worry that we may have spoilt the kids and/or denied them that first shocking, immersive travel experience.  Or maybe this is just like doing anything with your parents, and the freedom of independence is the real adventure to come.  

To conclude on a positive: in March 2021, a year after the pandemic had started and before any laypeople had booked a vaccination, we had to decide whether to go for it or whether to defer.  We went for it with plan A to travel the world (including Australasia), plan B to dip our toe in Europe, and plan C to spend the year around Canada.  We left Ottawa in August with a one way ticket to London and another to Alicante, Spain.  In the end we managed to achieve plan A, mainly on the fly, the trip planning being a rolling constant, reacting to short-notice changes in government policies and ultimately making it work, sometimes by sailing with the wind and sometimes by paddling hard against the current.  Sitting in the cool morning sunshine at the Squamish Adventure Inn Hostel in BC having done a jet lag hike up the Chief yesterday and with a family climbing course booked for this afternoon, it is easy to feel a profound satisfaction at how things have worked out, at how we have worked things out.  Our lives are about taking the extraordinary privilege and opportunity that have been gifted to us and making the most of it, treating people right along the way.  Although there is some sadness about this chapter coming to an end, we are unbelievably lucky to have so much to look forward to: going back to a home we love, seeing friends and family who we all miss, doing activities that bring us joy, re-starting jobs that give us meaning. Thanks.