Wonderful thread! Thanks for bringing it back and building on it.  Any reply I would craft would just be cutting and pasting from half a dozen of the above... or just Akula's last sentence, maybe.

Jim J Solo wrote on Mar 30^th, 2017 at 2:17pm:


Different experience, but it sounds as though you can relate!

Solopaddler, That 30 day reference reminded me of the time I spent in S. America. Sometime during the trip I began dreaming in Spanish and by the time I returned to the states I felt revolted by the materialism and "I want it now" attitude. I wanted to get right back on a plane and leave. That trip was a month long too. I was visiting my sister in the peace corp, traveling with other peace corp volunteers, basically dirt bagging it through Columbia and Peru.

An interesting post, so many kindred spirits here.

For a great many years paddling defined me as a person and I was often asked why do you do it? Especially the long solo expeditions.

After giving it some thought, this is my long and slightly convoluted answer. 

I always found on the really long solo trips it took me at least a month to finally shed the trappings of civilization and truly become in tune with my environment. Did I ever feel lonely? No. traveling every day, experiencing new sights and vistas around every bend kept me constantly engaged and filled with wonder.
Time became irrelevant. I slept when I was tired, ate when I was hungry and I was beholden to no one.
The ability to carry everything I needed to function happily on my back gave me an incredible sense of freedom. Food, clothing, shelter, transportation - all distilled down to it's most basic form. More than anything those long trips taught me just how little we as humans need to be happy and content.
That lesson has stuck with me and has fundamentally changed me as a person. To this day I value experiences far more than things and always will.
The spiritual aspect of it has been mentioned and it's very true. How can one not feel it when faced with the magnificence of the landscape you're traveling through? To become intimately connected to that very same environment is as close to a religious experience as I'll ever have.
That aside, doing those long solo trips was empowering, instilling in me a deep seated sense of self confidence. Basically, "if I can do this, well then I can do anything!" Those trips changed my entire outlook on life and gave me the confidence to shape it in the way that I wanted.
Every man is the master of his own destiny. Mine has and always will revolve around wilderness.   
         

Abbey was indeed a southwest guy and he spent a lot of time in Arches, before it was a National Park. In writing about Arches, he said, "This is the most beautiful place on earth. There are many such places."

So he recognized we all may have our own "most beautiful place", and the point is to spend as much time there as you can.

Agreed!
ml

Even if E. Abbey did died at 62, in my book he did out live the bastards.

You can live a life of intention or sit back to wait and see what happens, thinking that is what's meant for you.

MuleLars -

What a great quote!

One of my favorite recording artists, Tom Russell, does a great song about Edward Abbey: (You need to Login or Register to view media files and links)

Though I think Abbey was mostly a SW desert & mountains guy, his words certainly apply to the North Woods as far as I'm concerned.  Good choice!

Jimbo   

For me, the allure of Canoe Country, as well as my other wilderness adventures, is best summed up by Edward Abbey:

“Be as I am - a reluctant enthusiast....a part-time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic. Save the other half of yourselves and your lives for pleasure and adventure. It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it. While you can. While it’s still here. So get out there and hunt and fish and mess around with your friends, ramble out yonder and explore the forests, climb the mountains, bag the peaks, run the rivers, breathe deep of that yet sweet and lucid air, sit quietly for a while and contemplate the precious stillness, the lovely, mysterious, and awesome space. Enjoy yourselves, keep your brain in your head and your head firmly attached to the body, the body active and alive, and I promise you this much; I promise you this one sweet victory over our enemies, over those desk-bound men and women with their hearts in a safe deposit box, and their eyes hypnotized by desk calculators. I promise you this; You will outlive the bastards.”

Nothing describes my trips to the BWCA/Q better than that I do go to breathe deep of that yet sweet and lucid air, sit quietly for awhile and contemplate the precious stillness, the lovely, mysterious and awesome space.

ml

DentonDoc wrote on Mar 20^th, 2017 at 6:00pm:


YES.

To be in the real world.

To hear the voices of the forest, lake and stream; to smell the earth that has not seen the manipulation of man's hand and the occasional hint of distant rain on the breeze or the whiff of ozone from a nearby lightening strike; and to taste the champagne-like freshness of a sip from a cup of water that was just lying along side my canoe.  All of these serve as a backdrop to the cornucopia of sights my eyes have beheld, playing in a infinite loop in my mind.  These I employ to subdue the constant buzz of the world in which we live until the cacophony subsides into a mere hum.

dd