Queen Elizabeth, Alaska, and the Call of the North

 “There’s a land - oh, it beckons and beckons,

And I want to go back - and I will.”

 

Robert W. Service, The Spell of the Yukon

 

Long Year of Travel and Trekking

 
From the outside, what we had just finished might have looked a little like a birder’s version of a Big Year.  Months of travel across countries and oceans after years of hiking across a continent.  New species, new trails, and a lifestyle oriented around weather, migration and the hope of seeing something rare…if not new, if we stayed out long enough.  To those watching us, to those following our #Hike4Birds on the Trans Canada Trail, our undertakings must have felt exhilarating, intrepid, awesome – even (maybe on some level) a little inspirational. 

The truth is, of course, less tidy, it might look glamorous, but in reality, it is far more exhausting.
 
This past year has been one that has been lived largely on foot, in a tent and at times voyaging on an ocean liner.  It has had its highlights and big moments…but it has undoubtedly also been defined by long days and long distances. All of which means that by the end of the year, we were exhausted.

In the past 12 months alone, we have crossed the Atlantic, walked nearly fifty days across England and Scotland,  followed Wainwright’s Coast to Coast, the Pennine Way, the West Highland Way, the Great Glen Way, and Hadrian’s Wall.

We crossed the Atlantic again aboard Queen Mary 2, travelled across Canada on VIA Rail’s Canadian, and soon after returned north to the Trans Canada Trail, extending our journey toward the Arctic.

…..all the while carrying the pressures and worries that we had built up in our own minds and own lives…..
 
As such, by the time we boarded Queen Elizabeth bound for the north, we were bone tired. Not the pleasant kind of tiredness that follows a good day outdoors, but the deeper kind that sets in after months and years of sustained effort over tens of thousands of kilometres.

 
And yet, the north beckons, Alaska is calling.

 

With that said, we don’t view this voyage as a reward nor do we feel that it is a vacation….at least not in the usual sense. To return to the north, to a place that has already shaped us, is hard to explore or understand…until you have been there.  Robert Service and his poems capture the allure and calling best….
 
As such, despite our exhaustion, we are setting off with the goal of being as attentive as we can to the landscapes, seascapes, marine life, and of course, the birds.  In the north, our goal is to allow nature to remind us why travel still matters and why the world, with all of its challenges, is wondrous.

 
Only a few hundred meters from Canada Place in Vancouver stands one of the Trans Canada Trail markers we passed two years earlier while walking through to the Pacific Ocean. Standing on the dock that morning,  we could not help but notice how close those two journeys now felt - most of the trail behind us, and the northern waters ahead.
 
We are looking forward to this journey because the uncertainties, doubts, and concerns we had months ago when we first boarded Cunard’s QM2 have been replaced by fond memories of being at sea and free from the pressures of the world – at least for a short time.  
 
See you on board!