445 - The Most Dangerous Day of My Arctic Journey and What It Taught Me About Satisfaction and Happiness

Hello everyone, I hope you're well, and I hope that your training, whatever it looks

like, is going well as well.

What I've got for you today are the last two chapters in my book, Perseverance Life

and Death in the Subartic, and I think that there are a lot of lessons here for everyone,

regardless of whether you do Jiu Jitsu, train in another martial art, or try to accomplish

anything difficult in life.

Because ultimately, one has to push oneself in physically, emotionally, and mentally

challenging circumstances from time to time, no matter what one does.

And so one can learn a lot from other people, even if one never actually does that activity.

For example, I'm not an alpinist, I don't climb mountains, but I learn a tremendous amount

about dealing with the physical, emotional, and mental challenges in extreme circumstances

by following what mountaineers are doing, because that's a pretty distilled environment.

Taking the lessons from that environment and applying it into my own is very useful.

So at the start of this episode, I've just spent 41 days in the deep, subartic, and arctic

wilderness of Canada.

The last 26 days have been spent completely alone.

There have been bears, there have been caribou, there have been forest fires, there have been

rapids, there have not been any people.

So I'm re-entering society now, and it's this weird, staged process, which really helps

clarify a few very important things.

Incidentally, this book is available everywhere that you get books, Barnes and Noble, Indigo,

Amazon, it's actually quite heavily on sale on Amazon at the time of recording.

Hopefully it's still that level on sale at the time of release, and it's available in

physical, Kindle, and audiobook formats.

If you enjoy this little snippet, please check out the whole thing, and if you've already

consumed the whole thing, then a rating or review on Amazon or on Goodreads is super

appreciated.

Thank you so much.

Hey there, I'm Stefan Kesting, and this is the Straduous Life Podcast.

Day 41, The Bay At Last, August 10th, 2019.

All good things come to an end, and there came a day when we turned our canoes down the

liard and saw Nahani butte sink below the horizon, perhaps for the last time.

When it was that I realized we had been allowed to live for a little time in a world apart,

a lonely world of surpassing beauty that had given us all things from the somber magnificence

of the canyons to the gay sunshine of those wind-swept uplands, from the utter silence

of the dryside canyons to the uproar of the broken waters, a land that men pass, and

the silence that falls back into place behind them, R.M. Patterson, the dangerous river.

I staggered out of the tent physically crushed, it had taken forever to calm down and I had

slept less than four hours, not nearly enough to recover from the near continuous exertion

and insane headwinds of the last week.

The 5 a.m. sun climbed into the narrow band of clear sky between the horizon and the clouds

overhead, tinging the land with a teary and purple glow.

Despite my bone weariness, I was also excited.

There were only about 50 kilometers left to Hudson Bay and it was all down river.

This should have been a leisurely morning paddle, but of course it was not.

A dense bank of clouds moved in as I ate breakfast, removing all color from the world

and turning everything monochromatic gray.

The light gusts of early morning stiffened into a strong headwind.

When I cast off from shore, the boat skittered sideways on the river, the strong downstream

current was wholly cancelled out by the wind blowing up river.

Instead of the current at my back, there was a wind on my face.

To make my new rendezvous, I would need to cover all those 50 kilometers with paddle

power alone.

Downstream from the camp was a serious rapid that required a lot of ferrying.

Ferrying in smaller rapids is often a short, tactical maneuver that relies on precisely

calibrating your angle and speed to account for the force of the current.

By contrast, ferrying on the large, wide rapids of the lower Flouillazza was becoming an

endurance exercise where I had to maintain paddle power for extended periods while dodging

haystacks, rocks and curling waves.

The first ledge forced me to ferry out into the middle of the river.

Immediately afterwards, I had to start working my way back to the left to avoid a different

hydraulic.

Then a final ledge on my left forced me back into the middle of the river again.

It reminded me of Frogger, that video game from the early 1980s where you try to get

a frog across a busy highway by moving forward, backward, left and right without getting

squashed by the uncaring traffic.

By the end of the rapids, the wind was howling, but this would just mere foreplay compared

to the much stronger storm coming in tomorrow.

Missing that pickup boat would have dire consequences.

I paddled for hours against the omnipresent wind, and eventually the river splintered

into many smaller channels which perforated an endless maze of islands.

This was a Flouillazza delta, the last obstacle before the ocean.

Most deltas are languid, lazy affairs, where a depleted river drifts down to its final

resting place in a lake or an ocean.

The Flouillazza was the opposite, the delta churned with rapids for 20 kilometers as a river

flung itself off the land and into the sea.

Getting river deltas is often confusing, the massive number of islands and the changing

landscape create an intricate maze where your map doesn't necessarily correspond to what's

ahead of you.

Today, the ongoing white water and the eye blurring rain made tracking my location even trickier.

I also had large aggressive carnivores on the brain and glared at every white rock, daring

it to become a polar bear.

I opened the fasteners holding the waterproof shotgun case shut, there might not be enough

room to maneuver around a thread in the narrower channels.

Better the gun get wet from the rain than I die fumbling with the buckles, I thought.

Then I saw a dark brown shape moving side to side on the shore about half a mile ahead.

I concluded that this must be a skinny hundred grizzly, so I took the shotgun out of its case

and laid it within easy reach on the four deck of the boat.

A few seconds later, I laughed aloud, this bear was only a stone's throw away.

It had a white head and feathers.

It wasn't a five hundred pound grizzly bear, instead it was a ten pound bald eagle hunting

for geese.

The rain and lack of trees for reference had completely distorted by sense of distance

and scale.

I wish I could say those final few hours on the river produced a cascade of profound

revelations from pondering the meaning of 41 days alone in the wilderness.

That would be a lie.

The truth was far more prosaic.

The mundane procedural minutiae of travel took up all available mental bandwidth.

Which of these two channels should I go down?

The water deeper to the left of that rock.

My shoulder hurts.

Should I bail some water out of the boat?

Did the wind just change direction?

Any asignations of meaning would need to come later during retrospective analysis.

The current cut through the soil to create tall river banks, exposed polished bedrock,

and produce a dizzying array of diverging and converging river channels.

A large river joined the delta from the north.

This was the Thane River, which flows through the remote Tundra north of the Fluiasa and

merges with it in the last kilometers before the bay.

The memory of that short glimpse of the Thane is singing to me as I write this, urging

me to return to the barren lands and explore that river.

And maybe someday I will.

Gradually the river slowed and it became harder to find deep water.

The wind faded and a heavy fog gathered further decreasing visibility.

The water became gradually saltier from fresh to brackish to oceanic.

I was now in the legendary tidal flats of Hudson Bay.

The mud and boulder flats extend out from shore for miles at low tide before you get to deeper

waters.

Under the rain and the fog I saw the remains of a small cabin on a bluff to the north.

I was supposed to meet my pick up there and I rejoiced.

After paddling 50 kilometers without a single break, my body had never felt so tired.

My muscles were nearly useless now and any headwind would have halted all progress.

Fortunately the ocean was calm and I crawled towards the cabin landmark at a snail's pace.

Just as I approached the landmark, my GPS buzzed.

The satellite text message read, the tide is out, water too shallow.

Meet us at 60.47 degrees north, 94.59 degrees west.

Unfortunately this location was 4 kilometers away out in the open water.

I should have known better than to fixate so much on one specific goal.

The finish line had just shifted and I felt gutted.

There was nothing to do but a glumly swing the boat around and limp into the offshore mist.

There was nothing but shallow water, occasional boulders and patches of exposed mud.

This was a bizarre trust exercise relying on a compass and GPS to navigate through the

fog onto the ocean to a destination that I couldn't see.

Those last 4 kilometers took forever, my physiological gas tank was empty and I crawled past

the intertidal boulders and deepened to the fog at a glacial pace.

Finally one of the boulders ahead started changing shape as I got closer.

It was a boat, a large orange flag had been hoisted into the air to make it more visible

and it had too intimate men on board.

Thanks for picking me up, I said as I paddled my boat alongside theirs.

No problem, they said.

The men hauled my canoe aboard their open 20 foot aluminum boat.

I was being picked up by Josephic attack junior, a conservation officer who would go on

to become the mayor of Arviet and his father, Josephic attack senior, the premier of the

territory of Nunavut.

The premier had been home for a few days and had spontaneously decided to accompany

his son for the day, I felt honored.

The outboard motor roared us toward deeper water.

The cold wind and large chop made me grateful that I didn't have to paddle this section.

It would have been a difficult and dangerous journey.

The northern genetics of the two joes were on full display as they barely needed gloves

for the freezing ride.

I shivered and stuffed my hands deep into my raincoat.

But it's summertime, the two inuit men laughed.

During the boat ride it finally began to sink in that the trip was over.

I had traveled the old way north, had some amazing experiences and seen some incredible things.

My kidney and I had pushed ourselves to the absolute limit and somehow had achieved

the goal before everything broke down completely.

The doubt, pain and suffering of the last 41 days seemed worth it.

Three hours later, low bumps on the shore slowly resolved into the houses of Arviet, a small

inuit town with 2,000 souls.

When we landed at the dock, the two joes loaded my gear onto an ATV and drove me to one of

the two hotels in town.

Being inside the paddly inn in dripping ranger, I learned that exactly one room was left.

It was a tiny room, but I didn't care.

The decor was drab, but I didn't care.

And it was over $300 a night, but I didn't care.

It was warm and sheltered, the only two things that were important.

The enclosed space of my room made me realize that I sank the way that only a man wearing

the same clothes for weeks could stink.

Still wearing my paddling clothes, I walked down to the general store and bought razors,

chocolate and a complete change of clothing.

The clothing selection was limited, and the best I could do was to grab a three-quarter

sleeve t-shirt straight out of the early 1990s and fleece pajama bottoms with a green camouflage

pattern.

There was no saving my clothes, so they all went into the garbage at the hotel.

Then, I stumbled towards the shower and spent an hour under the hot water, after which

I finally almost felt warm.

I ate a simple dinner in the hotel dining room and collapsed onto the tiny bed while the

cold Arctic rain continued to fall outside.

I come from the land of the ice and snow, from the midnight sun with a hot springs flow.

The hammer of the gods, I'll drive my ship to new lands, to fight the horde and sing

and cry, Valhalla, I am coming.

It's Eplin, the immigrant song.

Post script on the difference between happiness and satisfaction.

We are not now that strength which in old days moved earth in heaven, that which we are,

we are.

One equal temper of heroic hearts made weak by time and fate, but strong and will to

strive to seek to find and not to yield.

Hordelor Tennyson, Ulysses.

High winds and freezing rain punished us passengers crossing the tarmac of the Arviet

airport as we boarded a jet bound for the south.

The bad weather that had chased me into Arviet had worsened overnight.

The wind had become a gale and the rain become sleet and the waves on Hudson Bay had become

unsurvivable.

If not for pushing myself to the limits of endurance, I would have now been sharing the storm blasted

shores of Hudson Bay with some very wet polar bears.

Once they were born, the endless tundra lakes and forests of the Canadian-shield rolled

past the plains windows.

In minutes we crossed lakes where I had struggled for days, south, south, south, all that work

undone by 90 minutes of air travel.

Nine years prior, I had thought I was financially ruined for life.

Five years prior, I had been on the brink of death from kidney failure.

And now I was homeward bound, having completed a goal that had haunted me since my youth.

The trip had been a meditation on mortality, fueled by my brushes with this life threatening

medical condition, the loss of my brothers, my mother, and my grandmother.

Somehow, a stubborn belief that things would eventually break my way had prevailed, and

it turned out that I was still capable of putting it to the touch despite all the mileage

on my body and soul.

Despite it being a solo trip, so much of this journey had been enabled by others, and

I was very grateful to them.

This undertaking would not have been possible without my wife's blessing, and it had been

made easier by the explorers and native people who had shown a path for me and their accounts.

I was so lucky that my brother Christoph had been willing and able to give up a kidney,

and that the medical technology of transplantation existed.

Fifty years earlier, I would have been dead.

One hundred years earlier, I would have been dead.

Any time other than in the modern era, I would have been dead.

In Winnipeg, my checked baggage needed to be x-rayed before it could be loaded into the

belly of the plane.

What's that, gasped a horrified airport security drone, pointing to the image of a sheath

hatchet deep in my checked luggage?

That's a very small ax and a very sturdy sheath I replied.

But what if it cuts through the sheath and out of the bag, someone could get seriously

hurt?

In a calm voice and using small words, I explained that it was impossible for the ax to

cut through the hard plastic sheath and all the gear that surrounded it and then magically

fly across the hangar into the throat of a baggage worker.

After checking with his supervisor, he eventually relented, and I didn't have to trade the axe

for the right to board the plane.

It was mind-boggling, less than 24 hours before I had been making life and death decisions

multiple times each day.

Now I was back in the world where every sharp corner is padded, and nincompoops can blurt

out, it's not safe a hundred times a day without consequence.

At the time I was incredulous and enraged, but this wasn't his fault.

The people most fearful of bears are people who have never interacted with them.

This guy, who had never used an axe, was full of trepidation about their imaginary dangers.

Since my axe and I both made it on the plane, I now think this episode was pretty funny.

My wife was waiting for me in the arrivals area of the Vancouver airport, looking impeccable

in a sleeveless navy polka dot sheath.

I rushed over in the baggy camouflage fleece pants and the Arviet T-shirt I had bought

at the northern store, 20 pounds lighter than when I had left with bloodshot eyes and patchy

facial hair from a poor shaving job.

I was immediately intercepted by a security guard who wanted to see identification.

He had quite reasonably concluded that I was a homeless person sealing luggage from the

carousels.

A few minutes later my wife and I were homeward bound, back to the kids and in UCAD.

It all felt very strange at first, I had, after all, been gone for a long time.

A few days later I grabbed dinner with two old friends.

They had questions about the trip and I was happy to go into details.

For being wind-bound on tiny beaches to paddling fourteen hours a day, I think I told a pretty

good story.

Finally, one of them blurted out, that's a really cool trip, but did you enjoy it?

The question took me a back and it took a while to collect my thoughts.

When I finally spoke, I explained that this was probably the wrong question.

Yes, this trip had many enjoyable moments, but the trip hadn't been about enjoyment.

And yes, I had been happy sometimes, but the trip hadn't been about happiness.

Most of the time I had been worried, cold, wet, scared or exhausted.

The totality of the trip wasn't as simple as seeking enjoyment.

The thrill of enjoyment and happiness fades quickly, leaving you chasing the next hit.

Yes and type one fun are responses to your current environment and feelings like that

come and go.

Instead of asking about enjoyment, the right question might have been, did you find that

satisfying?

What did you learn or how did you change?

The afterglow of satisfaction is much more durable than the fleeting sugar high of happiness.

And yes, the whole thing had been profoundly and immensely satisfying.

Because they give you satisfaction, transform who you are and you can bring those changes

back to the world with you.

You can't get to satisfaction with a lot of hard work and perseverance.

Finding meaning in life is largely about the challenges you choose and the person you

become when you tackle them.

It may not always be easier fun in the moment, but you can't go wrong with using satisfaction

as your North Star.

In the weeks and months that followed, my body slowly healed.

My God face filled in and the burning pain that had been my constant companion for so

long faded and became a memory.

Physically, I was back to where I had started, but there had been a tectonic shift in my

psyche.

I had come back stronger, enriched by the journey, excited for what lay ahead and bursting

with a deep admiration for the reservoir of capability that lies in each and every one

of us.

We shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive

where we started and know the place for the first time.

T.S. Eliot for Quartets.