A Walk On the Wild & Scenic Side

What do a winter reading list, an environmental film festival, and a new outlook on 2019 have to do with one another? Read on to find out…

This past December, I went through my stacks and stacks (and stacks) of books and instead of purging (thanks for the vote of confidence, Anakana Schofield), I committed to actually reading them in 2019. I have a bad (or good?) habit of picking up books at used bookstores and then forgetting to read them! Or, I read two chapters and then move on to the next cool topic. I know for a fact that I’m not the only one who does this and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it; there’s just too many things to learn about and understand! Nevertheless, I endeavour to actually READ my books instead of just collect them.

Word Choice!

I also committed to framing 2019 with a word. Not an original idea (a quick Google search will point this out…175 million hits, anybody?), this is a new-to-me concept. It was brought up over a beautiful New Year’s gathering this year and I really quite love it. Typically by March I can’t remember what I committed to in the frenzy of January 1 resolutions but this year I’ve decided to try a different course of action. My word?

Follow-through.

I know…technically two words. I’m makin’ my own rules!

It turns out that the easiest areas of my life for me to try applying this phrase has been in my reading (book list!) and my writing (this blog and my journal). It also turns out that doing both are what inspire me and make me feel creative. Funny how that works. 😉

All this to say that this past weekend, I finished the first book in my stack of books dedicated to winter page-turnin’ (A Walk In the Woods: Rediscovering America On the Appalachian Trail by Bill Bryson) and I thought it a great way to book-end (ha ha!) a recent mid-January week of environmental awesomeness. You see, just a few weeks ago ago, Jan and I were in Nevada City, California, for the Wild & Scenic Film Festival. What a month it has been!

First, the book.

Bill Bryson’s book describes, through personal anecdotes and historical/scientific facts, a sliver of the great outdoors known as the Appalachian Trail (aka ‘the AT’), a wandering hiking trail that starts in the state of Georgia, hugging the eastern seaboard to end up in Maine (my former home state!). He writes of his attempts to traverse the entire length of the AT, a feat that takes most who attempt it upwards of 6 months.

To be frank, it is entirely beside the point whether or not he actually finishes (I’ll leave that up to you to find out) because the book really ends up being this beautiful, hilarious, and informative narrative about his experience with the trail and the great outdoors in general. I laughed, cried, shook my head, and did a lot of day-dreaming while reading this: his descriptions about the flora and fauna and the humans he encountered along the way were so beautiful and made me appreciate all of the diversity we as humans are so lucky to experience on this planet. Which brings me to my next point…

• 

• 

• 

• 

The Film Festival

The Wild and Scenic Film Festival bills itself as a place “where activism gets inspired” and I would say that is spot on! Started by the South Yuba River Citizens League in 2002, as a way to educate their fellow citizens in Nevada City about the importance of advocating for the environment, the festival is now in its 17th year. Success?! Yah!

Over the course of three days in the middle of a deluge of almost-constant rain (and some snow!), we were positively bombarded with film after film showcasing this big, blue-green ball we call home and why it is imperative that we as stewards of this earth protect and restore natural, wild spaces. So many stories!! Our brains and hearts were quite full by the end of the weekend.

Here were some of our film favourites:

• Blue Heart explored the impacts of dams on local communities in the Balkan Region of Europe and moved us to tears with its beautiful and empowering storytelling.
• The Radicals, followed a group of activist snowboarders as they search for beautiful lines to carve and beautiful people and communities to work with to help protect their sacred lands.
• Junk, a short documentary from the 5 Gyres team featuring Marcus Eriksen and Joel Paschal as they journey across the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre and their experiences interacting with plastic along the way.
• The Reluctant Radical, a movie that should be required watching in all classrooms. Hard stop.

Just as Bryson did with his words in A Walk In the Woods, so too did the directors of each of these films make us feel something. The WCFF served as a very, very poignant reminder of the massive power of storytelling: tell it well and you capture your audience’s hearts and minds. After all…

People protect what they love.

Jacques Yves-Cousteau

---

There’s a theme here…these stories, written on paper or told through moving pictures, remind us of why. Why does what I do matter? Why does what any of us do matter? How can I possibly do anything impactful?! The “why-fuel” became super clear in these films and in Bryson’s words. Fuel that we so desperately need right now to keep on advocating for this place we love. This place we call home.

• 

• 

• 

Take-home messages

During a small activism workshop on the last day of the film festival, Anna Cummins and Marcus Eriksen, the founders of 5 Gyres (and my heroes!) touched on something that has been nagging at me recently with the advent of social media and access to information. They talked about distraction specifically as it relates to reducing consumer’s consumption of single-use plastics (my most favourite of topics).

We’re in a time where we can view the world through a tiny, palm-sized device. It’s basically magic, but it’s also dangerous magic. We’ve become splintered: there are too many causes. We have this sense that we’re in a crowded room where nobody can hear us. We’d quite frankly rather watch cats do dumb things on the Internet.

This all has the unfortunate side effect of distracting and overwhelming us. We waste time on social media instead of using it to drive change, apathy ensues, woe is us. Boo-urns.

This is so not true.

Case in point: this plastic pollution activism workshop with 5 Gyres. In the room were a variety of folks of all ages and walks of life. They were all there because they wanted to do something in their communities. It was beautiful to watch, actually. At one point after a lengthy debate about how to convince a local grocery store to get rid of its plastic packaging, Anna Cummins got up and actually asked the audience to put up their hands if they were from that town. It turned out, there were already a handful of individual advocates in the room! All they needed was some glue to bring them together.

Quiet the noise

To combat the chaos of the world (and its sisters: overwhelm and apathy), Eriksen said, we must focus and reject distraction. Remember, the theme for this festival was inspiring activism. Check, check, aaand check. Time after time, we saw examples of individuals banding together with focused determination to make something happen. It was enough to make your heart burst with the awesomeness of it!!

In A Walk In the Woods, Bryson spends his days walking, talking to other trail companions, and observing. That’s it! The book was written in 1998, before the advent of the iPhone, which is almost more relevant now given how far we’ve come – he has no distractions other than the stuff his brain comes up with. For him, focus was a necessity in order to work through the physical and mental burden of walking with a heavy pack all day, every day for weeks at a time. Through that focus, he was able to observe all kinds of thing that a distracted, splintered mind would have missed.

Follow-Through

Which brings me to my last point: follow-through. My word! In order to have follow-through, one must have focus. I first learned about this concept during my glory days of bench-warming for my middle and high-school basketball team (see Dad? I did learn something! O:-)). The idea is to aim, shoot, and then stay the course until the ball (hopefully) swishes through the net. Focus, aim, shoot, stay. IT doesn’t matter what it looks like, but you must stay the course.

Upon returning to wintery Canada, we retreated to the snowy wilderness to ponder all that we absorbed during the festival and one thing became crystal clear: activism, whatever kind it may be, is our power, but it needs to be given deliberate, focused attention. We have to get out there and fight for what we believe to be true. With the right conditions and the right people, activism has the power to change the world. Indeed, this has been proven true time and time again. We have more power than we think, we just forget about that power!

Never doubt that a group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.

Margaret Mead

---

Thanks to Bryson and the Wild & Scenic Film Festival, I feel armed and ready to follow-through and focus on my aspirations for a healthier, plastic-less planet and I would invite anyone reading this to join me. Let’s take a walk In the Wild and Scenic Woods. 🙂