Setting off into the unknown

And not just politically.  It's been a scary week. As a committed socialist the recent election results have been hard to take. But I've also been focused on a long distance trip.  Yes, I'm leaving the country - but only for 3 weeks!  And it's one of the scariest trips of my life.  I'm heading for the wilderness,  more than 1,000 miles north of Vancouver, off the coast of Alaska.
Some of the old Mortuary poles I'm hoping to seeFor the past 3 years I've been working on a new poetry collection, centred round the mythology, and the history, of the Haida people who lived on islands off the Pacific coast of Canada and Alaska for more than 8,000 years (until we arrived).  Within a couple of decades of our arrival as colonists their population was reduced from more than twenty thousand to less than five hundred. They have a unique culture - both art and poetry - which I'm hoping to experience at first hand rather than just through books.  Like most hunter gatherer societies they had a holistic approach to the environment they lived in and depended upon.  They had a saying 'Everything is connected to Everything'.  That has a very strong message for us today.

A Haida RavenThe journey is epic - seaplanes, boats and on foot.  A nightmare to book over distances online.  Every booking I make seems to be dependent on the weather, so nothing is certain.  I'll be reporting back whenever I can, via the Blog and Facebook.  This documentary trailer gives you an idea of what it's like.


I'm starting off by going to a workshop run by Martin Shaw, on Cortes Island (small seaplane to Campbell River, 2 ferries and a shuttle!) in the south.  The workshop is called 'Mythteller'.  I'm looking forward to exploring the mythologies of North America with such an expert and hoping that this retreat will help me to finish the collection.