True North: A Journey into Unexplored Wilderness

by Elliott Merrick

I’ve never been happier than that morning on the hill. I thought to myself, “This is the place in the world where I would like most to be, and I am here.” People say it is no use poking off to far corners, that you are still you and you see but yourself through your own eyes. Well, they lie, poor things. I am a thousand different persons, and today I am the freest, strongest, happiest of them all. I can feel the charm of a city park, that oasis of green amid the stone, but it is not like this, and why pretend it is? Why be satisfied with half a loaf, with half-beauty, with half-honesty, with half-life? This moment is worth months of pain and fatigue and hunger mixed with the tight cramp of cold. This moment is worth twice what it cost. I should like to die in a place like this. I’d die five years sooner to be allowed to die here alone without benefit of clergy, for the clergy is no more necessary to my religion than ships are to the sea. What fun it would be to build a cabin on the lake and live here for years and years, just Kay and I. And in the spring the ducks would come, and in summer the grass and wild bluebells, and our canoe would creep in and out of every bay and cove. And the world could go its way and we would go ours in our own hidden world deep in the wilderness. We would not know of wars or increased taxes or inauguration addresses or who was the world’s heavyweight champion or how many were murdered yesterday, and it would be good not to know, and not to be ...