Catching up!
By: Norris Andriuskevicius
“ Health is the greatest gift, contentment the greatest wealth, faithfulness the best relationship.” -Buddha
After a relaxing night in a bed that wasn’t composed of the Earth’s natural surface, we woke up at the hotel to debrief
the Leaders of the Week on their performance. A major topic we discussed was the decision to get on the Grass river on
Thursday morning to head to our final stop of Paint Lake where we would finish our backcountry expedition. Waking up
that morning to a freezing, windy, and rainy cloud filled sky the group had took a democratic vote and unanimously
decided to go for the final destination even with these terrible conditions. At the debrief we talked about how large of a
mistake this decision was by the leaders of the week and group as a whole. Largely because of the weather and
environmental impacts such as high waves and large crossings, Jeff went on to discuss how this was a huge risk and
one that could be life threatening because of Northern Canada’s extreme wilderness. At LOW brief we went on in
furthering the transition process between the backcountry and front-country by doing laundry for the first time in a month
while, we did tent mate/cook group evaluations. Next we went shopping for this upcoming weeks food situation, and I’m
not sure for what reason bought a lot more food then needed so we need to make sure we have our big stomach
prepared. And that seemed to be the case when we had 36 hot dogs for dinner with potato chips and cookies. Having
returned to society it seems the backcountry experience has taught lots of us the greater meaning of appreciation.
Surrounded by all these tools of societal construction has still been a shock and slowly re-adapting process for me
personally. But today was a day dedicated to that entire reason, making phone calls, reading emails, updating blogs, and
lots of new things we had not experienced in the past month. As we transition to the front-country I hope we continue to
develop in the way we had in the backcountry as a group. There is lots of excitement for the destinations we are reaching
for next being the Badlands and Yellowstone!
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