I met
Andy at the Paddler’s Gathering at the Hulbert Center. He’s about
sixty-five years old with long white hair, warm smile and a generally weathered
appearance. His talk was introduced by a fellow paddler who described him as
a legend in northern canoeing. Each summer, as he has done for the last thirty-five
years, he’s takes groups on canoe trips all over the Canadian north, including
a 45-50 day trip covering up to 1,000 miles. Paddlers range from 11 to 70 years
of age, novice to expert, in groups ranging from four to twelve people. In total,
he’s canoed 40,000 or so miles with the groups he’s led. His gentle
manner and big heart really impressed me.
For some reason, Andy brings to mind this quote:
"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day... "Does
it happen all at once, or bit by bit?"
"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse.
"You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't often happen to
people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or have to be carefully kept.
Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and
your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these
things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except
to people who don't understand."
- Margery Williams, from The Velveteen Rabbit
Andy still has some rooom in three trips scheduled this summer,
including a 47-day trip, several hundred mile trip down the Albany river. if
you’ve got an inclination to see real wilderness in the company of someone
who knows and loves it intimately, these trips are a wonderful opportunity.
For more information, email Andy at wway@ulster.net
or visit his website at http://www.wilderway.com/.
Rod: Andy, how did you get into taking groups on long trips
in the Canadian wilderness?
Andy Smyth: My dad sent me up to canoe camp in Canada, CampWaban
when I was thirteen. I immediately fell in love with canoe tripping. Something
I didn’t even know existed before then.
Because my dad couldn’t afford to send me up again the
next year, I worked on my uncle’s farm in the winters to make enough money.
With a little help from the camp, I got back up there. So that is what I did
at the ages of 13, 14 and 15. I went up through the ranks. I was an assistant
in other camps for a couple of years.
And then at the age of 18 I got an amazingly lucky break. I
got to lead their long trip — their 8-week summer canoe trip — which
at that point they only ran once every five years. I led trips with a guide
in those days, either Native American or someone who traveled in the bush as
their life. On that trip we saw some interesting things on the map to explore.
I was able to create enough interest so that half my group came back the next
summer to do another long trip.
After that, these long trips became a yearly thing. I then went
to another camp, Camp Temagami, and set up a long trip program for them, which
they didn’t have before that. They had two camps, a Camp Temagami for
boys, and a Camp Matagami for girls. They were about two miles apart on the
lake. I had been talking to some of the girls who were interested in doing a
long trip. I had talked to the camp director over a period of a couple of years
about doing a co-ed trip. The answer always was maybe next year.
So around 1970 I decided to do my own trip. Ever since then
I’ve been running trips that are co-ed and span the whole gamut age-wise.
On these long trips, I’ve taken people anywhere from age 11 to 70. My
son came on his first long trip when he was nine, or so,. That became my life,
or a major aspect of my life. At that point I was teaching school, which gave
me summers off so that I could do the canoe trips in Canada.
Rod: Putting aside money, or the lack thereof, what do you
find on these trips that makes them worthwhile for you to do.
Andy: There are two things. The wilderness travel itself. When
you are traveling for up to two months in the wilderness, there is only what
is happening day-to-day — where you are. There are no phone calls, no
appointments, just asingle focus — the natural world. Your input comes
from that, and not from the civilized cacophony which besets us and scatters
our focus in so many directions. So there is that aspect of it.
Then there is the aspect that even though I stopped teaching
in the schools around 1970, I’ve always considered myself a teacher. These
canoe trips are definitely a way I share my knowledge and understanding with
those around me. And these trips offer the opportunity for the life-changing
experience — I don’t know how many people have told me, 15 or 20
years later, how much this one experience changed their lives.
Rod: In what way?
Andy: For younger kids – high school, college –
it has shown them an alternative to the assumption that you grow up, you go
to school, you go to college and then you get a job. And you do this job whether
you like it or not. Because it is something that makes money for you. They look
at what they really want to do with their lives. You never know what that is
going to be.
Rod: Aside from concerns over safety, what I’d find
really difficult about leading trips like that are the stressed relationships
that inevitably develop when people are stretched beyond their comfort zone.
Andy: That is really interesting that you should say that because
when people ask me about the trips, I always say that there are two aspects
to it. There are the woods, the knowledge of the woods, the water, all the technical
stuff, the how-tos. These are things that took me ten years to learn. I have
mastered all these skills, because I don’t know that anyone can ever say
that, but it took that long to feel very comfortable with whatever came up on
that level.
And then there is the people aspect of the trip. It took me
much longer, much longer, to learn how to deal effectively with things that
came up.
I sort of developed a style with that. As much as possible I do nothing, let
people experience their discomfort, and I watch whatever comes to the surface
in the group. If it really reaches a point where I need to shift things, then
I’ll move in and shift things. But I’m quite willing to let things
get reasonably uncomfortable for a while.
People come on these trip for the experience. In the beginning
everyone puts up with everyone else’s behavior even when it is not the
best. Everyone sort of walks around the problems. But somewhere along the line,
and this is the beauty of a long trip, somewhere, maybe ten days or two weeks
into the trip, these behaviors begin to grate on people, and then you start
to get little altercations, and discussions, and people calling each other on
their shortcomings.
That can go one of two ways. It can, and it has on rare occasions,
degenerate into a situation that by the end of the trip nearly everyone is glad
to see the last of everyone else.
But more often what happens is that true accommodations and
understandings get reached. Often the issue is that somebody or a few people
are perceived by others as not doing their fair share of the work of the camp.
That is what most often leads to bad feelings.
One way of dealing with that is creating systems where everyone
has to do their share of work on the days they are assigned. I don’t like
to do that. I’ll do that if I have to as an intermediate thing. I’ll
say, “Let’s try this out then.” But mostly people will come
to an understanding on their own that while someone may never do the dishes,
they contribute in some other way. And there comes to be a sense of balance.
We had one boy, as sixteen-year old, who wouldn’t do anything
around the camp. All he wanted to do was fish. Before dinner he’d be out
fishing. After dinner, he’d be out fishing. He wouldn’t help with
the wood. He wouldn’t help with this or that. But what everyone came to
realize was that he provided fish for us all summer long. He was doing his work
in something that benefited the group. He came on a trip a second year. That
year he got into building rock fireplaces. So every night we got into camp,
he’d build the fireplace and be very proud of his creations.
The real question out there isn’t who didn’t do
the dishes, but the real question is how can we live together harmoniously for
this period of time. If we try an impose any pre-existing structure on that,
it is not going to be comfortable, because you are not working with what is,
you are imposing a framework on people, instead of letting the framework of
the trip come out of the people
In order to criticize people for not being perfect, I’d have to be pretty
perfect myself. I don’t consider that I’ve gotten anywhere near
there yet. Not that I don’t have the struggle to go in that direction,
but all of this stuff comes from expectations. The more expectations that you
have, the more you are going to be disappointed. It is much better to work with
what presents itself.
One of the trips that I do, that I’ve been doing for the
last ten years, I call “Canoeing in Community.” That particular
trip I try to approach with the minimum of expectations. I don’t have
expectations as to the route we’re going to do, how much we are going
to travel during a day, when we are going to get up. The purpose is to let all
that evolve out of the group that comes together.
One year there were a lot of people saying they wanted a fair
bit of time to camp, and take it easy and spend time in places. Other people
wanted to travel and see as much country as possible. What we finally came up
with, that made everyone in the group happy, was we traveled a lot on the days
we traveled, and we took it easy in between. So what seemed like polar opposite
positions were worked out in a way that everyone was very happy with.
Rod: Why do you do these trips with others instead of alone
or with your son?
Andy: That is really interesting. For all the years I’ve
done these trips, I’ve never done them alone. Or with just one other person.
I’ve always done it in a group. My son and I have gone out for a couple
of days here and there, but in terms of doing anything of any length, I’ve
never done that.
I entered into this as a camp thing, and that has always been my focus. Also,
it is the way I’ve evolved. I live so that I can financially afford to
do these trips. It doesn’t cost me anything, but over the 35 years since
I’ve been running my own so-called business with this, if I were to add
up all of the pluses and minuses, in the columns, I’d probably come out
with no net gain or loss financially. Some years I make a reasonable profit.
But other years I end up paying money out of my own pocket to take people out.
Just because when I add up what I’ve taken in, and subtract what I’ve
paid out, that is the way the balance sheet comes out. But it has always been
worth it to me because this is what I want to do.
I’ve always said that one of my objectives is to not work
another day in my life. What I mean by that—the idea of work being doing
what you don’t want to do in order to make money so that you can do what
you want to do. My objective has always been to have my work be my joy. In the
area of canoe trips, I’ve been most successfully able to do that. I’m
still struggling with that in other areas of my life, but that part really is
that way.
Rod: What has been most difficult about this way you’ve
chosen to live?
Andy: One thing is I’ve never made any money in my life.
I had a teaching job for about ten years at a private school. But after that
I’ve never had what people call a regular job. So it has always been a
question of how I’d put things together to make ends meet. I did house
painting for a while, and taken on other work to make the money so that I can
buy my groceries.
So that has been a bit difficult. Another thing that goes along
with that is that is I’m always the one who is responsible for creating
these trips. It goes with the territory. That can have its difficulties. You
can’t ride on the fact that you’re working and you get a salary.
It is coming in every month. The financial is not taken care of unless I take
care of it.
Although not a back to the woods lifestyle, I’ve always
lived a comparatively simple life style. That is so that I don’t have
to make a lot of money just to support day-to-day life. That gives me the freedom
to do these trips.
Rod: How would you define a good life, a live well-lived?
Andy: A live well-lived is a lived that is lived with joy, and
a life that supports the lives of those around you. It isn’t only what
you get, but what you give, that makes a life a good life.
I work with home schoolers in this area. I do a week in the
woods for the home schooling families around here. We go out in the woods and
camp for a week at the end of April. It is a wonderful experience for everyone.
Not only because we get out in the woods, but people get to see how other people
live and how different families deal with their children. It seems to be a real
growth thing. Some of the families really like it, and they come back year after
year.
Rod: How old are the kids?
Andy: We have everywhere from one-year-olds to teenagers, along
with their families. The majority that I actually work with a bit are in the
9 to 12 age range, but the kids who come on the “Week in the Woods”
range all the way from babies on up to teens. Whoever happens to be in the families
that come along.
Rod: Why is it difficult to live a life well-lived, if it
is?
Andy: There is this thing I call consensus reality. There is
a group consensus of what is important, what life is, how it goes, and the rest
of that. I find myself living quite outside that concept myself. It is not always
comfortable because people don’t understand that.
Rod: Is it kind of like you are living in one culture, and
almost everyone else is living in another one?
Andy: That is right. I live on the edges, in my own mind, of
the USA consumer - get a job - culture.
Rod: At one time there were a lot of hippies, but everyone
else grew up.
Andy: Exactly. That is exactly it.
Rod: What happened to them all?
Andy: I don’t know. I miss them. I was most comfortable
in my life at the end of the sixties. That was when I was most comfortable on
this earth. The other thing that was really interesting is that I had that same
feeling when I was up at the Hulbert Program. There were a lot of people there
like me.
But anyway, I live this life I see as best I can.
Rod: What is the role of mystery in your life? When we were
talking at Hulbert you said you lived in Woodstock, and I said that is an expensive
place to live…and you said something like, “I live in a house that
costs me $385 a month. And places like this have always turned up in my life.”
Andy: That is right. I am a believer that you create your own
reality. I’ve always expected to be able to do that. And life has never
disappointed me in that way. It seems to me that in the places where I am clear
what my aims are, what I want, that they materialize relatively easily. And
the places where difficulty occurs are really the places that I am not clear.
Where I am not willing to make the commitment to say, “This is what I
want to do. This is what I am going to do.” And go for it.
Rod: There is always struggle between what we believe and
what is expedient. I just think that clarity and commitment and sacrifice are
a lot of where the challenge and the joy is in life. There always appears to
be an easy route. Sometimes the easy route is the way to go. Sometimes it isn’t.
Andy: One of the pieces of my philosophy has to do with effortlessness.
When you really are moving in alignment with what you want in life, and what
life offers you, the way is relatively effortless. I see that both in this world
back here, and the world of the canoe trip. No matter how difficult a portage
trail is, the thing that changes your outlook about it, is that it is actually
the easiest way through whatever obstacles there are. Recognizing that somehow
makes the trail easier then if you just see it as an obstacle. If you see it
in its context.
My philosophy or approach to live is also governed by that.
When things seem really hard, who or what is making the difficulty? I am. Rather
than blaming the world around me, of which I have no or very little control,
if I look to myself. My self is the one thing I can change.
That is something that leads me through this thicket.
I went through a lot of names for quite an extended time before
I came up with Wilderness Way as the name of my business. I wanted something
that reflected the true nature of what I was doing. I think of the “Way”
in Wilderness Way as a path. The wilderness way. Or a Wilderness Way would probably
be better. There is a coherence between the direction of my life in this consensus
reality world and the direction of my life on these canoe trips.
Rod: Have you spent much time living with Indians?
Andy: I haven’t spent much time living with Indians, but
I quite regularly run into native people in one setting or another on these
trips. They also are out on the land. That has been very inspirational to me.
I feel that my religious or philosophical beliefs stem, among
other places, from what I sense is the Native American way.
Rod: How many miles are your 47-day trips.
Andy: They run anywhere from 500 to 1000 miles. I’ve done
31 of those long trips over the last fifty years, and they add up to about 23,000
miles. Then I’ve done probably another 15,000 miles around the Temagami
area. So I’m pushing up to 40,000 miles of canoe travel in my life time.
Rod: You mentioned clarity earlier, and I wonder how that
relates to values, sacrifice and the rewards that life has to offer.
Andy: For the last ten years, clarity has been the focus of
my life. To try to get clarity. It is really interesting because what I find
more and more is everything that we need is right inside us. When I take the
time to tune in on it, I get immediate feedback from my own body about when
I am on the right track, and when I am on the wrong track.
I wrote a little two-page thing that came from a co-conselling
class that I took. I called it “My Distress is My Ally and My Guide”
When you take a wrong step, you always feel it. You feel a certain sense of
unease. Or you feel anger, or sadness, overtaking you. These feelings are never
comfortable. If you pay attention to them, they are your immediate indicator
of how and when you are moving off this path of ease that we were talking about
before.
If you let these feelings direct you, and I mean direct, not
impel, because anger can impel you somewhere you don’t want to go. If
you let these feelings direct you, and you say, “I am feeling this, that
must mean that I am not meeting this situation in the most beneficial way, then
you change your direction and one of two things happen. You either feel better
— indicator that you are on the right track. Or you feel worse —
indicator that you are going the wrong way.
So read your own emotional body. Read what there is. People
look for the voices coming from outside to direct us. The bells and whistles.
But we get this constant direction from just within ourselves. Most of us don’t
recognize that the things we feel upset about, unhappy about, we see them as
things that are happening to us rather than the direction we are getting from
the universe, the choices we make. The feedback loop.
Rod: The struggle is for clarity. Once you can achieve the
clarity within yourself, the way should not be a struggle.
Andy: When you have clarity, your life begins to flow with ease.
The ease is the feedback saying, “Ah yes. This is the path.”
I mentioned co-conselling, which is the way that we learn to
be counselors for each other, with the idea that we all have difficulties. And
we are able to listen to and assist each other in working through them, rather
than going to a therapist where there seems to be a perception that there is
something wrong with me and I need someone to fix it. These are things that
we can do on a human level for each other, with just a little bit of training
and with a lot of compassion and empathy.
Rod: How would a lot of money affect you?
Andy: That is really interesting. I’ve always had the
dream of what I would do if I had a lot of money. Mostly it would be to create
some kind of school, for lack of a better word, I don’t like the word
school just because of its present day association. Some kind of center that
would further the development of all of us on this planet as human beings. The
thing that I have to acknowledge is that I only let this thing about money be
the thing that stands in the way. I realized growing up that I had a certain
association with money that meant that I didn’t want to have it. And I
managed to create my life that way.
I am only coming to a true recognition now. So perhaps that
will shift.
