Listening and learning in the deep winter forest and on our journey through the pandemic

I have spent many hours on snowshoes. When I was a young man, I would travel with friends for several days in the snow-laden forests of Algonquin Park, between stations where the train could drop us off and pick us up, by way of frozen creeks, rivers and lakes—and careful orienteering through the deep woods. 

There is something cleansing and centring about living with only what you can carry in a backpack, often in well below freezing temperatures, where carelessness could result in very real danger. How important it was to work together, to watch out for one another, and to pay careful attention to choosing the right direction to take, double-checking compass readings against what we could see before us and on our detailed contour maps. Because we were not following established trails, it was always important to be certain of where we were at any point in time.

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Each day would be its own adventure, with variable temperatures and visibility. If the sun was out, contours were easy to see, whether large, like hills and valleys, or small, like half-frozen creeks (which were easy to tumble into). If the day was grey or it was snowing, way-finding was tricky, and it took longer to reach our planned destination.

Those experiences taught me a lot about perseverance. When you have no choice but to keep moving, no matter what the conditions were, you have to adapt and rely on one another to get through. 

We all have been learning a lot about adapting and relying on one another during this pandemic. We have been on an unexpected journey that has caused us to pay more attention to where we are and where we are going. God is good, and God is teaching us in these extreme times. Each of us would do well to think about what we are seeing differently now.

While I no longer do snowshoe expeditions in the winter forest, making camp each night and packing up in the morning, I still go out for a long day from time to time, even up in Algonquin Park.

Feeling the depth of nature in a remote winter forest is like an extended time of prayer, where things you have been holding inside can be safely released into God’s hands. The winter forest is so much bigger than you, like God is; and it sometimes draws and sometimes pulls the truth of your life from you, like God does, so you can see where you are—and where you ought to go next.

This poem, written a few years ago after a day of snowshoeing alone in Algonquin Park, describes what I am speaking of. 

Grand Lake

Coarse snow blows
across this frozen lake,
and the slowly swirling
whisper-roar of trees surrounds me.

Sunlight appears and leaves;
and shadows, cast
by clouds and heights,
blue the crystal surface.

I relinquish myself in all of this,
into the embrace
of the deep forest.

I let it draw my heart
from within me,
so I can face its
raw and uncovered truths.

I prostrate myself on all of this,
upon the sanctuary
of the deep forest.

I let it pull my heart
from within me,
so I must face
raw and uncovered truths.

Coarse snow blows
across this frozen lake,
and the slowly swirling
whisper-roar of trees surrounds me.

Sunlight appears and leaves;
and shadows, cast
by clouds and heights,
blue the crystal surface.