I’ve been in love with nature and the outdoors since I was a child. But someone else planted the seed of adventure and helped feeding it at the very beginning; my parents. I remember my parents driving hours to hike mountains in New-York, go out camping in the woods of northen Québec or walk on some beaches in Prince-Edward Island. Since then, I’ve traveled in places like India, Hawaii and the northen states of the U.S. and almost all of Canada. Adventure drives me towards the unknown, the beauty and the wild side of our planet.
But the one place where the love of adventure started is in the backyard of the house I grew up as a child.
My first contact with fauna and flora was right where I lived. I was always encouraged to go out and play with my brother and sisters. We used to build shelters, mix up some weird and unhealthy potions (bugs, weeds and earth in water) and fool around our tiny backyard. It started there : the curiosity for new discoveries and sensations.
After inquiring on all the wildlife our backyard could offer, it was time to discover places I never saw before : first the parks near home, the woods and lakes where we spent our vacations, camping the whole time. I soon understood that these parts of the world I was exploring were to be a once in a lifetime moment, that I was to go there for the first and the last time. Once you understand that the time you spend at some place might as well be the last, you enjoy and cherish every experience.
That way of thinking still applies to the way I travel to places I have and haven’t seen before. It also makes me aware of what surrounds us, what nature is and it’s potential. It makes me think and act, on an everyday basis, with the notion that I’m not the center of the universe, but a part of it. Every choice we make affects the way our environnement reacts and grows. Being able to enjoy the fresh air of the sea, the cold fog and rain of clouds up in the mountains, the smell of pines and moss in the woods or the hooting chant of the loonie just before the sun rises is a personnal track I took by choice.
Now seeing what it made of me, I’ll plant the seed myself for my daughter, hoping it will grow even higher as it did with me. Seeing her face discovering plants and bugs, her eyes marvel at the stars and her laugh when we run after eachother in the grass fills my heart with joy. The best way to change the world is how you raise your kids, and I hope she can be a part of it.
I’m lucky, my wife, best friend and partner in crime thinks the same way.
So take your kids outside; in the sun, in the rain and in the snow. Not only will it quench their thirst for new discoveries, but il will also build their judgement and the way they will face problems or any situation they haven’t met before. It will also make them see and enjoy what beauty the earth has to offer, and they will work hard to preserve it. They’ll understand that we need earth, but it doesn’t need us.
