Yukonasia

My wife and I practice “Yukonasia.”

Perfectly legal, Yukonasia is the practice of terminating a sedentary life by intentionally living large in a land north of normal.

Even the controversial Jack Kevorkian, also known as Dr. Death for assisting over one hundred terminal patients in assisted suicide, would have approved at our boreal play on the word “euthanasia.”

“Normal” for the bulk of humans living in North America means living in urban environments where asphalt and concrete are the dominant groundcover.

“Normal” is being connected to Wi-Fi or broadband to computers, phones and various pads rather than connected to the natural world.

“Normal” is having multiple bathrooms with multiple showers and televisions are generally twins,  triplets or amazingly even larger litters.

“Normal” is pursuing comfort between walls and a roof overhead rather the potential discomfort of being caught outdoors in rain or snow.

For the past five years we have spent much of our time living in the Yukon Territory in northern Canada. Some call us renegades or even brave. I would call it paying attention to our hearts. Not surprisingly we have become hopelessly smitten with a land that is rough around the edges.

This is a destination where wild lands abound and large mammals like moose, Dall sheep, wolves, caribou, grizzly and black bears far outnumber humans. Somehow, living in a land where I can get lost, become bear food or lose my breathe while hiking high in the mountains makes me more alive.

Approximately one-quarter of the Yukon’s 36,000 human residents are native aborigines, or First Nation members. For thousands of years they have lived and thrived in this vast, mostly untrammeled land that we would call “wilderness.” Ironically, none of the First Nation native languages have a word that means “wilderness.” The closest description is simply “home.” Imagine moving through such a diverse landscape with the same familiarity that you maneuver through your own home . . . in the dark.

If we each followed our lineage lines, we would find we all have evolved from a past where wild places were normal rather than something that is now threatened and disappearing.

Yukonasia has nothing to do with death; it has everything to do with living.

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