Truman:

I knew you'd say that...(sorry I had to say that)

Is that a procrastinated April Fools joke about you, the RCMP and the rowboat ?

PS : If it is true,...use a 50 Horse Merc next time, they can't catch you then. I'll bring my camcorder and put it on YouTube.

A noble statement.

Showing what is possible without relying on oil. A trip of a lifetime. Maybe with the increase in eco-consciousness happening everywhere, combined with adventure tours, there will be more tall ships doing regularly scheduled passenger service across the Atlantic and Pacific.

Maybe your Chilliwack friend should either consider finding a job closer to home, or moving closer to the job.

Colin Angus' adventures in controversy...

I have no idea what Colin's book actually contains regarding me, but back when Colin used to indulge his mirth gratuitously at at my expense, he promised that I would be portrayed as "a monkey" and "a villain".

So, if he begins the journey with a sinister simian sidekick, don't be surprised. But do take it with a grain of salt.

I might go further and take salt copiously between tall shots of something stiff. But I am busy writing a gripping adventure tale of my own, to be released by Harbour next fall.

If I were asked to choose an animal as metaphor for Colin, it would not be a monkey, but perhaps that proud workhorse of the Boreal wild, the wolverine.

Consider this: "They have broad heads with a brawny jaw for crunching through bones. They also have grizzly-sized vocal chords for bluffing about their size, which helps to defend food. They are renowned travellers, with what biologist Jeff Copeland calls an “insatiable need to be on the move”."

Colin Angus has been using his grizzly-sized vocal chords, of late, to suggest that a circumnavigation does not need to touch antipodes. I ask you this: is the Arctic Circle a circumnavigation? Clearly not, and neither is the Tropic of Cancer. The Earth is a sphere, so a circumnavigation must apply equally to both hemispheres, North and South.

By definition a circumnavigation touches antipodes, and is thereby reducible to an equator (on any tilt), a perfect circumference. Colin is not arguing with me or Jason Lewis or Sir Ranulf Fiennes or the Guinness Book of World Records; he is arguing with the immutable laws of geometry.

The question I ask is: why go Beyond the Horizon of absolute truth? Why stray into the twilight of controversial claims? What Colin did was spectacular, an impressive effort worthy of endless high accolades. But Jason Lewis has done something inexpressibly more difficult, bound by the laws of geometry to touch opposite points of the globe. Instead of sticking to northern latitudes, he pedalled into the largest ocean on the planet, to reach Australia. The journey west from England to Africa, his current position, has taken him over a decade (www.expedition360.com).

I commend Colin for defending his conquest with all the tenacity of a wolverine defending a kill. But why not rethink what that conquest was?

Colin goes by the title "explorer". No problem; he also implies in a reference to Dove that an adventurer’s merit as an “explorer” can be judged by reading the adventure book. If exploration is a process of discovery, what is discovery?

“Discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.”
- Marcel Proust

If I read Colin Angus’ book, I will ask myself if his outlook on the world, on himself and on adventure offers something new. Maybe, like Homer’s Odyssey, it will be an epic of discovery and exploration. Maybe Colin will discover a new way of seeing, and come back changed. I sure hope so.

Is there supposed to be a lesson?

I followed the travels of Angus and Harvey, then Angus,on CBC radio, As It Happens. It was fascinating and I give them credit for the tremendous effort required. I think we all dream of being able to do something of that magnitude. Glimpses of their life on the road made for interesting interviews.

Glad to see a book about the expedition has been published. I look forward to reading it.

thanks for sharing, Colin Angus

What a wonderful tale. I will buy your book, Mr. Angus. And thank you, Bryan Zandberg, for interviewing this adventurer.

Ah Adventure....

C'mon Tim, personal differences aside, you still have admiration for each other.

To the vast majority of us, what you all you guys do is almost beyond imagination.

Realistically, it is not wether or not you guys meet your goals that interest us, it is how you deal with challenges along the way that fascinate your reading public.

Discovery can really mean anything. It is a personal process. Did Christopher Columbus "discover" North America?

It is all relative.

Re: Ah Adventure

Yes, I do admire Colin and we did get one another through some tough times. Call me a curmudgeon, but it wrankles me to see him claim more than he acheived. For example, in this interview he cuts one adventurer down to size (Robin Lee Graham as "not an explorer") and then accepts credit for "braving Katrina".

But we all know Katrina formed on August 23rd and made landfall a week later in the Western Atlantic; Colin only started rowing on the 22nd of September, a month later, several thousand kilometres to the east. He neglects to mention he braved Katrina from a bicycle seat in Europe.

There is such a wealth of great material in Colin's adventure that he shouldn't need to make it more exciting with embellisments.

You're right that any word can mean anything, it's all about context; so why can't we call Robin Lee Graham an explorer? This is the youngest kid to ever sail solo around the world - he blew his own mind every day of his journey, explored his own limits and discovered the world for himself just as Colombus discovered the Americas for Spain (historians in Portugal will tell you the Portuguese had kept the existence of Brazil a secret for decades, but that's another story). The point is that Colin, for all he's done, tends to diminish the accomplishments of others who have done great things, people like Robin Lee Graham and Jason Lewis, while at the same time infating own acheivements. I once loved him like a brother, and still respect all he's done, but it ends there and I will call him on what I view as a disservice to the adventure community. I think he should retract his claim to a circumnavigation of the world. I applaud what he's done, but I ask him to stay more tethered to the realm of fair representation and good sportsmanship.

Interesting, Tim Harvey, so hows about...

So Tim Harvey, I suspected as much but hows about enlightening us on what this life-endangering adventure stuff is really all about. I don't get it, and as usual, I'm not giving credit unless I suspect credit is due. And I'm no Christian, but there's some appropriate words in the Bible about showing off I think--along the lines of "Whosoever makes a big display of praying seeks only self-aggrandizement; so get thee into a closet and say your words of worship there, for the lord who sees in private will respond in private."

Admittedly this is a bastardization of the gospel advice, but I wonder if the same should be recommended to the adventurer-explorer. Go do your great thing; Do your uncarbonized treks and life risking and learn all about yourself and whether you have what it takes, but pulleeze, spare us the goofy books and interviews. We already know what it's like to rowboat on the open ocean and dream about the cheques that will eventually start pouring in when you write the books and appear on the tv stations.

a correction

Hi Tim,

Thanks for pointing out the error in the story. The fault, however, is mine: I mixed up the details on which hurricanes Angus did in fact brave crossing the Atlantic, saying he was in the rowboat when Katrina hit when in fact his comments refer to hurricanes Vince and Epsilon.

I've gone in and made the appropriate changes, and apologize for any confusion.

re: Truman & Brian

Thanks for the feedback, both: Bryan I only meant to suggest that Colin should have acknowledged the error, but thanks;

Truman, you're suggesting I'm driven by some pretty base motivations; for clarification please refer to the final essay of this book published last week by Greystone: Notes from Canada's Young Activists - A Generation Stands Up for Change. I am one of 25 contributing essayists and I was not paid a penny for my writing; I expect no compensation other than the knowledge that I have inspired someone to tread more lightly on this earth and live with more passion. From Tolstoy's memoirs: "Without a mission, there is no life, only hell."

I assure you, the vision of a paycheque is hardly sufficient motivation to endure what amounted to 29 months of rough living. If everybody knows what it's like to row an ocean or be held at the point of eight machine guns by trigger-happy Panamanians while deep in the Darien Rainforest, well that's great; if people track me down for interviews, I will happily tell my story and more importantly, what I learned from it all. I'm not in it for paycheques, but for the very essence of life itself. What else is there worth living for, but life? It's self-evident. That's why I do what I do, and it's inextricable from my mission as an environmentalist.

Here's a documentary that captures the spirit of what fuelled me:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5TwdyHpf_I

- Tim

Truman Green

My apologies, Tim, if you don't fit my characterization of the fame or fortune-seeking adventurer. Perhaps we are all on some kind of private quest, though; some to live a life of integrity and empathy and others to merely live, depending upon what health and subsistence is available.

I wonder if the most rewarding and enlightening experiences are those lived quietly, without giving notice to the world record chroniclers, or insisting upon recognition for rarely-accomplished feats of endurance and courage.

Not oceans apart....

Tim and Truman

I understand where both of you are coming from, and I actually believe you share a similar perspective. I understand that Tim wants history to be recorded properly if it is to be recorded at all. Him coming here to post does have a “sour grapes” (pardon the cliché) feel to it, but I understand (and appreciate) why he is doing it. I too, would like history to be recorded correctly. I have no time for fiction. Real life is too exciting. If I am going to read a “non-fiction” account of someone’s travels, I want the embellishments to be minor. History of those great and small is fascinating. Why not share these experiences? Unfortunately, our generation is just going to leave blathering blogs of opinion (like here) for the future – and I am part of it.

As for the concept of “adventure”, it will always be a personal experience. There are people who hike the Grouse Grind, and believe that they are having a wilderness experience, while others need to be flown in somewhere and hike out with an air dropped food cache along the way. It is relative. I cannot wait until my children say, “Dad, you really hiked for five days without a cell phone? Whoa…. you guys were crazy”.

Keep doing what you do, Tim.

writing and adventure

Hello again,

Thanks for the kind words, Moat. You're right, I do hear what Truman is saying and agree that there is great value in adventure regardless of acclaim linked to it. But I want to note that everything that might follow an adventure - conversation, memories, writing and film - is all separate from the adventure itself. For example, I am currently writing a book; the act cannot enhance or diminish the adventure itself, although I continue to learn from it during the writing process.

I tend to view the journey as the real reward. The more mentally present one is during the adventure, the more enlightening the experience is likely to be. If visions of glory pull one's mind away from the experience, then I would agree that glory-seekers risk having a less rewarding experience.

I certainly don't meant to sound sour. Yes, I am afflicted by something of a nemesis in Colin Angus, but I do my best to take a breath and let it go. I just hope that by speaking up I will encourage a more analytical reading of Angus' work. The coloured lens through which he views and reconstructs the world should be viewed as a portrait of the author himself. It's worth considering his motivations for slamming me. In the fall of 2007 my conflicting account of history will be published, and Angus knows it will contain some fairly shocking revelations.

Anyways, I appreciate the discussion. I can see it will take one hell of a book to satisfy readers, so I had better keep cracking!

I'm looking forward to the

I'm looking forward to the book Tim.