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PART THREE

PATHWAY TO NIRVANA:

THE SPIRIT OF PLACE

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.

— Marcel Proust (1871–1922)

Beauty always has a price attached to it; we either want to own it, exercise power over it, squander it, or lay waste to it. As is often the case, places of aesthetic pleasure have great alluring qualities to the adventurer; they also have a protective mechanism built into their personalities. The harshness of the environment may be a deterrent for some travellers or the level of whitewater too difficult and dangerous for others. These are physical characteristics that could define almost any northern Canadian river, mountain, or trail. Sometimes there is a deeper story about a place that beguiles any rational explanation or reason.