10/11/2008

Words by Riley McIntosh

The trait I cherish most in the people around me is purity. I marvel at the people who live a life of lasting relationships, vast adventures, and who worship the mosaic of the world around them. To me, these people represent everything I am looking for in my own life. They are the embodiment of my dreams, the flesh and blood travellers of mountains, deep forests, alpine ridges, and wooded valleys. They are the folk of lore that whispered across the plains and ranges until their call reached my home near the ocean, where they found me among arbutus and Douglas fir trees, working in a haze of energy I didn't yet comprehend.

I was blessed to grow up perched on the side of an expanse of forest and mossy bluffs, lit by the glassy ocean that swept the sun across the windowpanes of our house. I soon earned my place as king of the mountain that rose like a terraced temple above our dominion. I swept through her daily, searching for places I hadn't yet been, mapping her contours in my sleep and growing to love the sun on the moss, the smooth bark of the arbutus, and the diversity of her features. Gladed pockets of deep streams cooled cedar, gnarled cliff bound gary oak, and smooth expanses of wide open fir forest.

Through my teenage years, I walked home from school every day. The bus would let me off by the fire hall, and I'd make my way down into the bay, then onto Arbutus Avenue, where I'd descend the steps of the public beach access. I kept going until I was on the edge of the water, following the ocean, leaping from stone to stone, stopping to observe crabs and starfish in their natural habitat, feeling the security of their placement on earth, their perfect blend of location and lifestyle, and wondering where I belonged.

As I wandered the beach my head would fill with daydreams of a perfect future. I imagined myself a grizzled mountain man, veteran of endless spur of the moment epics, a wanderer who scribbled messages to his gods on paper birch bark, who slept in the trees, and toiled for days in the hidden wilderness in pursuit of a more distant peak, a deeper valley, a crystal stream. I would be the silent man of sojourn, a hardcore adventure gypsy who drove a beat up Toyota 4-Runner with an ocean kayak and mountain bike strapped to the roof, and an interior filled with tools, a tent, cook stove, a hammock to hang in the trees. My conquests would be whispered about between the townsfolk, far below in the city, while they cast their eyes to my endless domain.

As I walked by the ocean, the afternoon sunshine warmed my skin and the salt water running under the beach rocks beneath my feet sang their tale of endless movement,. I daydreamed about trails, mountain biking, and people.

Trail building helped me realize what life meant to me. It wasn't until I was about 14 that my solo missions in the mountains turned from thoughtful rides and hikes into trail scouting missions. Slowly I began to plot out a line among the bluffs and canyons, and the creation began.

The mountain bike trail that began to evolve didn't suit my riding style whatsoever. I built huge airs, high bridges, and long link lines of dirt jumps, berms, and drop-offs. The line I'd chosen blanketed my churning mind in a cloud of hazy formations, and I just built. I constructed trail features I didn't imagine ever riding, I was simply building for the fun of it, for the daydreams I envisioned while walking home from school. Building that trail was my way of proving to myself that I was capable of doing the things I imagined for the future. I had a picture of the first Rocky Mountain RM6 produced on the wall of the kitchen I worked in one summer, imagining that if I had that kind of bike, I might be able to ride the stunts on my trail.

I would blast through the front door of my house after my long walk home from school, and quickly pack together whatever food I could unearth in the kitchen, and I’d be off, riding whatever sketchy bike I had running at the time, often with an axe in one hand and my other hand on the rear brake lever. The boring lectures and pointless rituals of school would melt away as I climbed the mountain, and when I reached my newest trail creation, I'd feel a rush of admiration for the forest and all her beauty, and of the hard work that lay ahead of me. Over hours of hand sawing, digging, and banging nails, I'd strengthen my aspirations for the future, and in my head I'd write long stories for the future. Stories of overseas travel, like-minded friends, sunsets on west coast beaches, the perfect girlfriend, glory of mind and self. Trail building was a seed, life is the stem, the future is the flower.

Suddenly, when I was 17, high school was behind me, and I was flush with cash after a long summer of work. The adults in my life pushed me towards university, the experienced eagerly pressed me to consider travelling overseas, and it all sounded great, new, and exciting. As I struggled to decide what I would do with my life, something pure and of my own creation began to seep into my veins. All my experiences alone in the woods washed over me with the cleansing feeling of walking home from school along the ocean, and I decided that I’d keep trail building for a little while.

A work of art in the woods || Photo: Cam McRae

In September 2001, I took the bus to this little town I’d seen in the New World Disorder movies and knew to be the hometown of an old racing friend I hadn’t seen since I was fifteen - Dylan Tremblay.

I arrived in Nelson with a huge pack and a mountain bike, it was 6 a.m., and the morning light bathed the aging buildings and ageless mountains in the same perfect illumination I recognized from home.  It was the light of creation, of happiness, of trees and rocks and dreams of the future. I checked into a hostel, took my bike to a shop to get built up, and went exploring. The next thing I knew, this guy chucking wood out of the back of a truck turns around, looking surprised. I greet Dylan with a smile, just laughing.

My quest is for purity. I yearn to become the person I dreamed about while growing up in the ocean breeze heaven of my homeland, and I feel that Nelson is not just a town but a gift to a gathering of people. Here I am among people who live their life for themselves, not for recognition or what North American society considers success. I am encircled by people who are privy to some unique know-how.

Above all, the traits I admire in the people around me I most cherish purity. Purity is evocative of adventure, reminiscent of self certainty, love of life. I built bike trails alone in the woods by myself, and by doing that I exposed myself, my personal purity. I discovered that life for me is centred around hard work and the expanse of nature. Here, in this town, the dreams for the future I craft in my solace are fueled by the mountain folk who live together in this place I showed up in, took the bus to, hoping for a good destination.

These days, the trail I built back home is dilapidated, aging, melting back into the forest. My 14 year old brother, however, is up there whenever he can, rebuilding, reshaping. Just talking to him on the phone, I recapture that homeland addiction to the trail, to building, to creating.

What’s the plan for the future?

I'm going to keep on building.