Planners vs Seekers

I started this post long before it was ultimately posted. I had just started reading William Easterly's book The White Man's Burden which was recommended by Nidhi Tandon, a colleague from the board at Ontario Nature.

I haven't finished the book yet, but I decided it was time to post this and get a full summary out later. The book begins by presenting two different styles used in what might be called international development. The planners have been those promoting the idea that "we" in the developed world know what is wrong with the less developed countries and can tell them how to fix things using various forms of carrots and sticks. Essentially a top-down design strategy. The seekers fall at the other end, essentially a bottom-up method.

I suspect both are needed for genuine progressive results.

Necessary Journeys - Finding Farley

I know people who have gone for multi-month road trips or walked the Appalachian Trail and even some very long canoe trips. Cool. Exciting. And clearly well beyond my travel vitae. But I am in awe of that elite group who qualify to be what I would call Great Modern-day Explorers - GMEs.

At the very top of the GME pile is the Gluttons For Punishment category presently dominated by Colin Angus and Julie Wafaei. Colin did the first human-powered circumnavigation of the world. We heard some of their stories last year when they spoke at the University of Waterloo. Somehow they were able to spend five months together rowing across the Atlantic and still get married. Their videos and books will amaze you.

My other favourite adventurers are Karsten Heuer & Leanne Allison. They are just finishing a cross-Canada adventure journey - Finding Farley . Leanne won several awards for the brilliant video Being Caribou - imagine walking across the tundra in Yukon and Alaska following a caribou herd, without having a dozen porters or helicopters dashing ahead to tell you where the herd went while you were asleep. Karsten wrote a book of the same name as well as Walking the Big Wild which describes his Yellowstone to Yukon walk (virtually no trail by the way). Y2Y is an important conservation project worth supporting.

GPS, synthetic fiber clothing and airplanes have fundamentally changed the challenges of undertaking adventurous journeys. These folks have redefined adventure and exploration. Someday I hope to accomplish a fraction of one of their journeys.