Monday, September 30, 2013

FEARLESS - Part 2 by Mike, Grace and Ryan


Our trip is now coming to an end, and in this whole trip, we have done a lot of different activities including reaching Inuvik, which was our destination and also our halfway point, crossing the Arctic Circle, going on the Tombstone hike and hiking up a bit of Mount Edith. Apart from doing a lot of special things, we also saw a lot of things happen in this road trip, where most of them were natural but also some of them were caused by equipment failure. You may then ask, what does fearless have to do with any of this? Well, in order to even join such an epic and risky road trip like this, you cannot be fearful of every single event that might happen along the trip. As everyone in Monticle says, you just have to suck it up and keep moving forward. However, if you do fear of risks, then you will do nothing fun and interesting in your whole life as they all have a certain degree of risks in them, whether they are small or big. Therefore being fearless is something that is required for this trip.

So first of all, by joining this expedition, we all have shown a bit of our fearless, risk-taking side. Secondly, instead of doing a Trans-Canada East or Trans-Canada West trip, this Trans-Canada trip included going pass the Arctic Circle and through the Dempster Highway into Inuvik (this is far as you can ever go north on the road unless you count during winter time when the rivers freeze over and you can cross even further). The moment you enter the Dempster Highway, you also need a certain amount of fearlessness as the Dempster Highway, unlike other highways, it is not paved, relatively empty, full of many dangerous animals and have no emergency service vehicles that can enter the highway. The above reasons is why it is so easy to get into accidents on the highway, which range from flat tires to cracked or even shattered windshields. In order to fix all of these problems, you must be fearless and calm when these incidents happen. Why? This is because, as most, if not all of you should know, that when you are afraid or in fear of something, it is usually hard to suppress it and the fear inside you just grows larger and larger until it takes control of your mind. When that happens, the body goes into a panic mode and your vision will get murky and clouded and it will be hard to think of anything or do anything right. When I say vision, I don’t mean our literal vision, but a vision on the whole event in our brain. This can even cause you to worsen the situation because in this state of panic you rush to get out of it. As Billy once said, a bucket of water with no disturbances is clear and you can see your reflection on the water. However, if a stone is thrown in to the bucket of water, ripples form on the surface, making it so that it is hard to see your reflection and even if you could, it would be distorted. In this metaphor, the reflection is our vision on events and objects and the stone thrown into the water is fear. If you are fearless, fear then cannot distort what you see and will make you think clear and straight, enabling you to get out of those situations.

On our mountain next to Mount Edith hike (referred to as Mount Edith Jr. from now on), I’ll admit that I lost some of my fearlessness, as Billy kept repeating the warnings of Mount Edith over and over again. He said that there would be steep drops, narrow paths and very cold weather. When we arrived at the trailer parking lot and started unpacking our day packs and changing into warmer clothes, I started to feel genuinely worried about the hike as the fear inside me inserted images of a tall rising mountain with people walking along a narrow ridge with long drops on both sides. It also didn’t help much when Billy showed us the harnesses and also questioned some of our hiking shoes and said how we couldn’t go past a certain altitude as the shoes would not fit the job. When we arrived at the base of the mountain though, most of my fear instantly evaporated. It was because in that moment, I was actually facing this challenge head on. A part of me told me that we would be fine but the other half said otherwise. However if anything did happen, Billy would be there to help us. After reaching our destined location, my fear didn’t even exist anymore. Although I knew we didn’t reach the actual summit, which meant some of the hazards Billy mentioned didn’t show up, it was still challenging and I felt proud for going up there. This event showed us that people cannot be fearless of everything and how fear plants images and thoughts in your mind to make you not try whatever you had a fear of. However, once you actually try and successfully complete the tasks or objectives that you feared, the fear then disappears immediately, as being fearful of doing something doesn’t mean you’re scared of the thing itself. I think that it is actually the fear of not knowing what will happen next and the fear of messing up or even the fear of the future that puts us in these feared states. This means that once you’ve completed your objective, in this case was hiking up Mount Edith Jr, you will know what the hike is like. You will know what you will see and all the dangers of the hike, which means uncertainty no longer exists, resulting in your fears to go “poof”. In turn all the fear is replaced with excitement, joy and the feeling of being proud of conquering your fear and what you have achieved.

Another example of fearlessness comes from one of the smaller members in this expedition. He would constantly take risks that come in forms of rebellion, disobeying orders and showing no respect to some members. The reason I say that is because it is an act of fearlessness as he has been punished many, many times. Even with all these punishments he seems to not care and “follows his own pace” instead of working with us as a proper unit. In my personal opinion this can be considered a bad example of fearlessness. Since he does not fear anything that happens to him, he continues to disobey orders. Not only does this result in constant punishment, but it also causes our efficiency to decrease and our atmosphere to be less cheerful. We therefore have to constantly check on him and make sure nothing bad occurs from his fearlessness.

I’ll admit that I personally am always afraid of some things. When this trip first started, I was worried about the trip and everything that might go wrong. I also got worried about meeting bad people at places where Asians were disliked, worried about Inuvik, tombstones and Mount. Edith Jr. Now, I am worried about life back in Hong Kong. Although I already know, or at least think I know how this will work out, I still worry about my unfinished summer homework, meeting old friends, getting new friends etc. This is why I think that everyone is always fearful of something, whether it be something stupid such as meeting my old school mates, or more logical fears such as skydiving or even death. If someone tells you that they are afraid of nothing or is totally fearless, they are definitely lying to you. There are many reasons why people hide their fear. For example, some of them might not even know what they fear of until they are in that situation. Others might fear embarrassment and some just want to keep it private as it might ruin their image. So to say one doesn’t fear anything is hard to believe.

However, being completely fearless is also a bad thing, since fear also gives you safety. If people were to become completely fearless, they would have no sense of personal safety, which would then lead them to stupid acts of violence. This constant risk taking behaviour could then possibly make you harm others and many loved ones. So in order to have a fun-filled and exciting life, you must be able to maintain a balance between being fearful and fearless, as every situation requires one of them.




Thursday, September 26, 2013

FEARLESS - Part 1 by Mike, Grace and Ryan

Fearless is something that comes from the moment and not something that one can simply have or obtain. Many examples of fearlessness is when one has nothing to lose or when rage clouds your judgment and it is during those times that one can look death in the eye and call himself fearless. Fearlessness cannot just only be seen as “having lots of guts” it can also be considered a form of stupidity. Fear is something that we as humans have to stop us from doing stupid things and to keep us alive. To have this thing that can easily keep us alive removed from us would cause us to do dumb and highly risky things that one should fear.

At the first day of Monticle an example of fearlessness comes from a person named Ryan. He showed fearlessness at the first day when he was told that he was a member of the group, instead of his expected role, a senior. This caused Ryan to have a huge rage in his heart, sparking a sense of fearlessness. He was heated in the moment and did not even fear the instructors. This might sound like a good thing but in reality it is not.  Instructors should be respected and Ryan showed no signs of that because in that instance, he didn’t fear them or the consequences that would result from his actions. In the end being fearless did not benefit Ryan. He ended getting himself in trouble and punished with a strong lecture. 

The second day fearlessness was shown from the general group of Monticle. During this day we were planning our trip across Trans Canada. During this planning period, determination and perseverance settled in. No one was thinking “What if we fail?”, “What would happen if we ran out of gas?”, “What if we just are not good enough to do this trip?”. No one was thinking these thoughts when we first started this adventure. However at night when it was time to rest that is when the fear and these thoughts settled in. However being fearless in this moment has proven to be a good thing. Because of the fear leaving our hearts we were able to focus on the task at hand and was able to do the planning. Even though at night when the fear did settle in, it did not matter as the work was done and we were all prepared for the trip.

On the third day of our trip the exact opposite had occurred. This was the day that we finally set out and reached our first camp at Pancake Bay. At Pancake Bay it was like any other campsite. It looked nice in the brochure and there, but living there is a total nightmare of blood and disease. This is because since we camped really close to the lake there were mosquitoes everywhere. Once people got out everyone had an increasing fear of mosquitoes that only increased by the minute. The only time that this stopped was when people applied bug spray. Even then no one wanted to leave the camp at night in fear of the ferocious bite of the mosquitoes.  The bug spray however gives people a sense of fearlessness in itself. This is because when the bug spray is applied people think that mosquitoes would stop attacking them and many people had the sudden guts to walk without care. Of course the bug spray does not entirely work as mosquitoes still attacked but only less of them were attacking. Once everyone realized this had then grown fearful again. This proves that even certain objects can give people fearlessness in itself although for a time at most.

During the fourth day of the trip a thunderstorm occurred while everyone was sleeping and an act of heroism occurred. Jason woke up at the sound of thunder and alerted Ryan to the issue. Ryan being half asleep did not know there was a thunderstorm, but he took the initiative to go out and close down the tent. Since Ryan did not know what was currently occurring all outside of him you cannot say he was courageous as he did not know what was going on. Another example of fearlessness occurred with Howard. Howard was already severely sick prior to having pizza for dinner. However he still ate the pizza because he did not fear for the fact that this might cause his illness to worsen. This could be seen as another example of how fearlessness had come from an item, specifically pizza. Because of Howard’s love for pizza he was able to ignore the fact that he was sick and succumbed to his desire and crave for pizza.

At the sixth day of our trip a major example of fearlessness had occurred. This is because Billy attempted to drive straight from Saskatchewan to Alberta. However it failed and we ended up at a mall within the Saskatchewan and Alberta borders. Billy had stated that we would be sleeping on the Wal-Mart parking lot. We trusted Billy and without doubting him, we brought out our sleeping mats and went to sleep right there on the parking lot floor. Because we trusted Billy’s abilities we showed no fear in the fact that we were sleeping in the parking lot. This is an example of fearlessness because it was Billy’s great leadership that made it possible for us to just lie down on the parking lot floor and sleep. This showed how not only can moments and objects give people a surge of fearlessness, but people as well.

The eighth day of our trip might just be the greatest example of fearlessness out of them all. At this day a couple of locals in dirt bikes showed up next to us as we were planning the rest of the trip. A really nice person came by and asked if we saw his friend. He told us that his friend was drunk and had just wiped out. After telling us that he left again to look for him. Later, the drunken friend on his dirt bike showed up near us and started revving his engine. When that occurred Billy got up and stated that his friend went to look for him. Even though he left we all knew that they would be causing trouble at night. However we all knew that they were going to come back and maybe attack us at night. Billy called the cops and a park warden showed up to help with guarding the camp in case they do actually commit a crime. Even though it may seem like everyone was scared, it was not actually true. Many people were just worried that our friends would get injured if a confrontation did occur. This shows that through our training many people were able to shrug off such minor fears as bikers and think about protecting their friends. One tent decided to have sentries guarding it and throughout the night the instructors and seniors were also patrolling the area so nothing would go on.

Our group being called fearless can be considered a great honour. This fearless team has shown fear in many examples and they want to work together along this adventure to conquer most of their fears. However other parts of this group can be considered too fearless as well. Ryan, a member of this group might need to learn to fear things in order to stop himself from doing stupid things as a means of survival. Other people like Mike and Grace would wish to conquer their fears so that they can truly be given the name fearless.

Fearlessness is a trait that is incredibly essential to being a leader. Sometimes courage in itself is not enough, as it will always eventually fail in the spur of the moment. To know in the right times to eliminate your fear so it would not be in your way or your train of thought is a highly essential thing to have. Fearlessness however, like all the other leadership traits, is not something one can just have. It takes many years and many different adventures and experiences for someone to truly become fearless. In this essay we showed how fearlessness could be a good think and a bad thing. We have showed how being fearless can make a person strong. It can also make a person stupid. 

So my question dear reader is, is being fearless a good thing?

Monday, September 23, 2013

COURAGE - Part 2 by Jennifer, Kendra, & Owen

Why is courage so important to a leader? How important is it exactly. .. To be a leader you have to have many characteristics. Courage is one of them. Courage is one of them because if you don’t have courage to do things, how can you even lead a group to do that thing. Imagine if you didn’t have the courage to hike up a mountain, how would you be able to lead a group up the mountain. You see, courage is having the ability to overcome the fear of challenge or failure, but doesn’t mean you can be fearless for everything it just means you need courage to face your fear.

Courage can be good or bad, I guess. It’s good to have courage so you can face your fear and not be afraid of that thing anymore but it is bad to have over courage. If you have over courage you might want to try to complete the impossible, so it’s always good to have the right amount of courage. Empty bravado is just that: an empty show. An absence of fear makes you do stupid things that are not always necessarily beneficial to yourself or those around you. Fear makes one cautious and alert, so the balance and amount of courage is also important to note. A good leader must believe in themselves. One that does not have control over their own fear will contaminate the minds of their followers and then calm and well-thought-out decisions cannot be made.

Leadership is action, and so, a leader must demonstrate their courage. A leader should lead and stand out in front and be recognized. If your followers are unsettled, a leader must assuage them by staying strong. Even if you are afraid or worried yourself, you must keep a level head so that those around you will find that courage within themselves as well. Emotional control is an important component of being a good leader, and having courage will aid in achieving that. Courage usually comes coupled with honesty, humility, attention to detail, and responsibility along with many other good qualities. If leadership is action, then showing courage raises the morale of those that are following you. That positive energy will allow you and others to achieve more—TEAM=together everyone achieves more. However, this is also a double-edged sword in that that empty bravado trap may come into play once more.

Courage is saying that this is extremely difficult and I acknowledge my fear of not being able to finish this but still recognizing the fact that I’ve been assigned a job that isn’t too far out of my limit and so I must carry on and complete my tasking. Courage is pushing yourself out of your comfort zone little by little, trying new things, stepping across a few boundaries that you’ve set for yourself to explore a little more.

Your followers are watching you for cues, so seeing a strong figure who admits their fear but keeps going is an inspiration to them. Fear is not a weakness, I must stress. Fear is good; it means that you are alive and recognize the potential dangers of the situation. Fear makes one see things differently and not always in a good way, so overcoming your fear is good for you as well as those around you. If you can lift those around you up, then you can also gain their trust. So courage can bring a group together in times of crisis and need as well as in teamwork exercises of less anxiety-inducing situations. Courage is also admitting your limitations and stepping back to let someone else take the helm when you are out of your element. Considering others’ benefit, you must know when there are others more suitable to take charge and not let that fear or overconfidence impede your judgment. Stepping back and allowing someone else to lead is not a sign of weakness; it takes strength to hold someone else up. To be a leader, you have to first be a follower. Being a follower requires just as much courage.

If you had all the courage in the whole team, how would you lead your team and help them overcome their fears? You see, you can’t get courage right away, you have to get enough experience from that fear to overcome that fear. It’s just like anything else, why do the older teach the younger? It’s because they have more experience in life and know more than you. That’s why regularly, it’s the people that are older lead the group like the teacher leads a class. This doesn’t mean that necessarily the older have to be the leader, it’s just that have more experience and is more likely to know more when there is a situation at hand.

People always say, have the courage to do this, have the courage to do that, but how exactly do you get the courage in the first place. You have to be strong, you have to be brave and you have to be daring. Courage does not come easy, it takes hard work to get courage. You just have to be patient and wait till the day you have the courage to face your fear, but not just waiting will help you, you also have to work for it. There are just some things that you have to be scared of, you can’t be completely fearless. If there was no fear in this world, people would be doing things out of hand, not following the rules because no one is afraid of each other. So just imagining the fact that there was no fear in the world can make one be scared, but don’t worry there will always be fear in the world.

Everyone keeps on focusing on if you have courage or not, but it’s totally okay if you don’t have a lot of courage, not everyone can be courageous but just believe in yourself and you can be what you want to be, complete the impossible and the most important, have the courage to face your fear. Sometimes you may feel you don’t have enough courage, but if everyone had the same about of courage, the world would not be balanced. We all have to work together to balance each other out. Be brave and others will stand with you.

Courage is the ability to smile through your own pain at someone else who is in even greater pain. Courage is fighting through your own pain to save someone else from their pain. Courage is taking on someone else’s pain who is unable to carry on. Courage is continuing on despite your pain. Pain may last a moment, or it might even last a month, a year. Courage is pushing past that pain to achieve greater things and to lift others up with you to achieve more than they could have on their own.

Displays of courage often help you to gain the respect and support of your peers and followers. Often, others are also thinking along the same lines as yourself, but are also too afraid to come forward, so by being courageous and taking the initiative to step up and stand out, people will then look to you and offer their support. But a certain amount of courage is needed before that can happen. So be bold and take a risk sometimes!

Courage is standing up for what you believe in. Silence kills. Speaking out against something that you believe is wrong, and voicing out your opinion is another way courage could be demonstrated. Courage need not be a tremendous act of physical strength, but words can be just as powerful when used correctly. Words can be forceful and malleable and ultimately they can influence and facilitate change. Words of courage can inspire and move people into action, and they can also stop horrendous acts as long as someone is willing to stand up and speak out against it.

Letting your feet leave the ground, there is no certainty that you’ll land safely. Hiking up and down steep hills with loose pebbles and hopping from rock to slippery rock required courage on Mount Edith Cavell and at Tombstone Provincial Park. Courage was stretching your hand out to someone that you saw slipping off the edge or into the chilly water even though you were also scared of falling. Pulling them back up gives you a sense of accomplishment and relief—have courage! Be brave in the face of your enemies; your greatest enemy is yourself. Having courage requires you to have conquered yourself and have yourself in check. Only then can you let your feet leave the ground and be assured that you’ll land safely and that you’re able to pull someone else up from their own darkness.

Being a leader is being a dealer of hope. Leadership is saying: “Impossible? No, I am possible. And you. Yes, you. I believe that you are, too.”


Friday, September 20, 2013

COURAGE - Part 1 by Jennifer, Kendra & Owen

Hello everyone!

The much awaited reflections of the TransCanada group has begun! Each essay is split into two-parts: one written through-out the expedition, and one written at the end of the trip.

Each week features a different theme. Be sure to share your thoughts and stories!

COURAGE - pt.1
by Jennifer, Kendra & Owen


Courage differs from fearlessness in that ultimately, it is more heroic. Courage is not an absence of fear, but the conquering of that fear. If you let fear conquer you, that is cowardice. In this past week, our call sign “Courage” has been demonstrated, or in some cases averted, by those participating in the TransCanada Arctic Expedition.

This TransCanada Arctic Expedition is a very tough experience and a challenge, especially since there are so many younger students this time. It took a lot of courage to join this program in the first place. People have adjusted fairly well to the schedules and such, but it was in no way an easy task to accomplish. Every day, the students are challenged in many different ways, including this now-seemingly-impossible 1500 word essay that we are all rushing to finish, and a road map from Edmonton, Alberta to Watson Lake, Yukon, that took a lot of coordination to map out (pun so not intended).

Courage can be seen in small, personal sacrifices. Mike sharing his spending money with Marco after Marco lost his wallet, co-drivers having long conversations with their drivers to keep them company on the long hauls even as their eyelids threaten to close, Team Captains willing to take risks and push on ahead and cover longer distances and the drivers willing to accommodate, making sure your teammates are fed before yourself, willing to eat a little less and sleep a little less to ensure that we all can have at least a little, and sitting sentry all night just to make your tent-mates feel safe at night. These little things speak much in terms of courage because they were done genuinely and candidly. None of these things were done because of any sort of ulterior motive, but simply because it took a bit of gutsiness and a good heart, and that is what courage is about.

I’ve seen courage in students from overseas whose first language is not English strive to improve their capabilities by speaking it with the others. It is often awkward and frustrating to communicate in a language that is so different from your vernacular, but these students have expanded on their knowledge of the language as well as learned to communicate in other ways including body language such as Kathy has done.

Courage can involve speaking the truth; as Billy said: “Speak the truth always, even if it leads to your death.” Michael Fung demonstrated courage by admitting that he knew very little about the set-up of the tents. By admitting this fact, he was able to learn the techniques with an open mind.

Courage is overcoming your fears. At the West Edmonton Mall, Marco was hesitant to join the others in ice-skating. The reason was that on a school trip a few years back, his hand had been cut by someone’s skate and he was very hesitant to try again. However, after much persuasion from his friends, he decided to rent a pair of skates and step out onto the ice. It was pretty rough at the beginning with many slips and falls and wild flailing, but Marco managed to keep moving by sticking to the walls of the rink. As the day went on, he began to move away from the wall and became proficient enough to even play a game of tag on ice with the more experienced skaters on the ice.

Courage to take action is one thing, but the courage to take responsibility is also just as important. Courage to accept responsibility is part of overcoming your fears, specifically a fear of consequence. The incident with the trailer would be a good example. It was the responsibility of everyone on Bravo vehicle to watch out for the trailer and to know that parking always takes much concentration on the drivers’ part. Though outwardly, it would be easy to say that it was due to driver error, it was a joint responsibility of everyone on that vehicle, which not everybody seemed to feel.

On Day 8 of travelling, there was a potentially dangerous situation with a drunken motorcyclist. Sleep did not come easy on that night. Every clatter of gravel, far-off shout, flash of headlight, and engine backfire hid some sort of danger. Some of us slept on edge that night, and some of us didn’t sleep at all. We reviewed emergency procedures and we were prepared for a potential situation, but it didn’t stop us from being at least a little bit nervous. In the middle of the night, when some of us needed to use the washroom, it took a lot of courage to organize a party to leave the safe haven of the tent.

Also during this incident, by accident the sprinter car alarm was set off. Students were scared but had the courage to stay calm and continue sleeping. Everyone kept a close eye out and planned lots of things ahead because of all the different scenarios that could happen. We all decided on a password to let each other know that we’re part of the group and was alert at all times. Everyone must’ve had a lot of courage to pass that night.

Courage is also having the ability to try new things out. This was demonstrated in many cases throughout the first few days of the Trans-Canada West Artic Expedition. Just like on day 7, students were all willing to try and sleep outside in a parking lot if it meant that we could push on ahead early the next morning. It was a courageous act in that no one was fully comfortable but students were willing to give up a little comfort to be able to reach our destination—the Arctic—a little sooner. The parking lot was an open area, so we were exposed to the elements, but also to other unknown and potential dangers, but we carried on even so.
Courageousness is a trait of a good leader. A leader steps up when no one else does, and an ideal example of this is someone who gets the job done when others are too afraid to. A simple case of this is: bugs. While the rest of the students shrieked and scurried away, Mireille calmly squashed the bug with a tissue. The same thing with Grace, who overcame her dislike of bugs to swiftly brush a few large spiders off of our tents while we were taking them down.

Courage is found in small things as well as the grander things; even in things as seemingly simple as mealtimes. In some instances, the food was not as appetizing as some would have liked, and some students chose to give it away or worse, to dump it. However, some students took it upon themselves to finish off the rest of the food, in the case of Grace and Howard, the latter of which pushed his limits too far. These young leaders stood up and finished the task when no one else did, and demonstrated their courageousness.

Courage and trust go hand in hand. Sometimes, one must be brave and place their faith in someone else, and trust them to get the job done. This was especially so for the team captains who attempted to get everything done on their own with the help of their 2ICs and the students. They were unused to relying on other people and had preferred to get the job done on their own. This created a large mess and a delay of two days before the convoy could set out. As the first week went on, they were able to place their faith in the students and everything slowly became more and more efficient. The new set-up of this week sort of threw people for a loop, but we have to be brave and have faith in this new organization. Also, in the morning PT that we did in Saskatchewan, students had to trust their peers to take care of them and not to drop them while they were being carried, and they had to put aside their differences, which can be hard to do, and work together.

On the other hand, there were also instances of a lack of courage. Some of the students were afraid of getting their hands dirty or were afraid of bugs and whatnot, and it resulted in extremely dirty tents that were packed up incorrectly and even some that were damaged.

Cowardice is not necessarily bad; after all, it has allowed the human race in terms of survival instincts. And although heroism is often played up and exalted, knowing when not to stand up and speak out, and instead, time your words, is often what the best course of action is. Knowing what true courage is, and not fake bravado, is the ultimate goal. Courage and even bravado are clear in some and not as clear in others, but it is the job of a leader to draw out that courage in all.