INTELLIGENCE- Part 1 by Marco, Roman & Justin

Even though it’s only been seven days since the first day of the Monticle Trans-Canada Expedition, we could already tell that intelligence is a vital part of leadership. As an intelligent leader you need to co-operate with your fellow followers, know you followers, remain in power by showing you are the most intelligent

On the first day we stayed at Monticle Head Quarter, the thirty of us were organized into three groups Alpha, Bravo, and Charlie. Each team consists of people with different mindset, abilities, back grounds, and experiences. Every member of the team, including the team leaders, know their jobs inside out and know they are fully aware of what are expected from each and every single one of them. Such well organized teams could not have been created without a great deal of intelligence. Our intelligent leaders know our weakness, abilities to assign us the most suitable job. Later that day, after the job allocation, everyone was working on their assigned jobs in prepare for our journey. Deciding how much resources to bring with us is the most challenging task of all. Excess resources will always be a waste, so we don’t want to bring too much; but we need enough resources so that we would have enough for the entire expedition. We must calculate exactly what we need. The supply must meet the demand exactly. Fortunately, with our intelligence, we were able to estimate how much resources we need and use them wisely. Making sure not even a grain will be wasted.

On the second day, we did not depart as scheduled,. Our leaders showed us how to set up a tent. After all, intelligence has to be demonstrated. Intelligence was shown in the setup of the tent. Every thing, from the pole to the strings, are the key components to the setup of the tents. If a tent is not set up, they are just a bunch of useless stuff inside a bag. The same applies to our intelligence. If intelligence and knowledge are hidden deep within the mind. Even the intelligence if no one knows its exist? Without others acknowledgement, intelligence is the same as stupidity. The sole purpose of intelligence is to bring benefit and help the others, it is to do the deed of good. If intelligence cannot provide help, bring benefit or is used in the wrong way, then intelligence is not so intelligent.

The real intelligence is to possess it as well as the power and the ability to wield it. Intelligence is like a blade, it can be used to slay the evil or to slaughter the innocent. Having great intelligence is not always good, whether it is good or bad depends on the way people use it and present it.

On day three, our journey finally begins. On the way to our first destination, we had to search for accommodations. It is no easy job, we had to find a place that is well-maintained and have good facilities as well as a reasonable price. To start, we have to search for information about accommodations near our destination. Searching for information itself was not difficult at all. It is to select the right and useful information that is difficult. People that are less intelligent will take all information they have access to with a single thought. On the other hand, people that are more intelligent will consider carefully and think thoroughly on what information to select. As intelligent people know, too much information will bury the truly useful information, they will be a distraction to the most important information, the most valuable information may be ignored. Therefore, we must have a clear aim and vision, we must know clearly what we are after.

A leader should always be intelligent, so that he/ she could stay in power or get in power. Intelligence is not only knowing the answer to 12345 x 54321, it is also knowing to plan ahead… On day four we did the exact opposite. The night before we planned our the route and destination, but we did not call the camp site to make sure they have available camp sites. You could say: we were being careless and lazy! We decided to call them only a few hours before we get there, but as we pulled the phone…. there were no service! There is nothing we could do about it. We could only test our luck and ask for vacant camp sites when we get to Rainbow Fall Provincial Park. Turned out they did have around a dozen camp sites available. We are lucky, if they did not have any camp sites for us then we would have to drive around a around a hundred kilometers to the next Provincial Park.

We experienced a similar situation the next day. At around 6:30 in the afternoon Alpha Sprinter was running low on fuel. We only had one bar of gas left, and with the trailer the gas should only last us maximum one hour. After twenty minutes we began to worry, what if we ran out of gas before we find a gas station that has diesel? We started to think of what to do what if we actually ran out of gas… most of all we regret not learning our lesson from yesterday. Just as we were about to run our of gas, we found a Shell gas station. Even though we found a gas station and fueled up, we are just plain lucky, again it was luck that saved us all. Today reminded me of the story of the monkey and his house. All of his friends have a house somewhere safe, in case of floods. Monkey always thought he did not need a house because he slept in the trees. But under peer pressure he decided to build one any way. Even though his fiends kept telling him: Hurry up! There is going to be a huge a huge hurricane and flood. But he had ignored all their friendly warnings. When the hurricane came he stayed on his tree, but he got blown off and washed away with the flood. We are like the little monkey who think he has everything under control. Our headers are like his friends, telling us to do what is right. We should have listened to them in the first place and plan out our gas stops. Because in the end the only once getting hurt are us.

It is not easy to be intelligent, you may think al you need to do is go to school, read books, and watch documentaries. Here is an example from day six, we were supposed to push to Edmonton and stay outside Edmonton Mall, but we were not being intelligent with time control and stopped to long at every pit stop/ gas station and we did not do any thing about it. So we had to stop at a Wal-Mart is and sleep on the parking lot in the cold and windy night. Lesson learned. Intelligence is not only thinking of good ideas, it is when you think out side the box. Like the example above , we never thought we will not make it to West Edmonton Mall. Hopefully such things will never happen again. After all there is no point of repeating mistakes.

We finally arrived at West Edmonton Mall on day seven. Once the largest shopping mall in North America. There are numerous amusement parks, ad hundreds of stores and restaurants. Shopping in this gigantic complex is not easy. With all these stores and limited time, we have to plan out what we need and where we will get them in advance so by the end of the day we would have spare time and money. Now, we have to decide what is on our shopping list and what item we want the most. With so many entertainments in the shopping complex, Water Park, Amusement Park, we have to decide the right place to go so that our time would be spent wisely. Moreover, the prices there are not as cheap or attractive as expected. Sometimes we need to utilize intelligence to figure out which shop has the best price for the same products (i.e. we need to do calculations and comparisons between shops about bug nets or jackets). Moreover, the Water Park is not really that attractive because you are technically paying 36 dollars to get wet in a big giant pool together with a hundred people or more at the same time, feeling some regular waves. Therefore, even though it is more of a recreational purpose, we still need to utilize intelligence upon shopping in that gigantic mall.

This is basically hat we did in one week. We made so much mistakes that are not really intelligence in the first week, we sure are going to do better in the future weeks. By the end of the expedition, we would all be really intelligence. Thanks for your time.

GOALS - Part 2 By Jason Wang, Alvin & Mickey

Life, some may call it a circle, a timeline or even a river, flowing from place to place in an ever continuing current with many different paths to take. All of these are correct to some extent, but there will never be a perfect analogy for life. However, if I were to use an analogy for life, I would call it a one way road trip. This is because we all are born or start the trip or journey, and we all die eventually, inevitably, which is where the journey ends. But, the road trip is not about the beginning or the end, it is about the journey, the events along the way, the people, locations, and deeds you have done before getting to the end. Every choice you make can be seen as an exit, a turn, branch or a fork in the road,

Most people, alone or in a team, (or following my analogy would a lone car or a convoy) wish to achieve or get things greater than what they currently have, such as wealth, skills, abilities, or intellect while on this long road trip called life. Leaders or the lead vehicles in the convoy must go through a lot of planning to decide on what paths to go on. To decide and plan to go on specific pathways and roads of life are all considered goals in some way shape or form. Goals are objectives individuals and groups with to accomplish or gain. Whether these goals or objectives are long term or short term, they require much planning and motivation, as well as the courage to act upon and execute the plans to be successful, allowing the team members to reach their objective.

Goals, whether it be setting them or wanting to achieve them, is part of our human nature and it is impossible for the average human being to avoid. Due to that feeling of “want” people have, having these goals and having the abilities to plan and set these goals are important for leaders and followers alike as they give them a direction and purpose to work towards. These goals can be big or small, but all these goals are potential achievements that someone can learn from and take pride in while working towards them or in the future, looking back upon it.

For the last twenty eight on this Trans-Canada 2013 Arctic expedition, we have had many objectives and goals that we wished to succeed in. Goals that we have achieved, goals that we have reached, goals that we have successfully completed, as well as goals that we have failed to pull off. But through the good and bad, the thick and thin, the rough back roads and the smooth paved highways of life, we have learned, grown and matured from these experiences, as a great man and great leader once said, “Good days, good memories, bad days, good lectures”.

From day one, July 14th, 2013, there were hiccups, we were unprepared for the tasks that were given to us, and when we thought our planning was working, it failed, causing our trip to be delayed for another day, thus we failed our goal for that day. But, we learned from that experience and we were able to successfully complete our planning on the following day as well as our preparation and load up, allowing for us to leave early on the following morning.. On the first day on the road, July 16th, 2013, or day three of this expedition, we went camping at Pancake Bay provincial park. The ground was rocky and hard, the campgrounds were swarmed with insects with a passion for human blood, the students were inexperienced with the tents, and worse of all, there was a massive thunderstorm at night, causing the pack up on the following day to be chaos, further delaying our already day late schedule. However, from that ordeal we learned the importance of teamwork and communication, as time carried on, we learned more and more, through both successes and failures alike.

While going along these road ways of life, planning, setting, achieving or even failing goals will put strain on both the body and the mind. Back to the road trip analogy, the driver of the car is like your mind and the car it’s self is like your body. As you may have noticed on the blogs, majority of the damage is received on rough roads such as the Dempster highway rather on smoother highways such as the Trans-Canada highway. Damage and strain on both the drivers and the Sprinters. On the road trip the driver or the mind may not get much rest, may not have the chance to stop for proper accommodations, and will end up stressed and tired. While the vehicle or the body is put through majority of the physical damage, with mud, dirt and blown out tires. But, with the proper care, cleaning, and fixing up the damaged can become as good as new again, with even more experience than before which you can learn from and apply to problems you have in the future.

As we learn from problems, situations and events, we learn how to deal with similar ones in the future. Similar to the stepping stones across the glacier streams at Tombstone Mountain which we encountered on July 29th, 2013 or day sixteen of our expedition. As we began walking and taking steps we learned to watch for unstable rocks, slippery rocks, and potential paths to take as well as who was the best at finding those previous conditions and should lead the group. The further we walked, and the longer we walked, we were able to use recent knowledge to plan each and every following step. Each step, once again is a choice and like life, we learned from each and every one. Through the successful steps we took taught us what we should do to reach our goal with the minimal number of mistakes. While through the failures such as the slips and falls, we learned what not to do and what we should avoid while planning our pathway to reach our goal. From these mistakes, these slips and falls, we also learned an essential part of life; it doesn’t matter how hard you can take the hit, it just matters if you can move on afterwards. As when we fell down, simply needed to pick ourselves up and keep going, even though we were wet, and dirty we continued towards our goals.

As we remain moving towards our goals, a leader must decide on how to tackle and reach certain goals. Either using his or her man power as a bullet, concentrated with force, or as fireworks, scattered, spread out tackling many parts of a problem or situation at once.

Similar to the fireworks display we saw on August 7th, 2013, or day twenty five of this expedition, a great leader must aim or set a goal like an artwork, such as a musical masterpiece. The leader acts like a musical conductor. The conductor may not be the best piano player, violin player or drummer, but the conductor must be able to control and utilize the skills of all his or her musicians and know when they should play and when they should rest. Simply put, the leader of a group must be able to utilize the man power available and the skill sets that they bring to the table to the highest degree of efficiency to reach the goal that they have set, lesson that every leader should know and follow, now and forever, after this trip.

As our trip comes to an end and as we work towards our goals in the future, we should never lose sight of what we went through to get there, keeping an eye on the rear view mirror, if you will, as it is where you come from, what you have done and what life you choose to live that defines a person. We will always remember our successful goals, such as climbing Mt. Edith, making it passed the blistering cold Arctic Circle, watching the midnight sun. But we should never forget the failures we have had, and the lessons which we have learned from them. As we continue down the roads of life, we will meet others, affect their lives in some way or another. All we need to remember is that our goals that we meet, reach, and achieve will influence others in the world, some will journey on after your journey has ended but your legacy in some way shape or form will continue indefinitely as the goals, what you’ve done along the way on your road trip of life will contain others which will in turn learn from you or with you and pass that knowledge down for we are forever students, followers, teachers and leaders at the same time, but a great teacher and a great leader’s legacy is infinite.

GOALS - Part 1 By Jason Wang, Alvin, & Mickey

Goals.

The first step of success, is setting out goals.

Imagine a world without goals, people without direction, people who are living on this world without consideration of their future. A world where there is no self reflection, no self discipline and no self direction. But simply a spiritless person who only cares about the temporary comfort. Someone who can survive by living in a virtual video game for the feeling of success.

What is a goal? A goal is a statement or noted action that should be taken in the future. For example, a certain amount of weight loss, a grade to achieve, to finish something in a certain amount of time. Well, at least this definition is what we conccluded with so far. 

Your going on a long boat ride, all you have is a compass, a pen, a notebook, a map, and a bright mind. You have 1 hour to figure out where you want to go, or your map would be blown away or your compass would break. You take out a the pen and notebook briefly write down what you would think is nessesary:
   
    Reach XXX island by noon.
    Finish deck cleaning by 3:00
    Come up with a route to escape the wrath of time wastment.
    Etc.

You then come up with a way to achieve it, no matter smart or not. As long as you finish everything by the noted time. This is how you get things done. This is how you move on without stopping for stupid and unnessesary breaks. This is how you grow closer and closer to what may be considered the “big” and “success”’ goal. 

Over the past seven days we went through many many drills involving goal setting, target planning and simple time management drills.

Day1, people begin to crowd in. New people that we’ve never met before begins to flood the HQ. New members, new ice to break. Its 9:30 in the morning, you have finish certain tasks by the end of the day in order to leave the HQ the next day. We then needed to think of ways to accomplish the many navigation tasks in time. How are we going to do things like such? Why? All considerations made when setting goals.

Day2, We have a testing day, we have a list of things needed to accomplish before the day ends, we have a full 24 hours to do so. As everyone has a paper and a pen, people began to plan time. We have to finish XXX by XXX within XXX minutes. Etc. That was the day delays began to pile in. We received small failures, hour delays, logistic issues, mostly delays. Problems begin to occur, if we delay so much, are we going to be able to reach the artic in time?

Day3,  we headed to the campsite. We arrived at approximately 6:00 and began to set up the tents. It took up 2:30 hours, cooking alone took 2 hours. Our entire time management plan failed. All because we didn’t set the rules staright or plan the goals. We didn’t set goals. Leading to unefficient timings, schedule delays, and so on so forth. We then learnt the importance of planning and time management. To stay on task, to work hard as a team to accomplish the goals set. But how do we enforce it? How do we keep the plan going? We’ll needd time to figure out.

Day 4, We continued on our journey with several navigational hiccups. Where were the pitstops, how long were we going to stay, why etc. We also encountered meal problems, running overtime. All because we didn’t have reinforced goals. How do we improve, what do we improve? The team just sat down with their notebooks out, and began to plan.

    We have to reach Alberta by XXX
    We have to pass Regina by XXX
    We need the XXX by XXX to do XXX
These goals guide us to our planned destination. In our case, to reach the Arctic.


Day 5, Far away gas stations, planning failure, we begin to get on track and farmilliarize with the different scenarios going through our minds constantly. We are farmilliar with the variables, the possibilities, the “reality” of things to make a relatively close judgement.  We begin to get on track and learn from our mistakes. Things change into a somewhat good start. We know the drills, we know the daily needs, the daily requirements the daily goals. Its all about self dicipline. You need to dicipline yourself to know the requirements, the expectations.

Day 6, the big challenge. With the main goal of reaching the arctic, we come up with small goals to gradually build up to the big goal. The ideal example would be day 6. The day we reached 1000 kilometers. We set a goal of 1400, but we try our best to reach it. We may not be capable of reaching the goal, but we can try our best. Asreality crept forward, we noticed that 1400 isn’t a realistic distance and decided to come up with a plan B. We got to the nearest civilization and stopped to find motels, keeping in mind that our goals would be Edmonton, west edmonton mall to be precise. We found the nearest carpark and spent the night there, without heisitation or further consideration. We have a goal, and no matter what, we have to reach it.

Day 7, we came up with a goal of reaching BC in time, while Calvins family nicely treated us to dinner and a extremely comfortable shelter. When you have a goal, and you’ve done nothing but pressuring yourself to reach it, its appropriate for you to have a nice shelter, or simply treating yourself to a nice dinner, you deserve it. If you know better. Communication between goals are also important. Imagine a board of members. One cook, one navigator, one math genius, one art freak, and one language snob. Would you question the math genius’s calculations? Would you question the art freak’s sense of taste? This is all regarding the idea of comminicating to come up with the ultimate judgement, the judgment made by many of the experties, all simply to reach the goal, and make the goal appropriate. You have to learn to push the envelope, yet not burst it. Because being a leader is like a rubber band, you can push real hard, but you can decline real small. It all about flexibility and adaptbility.

Overall, we’ve learnt several realistic judgements along the way. How is it going to help you? How is goals going to help you and guide you to your destination? That a question we just answered. As you follow the assigned tasks, you gradually build yourself up to  standard not far from the target. For example, we began in tonronto, then targeted thunderbay, then Winnipeg, then Regina, and so on so forth. We gradually get closer to our ultimate goal, the Arctic. How? Because we had goals. The pace and efficiency between goals increases over experience, we learn from the failures, the mistakes, but continue to push on as we already have a basic data base located within our brains. Just as people say, practice makes perfect, experience brings wisdom, and knowledge guides us to our destined land with the help of goals.

Self dicipline, self direction and self awareness is the key, you see what youre  doing, why you’re doing it and see how you can improve. Maybe from the point of view as a follower or a leader. Goals, is so important to the human race that without them our world can hardly function. Everyday you see presidents, Concierge, leaders of our world stand out and talk about what they would do to help, why they would do so to help. This is because they want to tell you that they have goals, goals and a direction they want to follow, so that you would agree and help them to it.

Over the years, the presidents and leaders of our world start their job, their oath is all about the goals in their future. How they will accomplish it, why they would accomplish it, and maybe how they will accomplish it. Their self dicipline guides them along the way, their self direction, and their self awareness. Is it completely nessesary to do such thing, is what I’m doing beneficial to the team, so on so forth. Etc.

The first step of success, is setting out goals.

Imagine a world without goals, people without direction, people who are living on this world without consideersation of their future. A world there is no self reflection, no self discipline, no self direction. But simply a spiritless person who only cares about the temporary comfort. Someone who can survive by living in a virtual video game for the feeling of success.

The first step ahead on your long journey ahead, is to plan, plan and investigate, jot down notes, write down goals.

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.

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?

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.”

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.