photo: Ron Watts
Island survivor
How hard could it be to live for five days and nights on a deserted island? That depends on how you feel about eating ants, drinking mud, and having bears as neighbours.
Raven picked me up in his boat—I was surprised to learn he is a nervous sailor. “As your captain, I hope you don’t mind if I smoke,” he said. “It calms my nerves when the wind blows up.”
Raven, the Trickster, has always played a part in Northwest storytelling, and I recognized him right away. Raven the Trickster is also Raven the Transformer, appearing sometimes as a child, sometimes as an old man, or even as a single evergreen needle. Why not, then, as a raincoast jack-of-all-trades named Clint Johnson with a nicotine moustache, grey beard, pirate’s braid, and eyes that twinkle with cosmic mischief?
It was possible, after all, that I was taking this assignment too seriously. It had seemed simple enough when I first got the call: I’d be dropped off on a deserted island along British Columbia’s ragged coast with no tent, no sleeping bag, and just the basics I would carry for any proper day hike—including an extra layer of clothes, a rain jacket, lighter, pocket multi-tool, headlamp, canister of bear spray, an energy bar, and a day’s worth of water. Five nights later, someone would come to get me. All I had to do in the meantime was survive.
Read more in the current issue of British Columbia Magazine
