The question is: Can a 48 year old woman who hasn't published a story in years enter a profession dominated by athletic men and become an adventure travel writer? The answer is: immaqaa.
Imaqaa. One of the most frequently used words in the Inuktitut language. In English it sort of means "maybe". But to really understand the word, you've got to put it in context. As in, "Will you go hunting before or after sunrise?" "Immaqaa." Or, "How much snow will this five day-old white out blizzard leave?" "Hmm. Immaqaa." Or even, "Can a middle-aged woman who's 20 pounds overweight, in lousy shape, but with perfectly manicured finger and toe nails, squeeze out one last career involving frozen outhouses and raw walrus?" Go out on a limb and guess what the answer is.
I've wanted to be an adventure travel writer since I was 16 years old. When other girls were reading "Tiger Beat" magazine and ogling pictures of Paul McCartney, I was reading "People of the Deer", an account of the demise of the Inland Inuit, written by the great Canadian nature writer, Farley Mowat. Mr. Mowat, or Farley as I prefer to think of him, was a married man with a face like a bearded cabbage-patch doll. Yet I fantasized about him. I fantasized about hiking through the Northwest Territory with him. I'd wear one of those brimmed hats with the mosquito netting, clothes I hadn't changed in days and yet be radiant with health and beauty. I imagined myself, like Isak Dineson in "Out of Africa",(see: "Out of the Arctic") stoic and silent, sitting beside Farley, my leading man, as Inuit elders told stories of Sedna and other traditional legends around a camp fire. (These clearly were fantasies because I can't remain silent for very long and I rarely leave the house without mascara, much less go for days without showering and changing my clothes.)
The flames of my adventure writer dreams were fanned further by a quirky friend of my mother, a woman named Cora Cheney-Partridge. Cora was the wife of a Navy lawyer and the mother for four kids. But what really interested me was her status as a published author. To me, writers were the brahmin of all professional castes. I believed that people who wrote and published books lived purer lives and breathed thinner air than the rest of us. Cora wrote all kinds of books. Cook books, non-fiction, children's books. One of my favorites was book called,"The Incredible Deborah" about Deborah Samson, a 21 year old woman who dressed as a man and fought in the Revolutionary war. True story. Samson was the first woman to fight on behalf of this country.
Cora Patridge was also a pioneer of sorts. She was an adventurer and writer in an era when other women either stayed home to raise their children or assumed one of the three careers open to women: teaching, nursing or being a flight attendant. Call it bravery. Call it eccentricity. Whatever it was, Cora was driven to join her husband Ben on an adventure, write a book about it and then use the proceeds from the book to fund her next adventure. In the late 70's, she and her family walked -- you heard me -- walked around the world on the Arctic Circle, after which she wrote "Crown of the World", a book about circumpolar politics. Another time she traveled around Africa and wrote a cookbook. The she visited Iceland and wrote a children's book.
Cora's treasure-filled home in Vermont reflected her travels. African zebra skins. Chinese jade. South American textiles. My favorite was on the ceiling of her bedroom. Cora tacked a polar-centric map of the world over her bed. I imagined her falling asleep at night thinking of exotic places like Pevek, Siberia; Kaktovik, Alaska and Tuktuyukutk, Canada. Then I imagined myself in those places.
And in spite of the fact that I've procastinated for 30-some years, I still imagine myself in those places. Do I wish I could write for Outside magazine or National Geographic? Hell, I'd chew off my write arm and tap the story out with the stump if I had to. Who wants to write in obscurity? But I recognize that being read is only part of being an adventure writer. Having the adventures and telling the story, spinning a good yarn is the other part. And that's the part I know I can do.
If I ever manage to publish something in a "real" news outlet, I promise to dedicate it to Cora and Deborah Samson and all the other eccentric women who figured out how to tune out the noise of the world around them, tune in their personal siren song and follow it, stumbling, one foot in front of the other. No immaqaa about it.
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