Hi there, everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Cloud Base Mayhem. I am your host, Gavin McClurg. Really excited to bring you this show. About the same time I was going across, well, a little bit after I was going across Alaska this last season, Benjamin Jordan, a friend of mine who I met in Malawi a few years ago, flying with Matt Beechinor and Nick Greece and Godfrey. Some of you may have seen The Boy Who Flies, kind of Ben's breakout film about paragliding a couple years ago.
He took on a solo project across from Vancouver, BC to Calgary, right up across the coast range of BC and across the Rocky Mountains, a line that had never been flown. I think a couple people maybe had been thinking about it, but a very, very difficult line. He completed the project in 38 days, and I wanted to sit down with Benjamin and talk about not only that project, but a lot of the things that he's been pretty vocal with. Among other things, a battle over many years with depression. We got some warning to the viewers, we got to some pretty dark places in this one, but it's all pretty positive energy, and talking to Benjamin is a lot of fun.
He has done, among other kind of crazy things, certainly very adventurous things. He skateboarded across Canada and raised a whole bunch of money for breast cancer. He powered okinawans to master the Okinawan race. Cool stuff! hair glided across canada that's the entire country folks uh from west to east and raised a whole bunch of more money for for really good things he's been doing some really cool work in malawi and africa that's where we met a couple years ago flying mount melange with Nick Greece and matt biesner for a little film project we were working on so uh yeah i don't want to give too much away here i think you're going to really enjoy this ben is uh the adventurer's adventure and uh he's just now just now right now launching his uh film about his his bivy project across canada and so yeah exciting time to talk to him exciting time in the sport i think you're going to really enjoy it uh very briefly a couple things housekeeping we still have this giveaway going uh if you put up a review that i really dig on itunes or stitcher or google play or however you get the show uh if it comes to my attention and i pick it up then you could be in to win one of two things the first is uh the delorme explorer you know garmin bought delorme a few months ago and i've got one of their units that actually i used across alaska it works perfectly if you don't mind a couple little scratches but this is the explorer unit and the new units the garmin are making are definitely more robust in terms of being able to drop them and get them wet and that kind of thing but the functionality is pretty similar so if you've been looking to get a spot or tracking device with two-way messaging all the wonderful functionality that those delorme units have then put up a review that's a great way for other people to find this podcast it's through reviews so i want to encourage you to do that and the other is a blue sky vario this is a tiny little audio vario that works on accelerometers that alistair dickie produces down in australia they're a great little unit and he's donated a few to the show for me to give away so again put up a review on itunes and stitcher or google play or google play and i'll see you next time on whatever platform you get your podcasts on and you can send it to me in an email or i'll just be checking those out and by the end of may i'll choose which ones i like the best and and we'll send you a unit so get creative and put something cool up there and just want to keep encouraging you all to spread the word we're starting to reach a much larger and larger audience that's awesome i really dig that and i think we're we're making our community stronger and better and uh safer and that's that's what this thing is all about so thank you very much thank you for your generosity i appreciate you supporting the show and this is a listener supported podcast and uh let's get right on with it without further ado please enjoy this long and very entertaining conversation with benjamin jordan
ben
jordan uh awesome to have you on the mayhem i'm so excited to talk to you we've been trying to get this together for for a few months and you i've read your your awesome article in cross country about your huge adventure and i've i was one of the lucky ones i got to see your film i think before the for the release so uh great to have you on the show thanks for coming on
thanks thanks for having me gavin i i gotta i gotta get something off my chest i'm like literally tripping balls right now like hearing you invite me welcome me to your podcast because i i've just enjoyed your your uh your rants and your guests so much and and uh now i'm i feel like i've kind of broken that that fourth wall or here i anyway here i am yeah thanks for having me this is this is a
lot has uh well thank you for that but a lot has happened since our our little tryst on mount melangi a couple years ago with with nick and the boys and matt beecher in malawi so i want to get into uh the school of dreams and what's been happening over there but you know for the for the audience before we get into your monumental uh journey across the rockies i i let's give the audience some some background because you're not a real high profile pilot by uh or anything and you haven't been doing the comp scene and all that kind of stuff but you've done some pretty amazing things both in and outside of paragliding for instance you do i understand this correctly that you skateboarded across canada
yeah yeah that was a little while ago that was kind of uh that that was something that i did back in oh that was sort of the transition between my fashion and advertising photography career in toronto and sort of my my life of dirtbaggery and adventure that uh that ensued yeah so that that was a skateboard trip across canada it was 8 000 kilometers we raised uh funds and awareness we raised a million dollars for the canadian breast cancer foundation going from uh halifax to to vancouver
on a on a skateboard you went up up and over the rockies on a skateboard
It's funny, people always asked what we would do when we got to the Rockies. That was sort of the question because we started on the east coast of Canada and we ended up in the west coast. So people would always say, what are you going to do when you got to the Rockies? What are you going to do when you got to the Rockies? And honestly, that was probably the most fun and the easiest part because, you know, you just sort of push up all of these hills and then, you know, all of a sudden you get to ride 20 kilometers without having to push a single step down the other side.
And are you one of these guys like in the movie where, you know, you put stuff over your hands and you're dragging your wrist and you're sliding sideways? I mean, are you a total badass on a skateboard or are you just like, yeah, let's go skateboard across Canada? I don't know what I'm doing.
I'd say that by the end I'd become a badass. But when I started, I definitely did not know what I was doing. I was just kind of getting around town on the flats, kind of a skateboarder. And I actually, I got my first helmet, my first full face helmet in Banff, Alberta, because I realized on the first hill coming into there that, oh, wait a minute. Wait a second. And being surrounded by all these mountains, I said, I think I might need this. I think I might need a real bucket. So do
you end up with like one massive leg doing that? I mean, I can't ride, you know, I ride goofy. I can't ride not goofy. How do you, how do you balance all that? I mean, sorry, dude, that sounds miserable. Was it fun?
Yeah. So that was the, that was our main concern when we started was what's going to happen to our bodies and will we, will we be able to do the minimum distance? Every day. And so we ended up learning how to, to skateboard using the other leg as well. And so generally speaking, we would use that when we were not going fast, when we were have, you know, less risk. And so when we, we often push up hills with the other leg and then, and then ride down the hills with the, with the good leg forward. And
when, so you say we, I'm gonna ask you two questions. Who's we, and then you raised a million dollars for breast cancer, which is, you know, a million dollars for breast cancer. But was this in your dirtbaggery stage or was this back when you were still fashion photography stage?
Oh, this is, uh, yeah, this is me coming out of being a fashion photographer for about seven years. Uh, and the, the, the, we is this, I should explain. My dream was to fly a powered paraglider across Canada that year. I had learned to paraglide the year before. What year are we in? So I guess I'd learned to paraglide. I'm like, oh four, oh five, and then this is like, oh five, oh six kind of thing. And I'd given myself a year after learning to paraglide, which has completely rocked my whole world to, you know, get out of the fashion game and get into the adventure game. And I was gonna fly a paraglider powered paraglider across Canada. Originally I thought I was gonna fly a paraglider across Canada, but I didn't know. I'd only learned to soar.
I didn't know anything about cross country or, or how hard that would actually be to, to, to free fly across Canada. Um, so. Yeah. Eventually I learned I, I needed a motor, but, um, I just felt completely overwhelmed. And at that time I was, uh, sort of a leader in the local longboard scene in Toronto, developing that community. And, uh, when these three guys, uh, Rob, Aaron, and Carlos from Halifax that were roommates, uh, decided that they wanted to skateboard across Canada for breast cancer, they wrote me an email. They said, Hey, can you set up a fundraiser in Toronto when we come through Toronto for, for the breast, uh, Canadian breast cancer foundation? And I said, for sure. And then like, I went to sleep that night and I was like, wait a second, these guys are going to skateboard across Canada. And I thought, you know what? I can't fly a paraglider across Canada, but I could skateboard across Canada.
So I took a look at their website and their photography, and I was like, I could, I could do so much for these guys. So basically I just gave my notice on my apartment and, uh, gave away all my stuff and told these guys like, Hey, I'm, I'm coming. And, uh, fortunately they said yes. And yeah, that was that. I went up to them. I went to Halifax and we started our journey. So it was these three guys and, um, yeah, we raised, raised a million bucks. I should say that we started out with about a $10,000 between the four of us. And so I guess that's kind of dirt baggy, but the reality there is just that living in Toronto is costing me a fortune. So I didn't really have much of a nest egg. And we spent about six of that on the RV that ended up following us the entire way. And, uh, and I say that because we didn't have any, we didn't really have any money.
We didn't have the resources to make it past Montreal, but, uh, that's not very far. No, what, what, what ended up happening? It's, this is kind of a side story, but it's really interesting to, to share it. Cause people always say I would do something like that, but I don't have the money or I got to save up some money or this or that. So we didn't have the money. We just, we, like we had the pride and, and we had the ego and, and I ended up, um, skateboarding ahead of those guys. Cause I was more experienced than the flats the first day. And I stopped at a gas station. I went inside and I said, Hey, this is what we're doing. Do you want to make a donation to our cause? And they said, well, we can't really make a cash donation, but if you want some gas. And then this light went on off in my head and I realized, wait a second. Like we can, like, I can, I can ask people for help and people could help, help us out.
Like, it doesn't just have to be, you know, us fundraising and us going out of pocket on this adventure. And so literally what happened is I walked into every, or a skateboarded up to every single gas station across Canada. Probably like. To the tune of like five or 600 gas stations and ask them for support. And in the end, we didn't end up spending a, like a dime of that $4,000 that we had, nor did we have to spend any of our fundraising because people would hook us up with gas, uh, food, uh, even hotel rooms, some fancy hotel rooms on occasion. And it really just made the whole thing possible. And then that has been the approach that I've taken to basically all of my trips, which you could call dirt baggery, but at the same time, I just call it surfing. The wave of generosity and allowing people to like support something that is so inspiring to them.
So that was, I think that's a really
important, um, point or something to get across, you know, that one of my greatest frustrations, uh, forever has been this whole thing. You know, when I tell people about doing something cool, they, oh, I wish I could do that. And I want to just shake up and go, wait a minute, you can't use, you know, money or security as an excuse. You know, you can. If you want to do it, do it. It's just, there is no, there's nothing really stopping you. Uh, Jeff Shapiro on the last show actually talked really eloquently about that. And that doesn't mean you can go do it tomorrow. And some of these things take training, you know, skateboarding, you can get on the board and start riding on the East coast. And by the time you get to the Rockies, you figured it out a little bit, paragliding is maybe a little bit different and we're going to get into that. But I think that's an important point, Ben, was that was, was this your first kind of foray into.
Big wacky wild adventure, or was this, uh, you know, something you did on a regular basis in your life?
I would say that, uh, as far as publicity is concerned, yes, uh, there, there was a precursor to this, uh, learning to paraglide in New Zealand was a completely like life altering experience for me. Uh, I, I was, um, I was about six years into my photography career. It was getting a bit old. Uh, I got evicted from an apartment. I had to find a new apartment. It was the winter in Toronto. I saw a paraglider on a TV. I heard my brain say, you can't do that. And I was sort of doing some coursework, listening to that inner monologue and kind of questioning it. And I ended up questioning that air monologue and long story short, I forced myself to go learn to paraglide, not because I wanted to paraglide, but actually as like, um, a test to see what would happen if I just did one of those things that my brain was telling me I could do that.
Um, and yeah. And, uh, like other, other examples are like, you know, approaching women that I find attractive or whatever. And so paragliding seemed like the easiest one. And I went, I ended up down in New Zealand and, uh, my whole life just, just got shaken upside down. Before I knew it, I was, you know, hitchhiking. I bought a, a gin Yeti with the tiny like G string harness. And, and, um, I was hitchhiking around the country, literally just hiking up everything I could find that I could fly off. And, you know, probably not making some of the wisest choices, but I made it back. Okay. And that was a hundred days. So I spent a hundred days in New Zealand just being a complete like knob paragliding knob and, uh, and loving every second of it.
So I'd say that that was really my first foray into the world of adventure. Um, but yeah, definitely skateboarding across Canada. That was, that was different because there was a commitment there. And, uh, and I was going for it. I was going for a record too. So, um, there was a lot more on the line and, uh, and it was my first, it was my first opportunity to do something for myself, but also do something for the greater community. Uh, so in, in the sense of raising money for breast cancer and, and really inspiring a lot of people, not just sort of having a private adventure, but having a very public adventure. In the end, you know, the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation almost denied us the opportunity to raise money for them because they looked at us and they said like, oh, you're, you know, you're just a bunch of young punks. You're just a bunch of middle aged women doing fundraisers, running, whatever.
And, you know, we were saying that that's the point. Like we're trying to get a whole new audience for you. And in the end it was so tongue in cheek for skateboarders riding across Canada for breasts that we literally got like three or four media pieces every single day. And their PR people were like, these guys are killing it. You know, in the end that's how we raised all that money is that we just, you know, we got so much media and attention to our website.
Yeah. I mean, and it, you know what
I mean?
One of the things I see again, again, is
that, you know, we've got so much media and attention to our website. And then
your, and your work is this really creative side. Obviously you, you've had that skill maybe even longer than you, you recognize, but it's it seems like the skateboarding thing was the kind of was, was what took you from a bit of a, you know, I don't think the fashion world's a nine to five, but it took you kind of from this corporate world into this whole, Ooh, what can I do world? Yeah.
Yeah, for sure. It's been fun. And, and just kind of like making my, making up my, all my own rules and, you know, editing photos. The way I want to edit photos and saying what I want to say about
those photos. Yeah, for sure. Okay. So then we make the jump to you decide you are going to power paraglide across Canada, correct?
Yeah. So that happened a few years later. I got out West and I should first say, cause this is, yeah. When, when we were skateboarding across Canada, half the people that would stop in front of us and hand something out their window, half the people would be giving us a 20, a 10 or a 20 put in our donations. And half the people would be giving us beer because I guess that's the thing that you give guys that are skateboarding across Canada for breasts. And so we ended up not eating a lot of dinner and drinking a lot of beer cause that kind of, you know, numb some of the pain as well as some of the social issues that we were having between the four of us living out of an RV, you know, we're all 25, 26. And I discovered when I got to Vancouver where I then moved to and was feeling kind of insecure being in a new city, no jobs, whatever.
Yeah. Photography jobs and that. I discovered that I'd become a full, full fledged alcoholic. So that actually took about a year and a half of my life in the, in the end, I realized I just had to get away from that place. And I ended up going to Nepal because I, I participated in the 2007 national paragliding competition here in Canada. And I had thought, I had thought that I was a great pilot. I had thought that I was the best pilot. And I realized you
got, you got the slap down.
Yeah. You know, I mean, I think, I think farmer actually made, might've won that year. So that was my first time hanging out with pilots of that caliber. I just didn't know any other pilots yet. I understand. I was from Toronto. Toronto has like one hill and it's like 10 meters high. And the one time I tried to fly off of it cause I lived in Toronto for a year after learning to paraglide, a police officer came and told me that there was actually a bylaw that said you can't paraglide in a city that's fucking flat. Pardon my language. One of the reasons I had to leave. But when I got out to Golden and I was, you know, thinking I was going to own this comp, I was humbled beyond, you know, humility. And I ended up landing, you know, probably half an hour after the start window every day, and then would volunteer as a driver to go pick these guys up.
And I'd be driving and I was thinking like, whoa, this is a long drive. And then I'm looking at these mountains. I'm like, wait a minute. Wait a second. Am I actually going to find pilots at the end of this mountain range? Like, did that actually just happen? And sure enough, there they'd be with the smiles on their faces. And so when I was going through that period of alcoholism, I kind of realized like, wait, if I want to get anywhere close to this, I need to treat this like I'm an athlete, like I'm an athlete training for the Olympics. I need to just focus on this. So I went to Nepal and that was the winter of 07, 08. And I stayed there for five months. And I flew every flipping day. And I learned how to thermal. I learned how to fly cross country, at least to some mediocre level. And I got out of my trench.
I stopped drinking. And I never touched the bottle again. So that was a huge, huge step for me in paragliding and in life. And I owe that to paragliding. While I was there, I got the ideas that I needed to fly across. Canada with a power paraglider. And so I ended up contacting this Brazilian guy who was keen to do this with me and basically got him to do the legwork to find sponsors for it. And he did. We brought Nirvana Paramotors on board and they were stoked and sending us like 40 grand worth of gear, which was just mind boggling because I had to return it and I was responsible for it. And I decided in the last moment that I wasn't comfortable flying all the way across Canada.
So that summer, summer of 2008, we flew diagonally across British Columbia from the northwest coast to the southeast corner, close to where you and Will ended up at the end of your Rockies Traverse, about 2,000 kilometers. We did a documentary on the mountain pine beetle devastation and how that affected the landscape and how that affected the communities that logged those landscapes. In the end, I never produced that documentary because the Brazilian and I got along very well. But it was going so poorly that the content really was just sort of encapsulated that aggressive nature between sort of two alpha males.
But I say all this because this was the precursor to me flying across Canada. It was the summer after that that I utilized that same sponsor again to set the world distance record in powered paragliding and fly from Tofino, which is the west coast of Vancouver Island. All the way to Cape Breton Island, where I had to stop and I had to take the ferry, the 120 kilometers over to Newfoundland and then finish it up.
How did you get from Vancouver Island to the mainland?
I flew across the Georgia Strait. Jesus Christ. The interesting thing about that, and this is, you know, kind of relates to you through Will Gadd, is that Will Gadd has been an idol of mine basically since I started paragliding. He was in a magazine, featured in a magazine, Explorer magazine, in the same issue that we were featured for the skateboarding trip. So I read all about him and I was like, wait a second, this is the guy I got to be. So I've always had my eye on him. And when I was going to fly across Canada, I said, hey, Will, I know you did this thing across the states, you know, paragliding across the states a while ago. That really inspired me to try this. You know, I'm going to fly starting from Vancouver Island.
Any wise words? And he said to me, well, you know, be careful with the Georgia Strait. I tried to fly from there to my home in Canmore last year, and I actually had a piston blowout on me as soon as I got out over the water. And I think he also had like, you know, his friends at the search and rescue ready. He told me he had flares and all sorts of stuff. And I just had a life vest. Oh, my God. And now I was flying through commercial airspace, like totally don't do this at home, right? Like not a good idea. I'm not really proud of it, but it's an interesting story. Through commercial airspace over the Georgia Strait at Vancouver from Tofino or not. Sorry, from Nanaimo. And I'm getting as much height as I can because I just know that if my engine goes, I want to have as much glide as I can to get to land.
And at some point I remember flying and just being like, it's not a boat. And I realized there was like a 747 jet like like coming into land at YVR like under me. I thought like this is not actually happening. I'm just going to keep pointing it northeast for a while and everything's going to be OK.
And everything, everything, everything was OK. I ended up sort of gliding over Grouse and Cyprus and and into somewhere north of Abbotsford or something like that, where there's another airport. And as soon as I landed, I actually got a call and I didn't answer it because I was terrified. And sure enough, it was search and rescue. Then they had been notified that there was some pilot flying in and out of cloud above Cyprus. And they wanted to call and make sure and make sure that it was me because they wanted to make sure I was safe or to know if it wasn't me and someone might have been in danger. And and in the end, we resolved to call them because we didn't want to set off any alarms. Myself and the two lovely ladies that were helping me with that journey decided to call them.
OK, OK.
Yeah. So you solo endeavor. You've got you got a ground crew that's helping you out. Yeah.
My partner at the time, Karen, and then Jess, a girl that Karen and I met at Burning Man the year before, were my two awesome ground crew. And I should say that after the skateboarding thing and the thing with the Brazilian across B.C., I resolved to never work with guys again. Because it just seemed like such a headache. Yeah. And and I was really glad that I didn't because those girls, they just they just went like there is. I mean, they had girl kind of stuff that came up between the two of them that I was able to support. But at least it was not me so much the conflict. So, yeah, definitely. If you're a guy, consider working with women.
That
is great advice. I would have never been able to sail around the world a couple of times without. Without female energy. Yeah, that's absolutely true. OK, so tell me one other story from that. We got to get to your your crossing Canada at some point here. But I got to hear more about this. How long did it take? What was the ramifications? What was the fallout? Yeah. I know you got a lot to say about it, but you told me some fantastic stories about this this whole trip when we were in Malawi. So give me the give me the nuggets. All
right. Cool. Oh, shit. I'm just like the smile on my face. You can't see it is so big. It like hurts when I think about this journey. OK, so. So, OK. In the end, it took one hundred and eight days. It also took one hundred and eight flights. There's no correlation between the two. But one hundred and eight is a significant number in many cultures. So I feel that there's something spiritual about the about that journey wasn't supposed to take that long. But that's what it took. It's let's see. Some days we wouldn't fly because there'd be strong wind. That was a major issue. This is Canada. So there's not a lot of places to land, especially when you get into places like northern Ontario. It's just like forest and and sort of the butts right up to lakes and forest and lakes and not really anywhere.
Maybe a little cottage here and there, but nowhere to land. So if you couldn't make one hundred and fifty kilometers some days, you couldn't fly. And so with my my endurance on the 13th. Leader engine is on the Nirvana Instinct. I could do if I didn't do any serious climbs, I could do up to four hours. But I would need to fly a minimum of like, let's say, 30 kilometers an hour, which wasn't possible for in some cases an entire week, either due to a headwind or a crosswind. And then when we would be able to fly, I'd have to catch up because I was raising money to help send kids from low income homes to camp. So my plight was to land at summer camps along the way. We had scheduled them. We were I was doing motivational talks with the kids.
We were getting them in these big formations and I was shooting them from above and then selling those as a book to raise money for them. So I had to catch up. And so some days I would, you know, some weeks I would not fly. And then all of a sudden, for like three or four days, I would have to fly like 12 hours a day, like three flights a day. And that would include doing one flight right in the beef of it, which is, you know, always the most fun. You know, now you're on your, you know, fourth to eight hour of flying. And you're just kind of getting knocked by by thermals that you're not even really engaging with on the under the motor. And so that was that was pretty interesting. Probably one of the funniest thing that happened was we had gotten three camps together in the city of Toronto. Lots of camps there. We got three of them together in one school, one camp sort of location.
And we got them into the formation of this massive bicycle. And it looked just look epic. And I launched. And I was up there shooting it. And all of a sudden I could see police cars lit up coming at the school from every single direction. Like, I could see all of the different roads that led towards that school. And they're like, you know, I'd be damned if there wasn't a siren flashing on each and every one of them. And I all of a sudden kind of realized, like, this was this was related to me. And they they all pulled up outside of the school. And I continued to photograph this for about four or five minutes because we put so much energy into it. And I knew that this was going to be one of the best, best photographs of the entire journey, best youth formations of the entire journey.
So there I am kind of ignoring that. I mean, I'm feeling at this point like I may be shot out of the sky, but that, you know, that this artwork is so important to me. And I end up flying off a little ways, trying to get away from this, the scene, thinking I could buy myself some time. But certainly I was foolish in doing that. And that just aggravated them even more. And I was detained by the police for about three hours as they tried to sort of figure out what law I had broken. They were focused on me confessing which building I had jumped from and could not appreciate that. I had launched from the schoolyard that they had surrounded initially because they'd never seen anything like it. And they had gotten about a thousand calls from local concerned residents.
And office workers that there was a base jumper hovering in the air. And so I was trying to express this to them. And it wasn't until they saw a video that the team had taken of my launch that my supporters had taken of my launch that they were like, oh, okay. And I did have clearance from Pearson Airport. I was in their airspace. I did have clearance to fly at that elevation. I just hadn't notified the police and the police were furious. So in the end, everyone was happy. I signed posters for all of the police officers. And they got back in their cars. And we got on the school bus and drove away. So that was a pretty hot moment.
You know, Nat Geo photographers have a saying that if you're not getting arrested on a regular basis, you're not doing your job.
Oh, good. Good. So that's good because I'd love to work for them one day. And then probably one of the craziest, most intense things. And this is a story I told in my book. About this journey. And I seldom tell like this. So let's hope I don't like choke up or anything. People had always asked me, what are you going to do when you get to crossing to Newfoundland? Because that's 120 kilometers of raw Atlantic Ocean. And I said to them, I'm going to get a boat. I'm going to get a support boat. So, you know, because everyone's always saying, you know, I'm
going to get a support boat. Oh,
you're flying a paramotor. That's like flying a lawnmower. Those things are, you know, known to fail. And so I didn't know anything. I was very inexperienced powered paraglider. I should say that before I did that 2008 trip, I hadn't actually flown a powered paraglider ever. We basically lied to those sponsors and told them that we knew what we were doing. But we didn't. We had to train from scratch. We learned off YouTube. And so I didn't have that much experience. And a lot of people that were avid PPG pilots were telling me. Like, dude, you're nuts. And I said, don't worry, I'm going to get a support boat. You know, my mom's asking me, my friends are asking me, what are you going to do? I said, don't worry, I'm going to get a support boat. If I don't get a support boat, I won't do it. That was what I would say. And that's what I told myself. And we got out there. We got out close to the East Coast.
And it was kind of always on my list. But it was something that I always put lower priority than everything else. And so in the end, I never got a support boat for it. And we're out there now. And Hurricane Bill has just come through. There's quite a bit of wind. And I realized, like, I need to go look for a boat. And I'm literally walking the docks, talking to fishermen, talking to boaters, and saying, listen, you know, like, this is how much money we have. Can you escort me across to Newfoundland? And basically what I found out was no boat, and apparently not even the police boats that are designed to catch drug runners, can actually fly. It can actually. It can actually cross those waters. Maybe you know better than I do.
But this is what I was told. It can actually cross those waters at the speed that I had intended to fly across. I was waiting for a tailwind. And we did have a tailwind. It was a tailwind of 50 kilometers an hour. Yeah, that'd be pretty fast with a boat. Yeah. So 50 plus, I'm flying at 40. Yeah. So they said, like, you can't do. We actually can't do that. And so I realized that. You know, there was no boat that could do that. And what had happened in my mind was that I realized that, like, I had been telling everyone that I would do it if I could get a boat. But I'd never done the research to understand that that boat didn't exist. So effectively, I was lying to everybody.
And I would be lying to everybody if they said, well, what did you do when you got to that section? And I said, well, I couldn't get a boat. Well, you can't say you couldn't get a boat when that boat didn't exist. That's like me saying I couldn't find a Martian to marry me. And so that's why, you know, like, that's ridiculous. So I felt so out of integrity with myself and I was so broken inside about it that I chose that the only way I could feel good about this whole thing and that I could live with myself was to just go and do it anyway. And so I got myself into a position where I was comfortable with the idea of paragliding. And I was flourishing in order to maintain the integrity that I felt I needed to maintain around this project, which had been my life goal at that point for so long.
And that was an intense moment in my life because I rationalized that it was worth it. Like, my life was worth my integrity because my integrity was effectively my life.
Did you run—I know you. You do process this. You process this stuff pretty heavily. Did you really run through—I mean, because I think you often hear people say things like that, like, hey, if I died, it was worth it. But did you really process that through in terms of how that would affect family, friends, your ground crew, sponsors?
Hard question,
but— To the best of my ability. Yeah. To the best of my ability. I mean, that's all very subjective, right? Sure.
Like, how you
relate to family versus how I relate to family versus how your listeners relate to their families. Sure. For instance, I can say that I cried for about 24 hours in a sort of a release of coming to that conclusion and coming to peace with that conclusion. But I should say that I—up until that point, I had this knot in my stomach of feeling like basically a worthless piece of shit that was just so out of integrity with his words. And I couldn't find a resolution around it. You had to do it. It wasn't until I chose that I would be willing to die for this, that I found this deep, deep, deep sense of peace around my choice and around myself.
And yeah, that was a crazy, crazy moment. Probably I'll never be the same after making that choice. And so in the end, I tried to do it. We had winds that were essentially so strong, 50, 60 kilometers an hour, that I actually couldn't launch properly. I tried a number of times, but it was getting picked up and sort of dropped. And, you know, I was starting to be concerned about my equipment. And we waited for an entire week. There was one time when I sort of—we drove to a place around the corner of this tip, this peninsula, where it was kind of in a bit of a rush. It was a bit of a rotor, bit of a wind shelter. And I was able to launch. It was really ratty. And I got up, and the winds were quite strong, pretty much blowing me towards Newfoundland at my airspeed.
And once I got high, I realized, holy crap, there is like a massive squall out over the ocean, about like 10, 20k out, which I couldn't see from the ground. And I would have been flying right at it. So I tried to fly back. But I realized I couldn't get back. The wind was blowing me too fast out to sea from the west. Again, this is in the wake of Hurricane Bill. So these are abnormally strong winds. And I ended up having to get myself all the way down to literally just a few meters above the ocean. Now I'm probably about a kilometer or two out. And get into that sort of wind gradient where there was just enough of a— a disturbance by the surface that I could penetrate forward at about, you know, five kilometers an hour.
And slowly make my way back to shore. But that was as close as I got to actually doing it. And, you know, if it was up to me, I would have waited there probably my entire life. Waiting for that—those conditions and just doing it. Because I was—I had gone insane. But I didn't realize how insane I had gone until Jess of my ground crew just like—she came up to me and she said, What the fuck are you doing? Like, you douchebag. Like, you—you said that you were doing this to raise money to help send kids from low-income families to camp. And all I'm looking at is some asshole who's, like, hell-bent on setting this 10,000 kilometer distance. When you've already, like, doubled the—the existing record. Can't you just fucking, like, pack it up and, like, let's take the ferry over and you can finish it that way?
Because you're going to get yourself killed. And we're going to be sitting here for another three or four weeks in this, like, miserable way. In the weather. Just so that you can have this, you know, moment of pride. And—and that was really hard for me to digest. I just remember packing my shit up and just crying my face off and going to the back of the bus where we had some bunk beds built. And I just—I literally cried all the way to Newfoundland, like, as she drove to the ferry. And then we took that, like, 12-hour ferry ride or whatever it was. When we got to Newfoundland, the winds were so strong that even the birds were flying backwards. And that same wind component. And so I realized that even if I had made it, I probably would have gotten completely destroyed on landing. But, yeah, that was an intense moment.
And I'm—I'm really glad that I—I had the right kind of support. Because I'm glad I didn't do it. And I'm glad I learned that lesson. And I'm glad I'm able to share that lesson with other people, too, now.
There's a few things here. Thanks for sharing that. Ben, there's a few things here that I can kind of relate to some of my own experiences. The one—and, you know, I don't—I'd like to hear where you are almost spiritually in a sense that, you know, do you think that once you made that decision to do it that there was, you know, something a little bit more beyond you that was, you know, quite clearly telling you, yeah, okay, but you can't do this? And so, you know, the storms and the winds. Yeah. And all these kind of things were kind of not conspiring, but they were, you know, I almost think that sometimes when you—when you make these vaulted, dogged, I'm doing this,
and then it doesn't allow you to, it's somebody that's got your back, you know? You know what I mean?
That there was some sort of greater power that was telling me,
like, get back
off, dude?
Yeah. Yeah. Well— Did that ever—did that ever occur to you? Or did that ever kind of like—I don't know, did that ever ground you a little bit more? Like, oh, maybe I need to listen to the world more?
You're reminding me of this thing. It's interesting because I guess I had tuned into that for some time when I was—when we were halfway across. We were in the prairies, and there was this voice inside of my head that was telling me, dude, it's way too windy to fly. And I went for it. I went for it anyway. And I had been flying in these prairie storms, too, sort of surfing the front edge of these massive prairie storms, trying to make distance. And the next day came, and sure enough, the same weather system was hitting us. And there was this voice that was telling me, like, dude, this is not—like, you should just, like, have another bowl of Cheerios. Like, this is not when you want to be flying. And I went for it anyway, kind of like a zombie, a power paragliding zombie that I was at that point, and just, like, went for it.
And I—do you remember? I don't know exactly what happened. I got picked up, and then somehow my wing, I guess, got—had a bit of a frontal, and then it came down at me. But it went down into my propeller, and then my propeller chopped the leading edge of it. And it was pretty dramatic. And there I am on the ground, kind of just wondering, like, what—what happened? And I talked to my support crew about it, and I—we tried to figure out, like, what that voice was. And we came up for a name for her, and her name was Gertrude. And so it became all about, like— What does Gertrude think about this? That was—they would ask me, like, what does Gertrude think about this? And so I think—I think I know what you're talking about. Like, Gertrude became your touching stone, in a sense. Yeah, I'm not familiar with that—that—that term, touching stone.
But I think I know what you mean.
Yeah, it's just like your grounding rock, you know? Just like, oh, you know, what do you think? Even though that—that Gertrude's not going to talk back to you. It's a—it's a, you know, it's—it's an energy. It's just something that—I don't know what it is either. But it's—I've used—Yvonne Chouinard's always been my touching stone, if that makes sense. You know, like, what—what would Yvonne do? And then that's the answer to—to everything.
I should say, Gertrude does talk back. Gertrude has a lot of attitude. And somehow, though, I should say, like, in that moment that I earlier described on the Cabot Strait there, that 120K Atlantic crossing, I—I—my—my ego was so strong that, in my own pride, my issues were so strong that she—she—she couldn't even be heard in—amongst the crowd of—of voices in my head. So, yeah, for sure. Was this
a—this sounds like not only a very intense moment, but was it—was it quite a pivotal moment as well? For you, just life-wise?
Yeah, out on the Atlantic there? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I was sort of just thinking about that when I was talking about it, like, because I haven't talked about it in a long time. So I was speaking about it more shortly after that occurred. But now that it's been so long and I reflect on it, I—I realize that that would have had a profound impact on my—my core, my being. Because I think it was the first time in my life where I kind of—it's happened a few more times, but where I had gotten myself really comfortable with my mortality and realized, like, this is, you know, this is my dream. And my dream is worth it. It's worth dying for. Because, you know, I've basically been dying, as I've sort of discovered.
I've basically been dying since the moment I was born. And so my life is effectively my death, as much as I want to deny that. And if what I'm doing with my life isn't worth dying for, then it's not really worth living for either. So that was really the first time that I had that profound thought.
And—and— And I've certainly had it, you know, a half-dozen times since then as well. So I'd say for sure, yeah, Gavin, it
changed everything. We're going to—we're going to come back to this subject. I just want to broach it really briefly here because you're real honest about this. And recently in the social medias and also in your article and stuff and certainly in your movie, you've—you've had some battles with depression. Was that—was—was that— Were you battling any of that back then? Or when you look back on it, were you seeing remnants of it? Or was that—is this something that's happening out in the future?
No. I've dealt with—I've—I've dealt with what I call depression on and off for quite a—quite a large portion of my life. I mean, you know, I think back to the first, you know, like my first—my early years, you know, I was sort of the target for bullies in grade school. And not so much in college. Not so much in high school. But in grade school. And always kind of felt like this odd guy out. You know, I'm going to cry. Never—just never really connecting with the—the society around me. And—and so I've—I feel like I've had that a lot. And then since I started working on these massive journeys with these, you know, epic destinations, certainly whenever I get to that destination, whether it's, you know, Vancouver after skateboarding for five months and nine days across Canada.
Or St. John's, Newfoundland after para-powered paragliding for 108 days across Canada. Like the moment I touch down in that—that final destination, like my dream—my dream that has been sort of my, you know, raison d 'être, my—the reason I get out of bed just vanishes because it's done. And then all of a sudden I hit this major, major, major wall. And I have no reason to exist. And that comes up again and again. So I'd say I deal with as many peaks as I deal with valleys.
To me, I can only speak about this personally, but the—the thing that has been so different with paragliding for me than any other activity I've pursued. And like you, it sounds like I've participated in stuff that maybe is more on the higher risk end of the spectrum. But—but paragliding. Paragliding is this—is this sport that's just so encompassing that I can't deal with anything else when I'm doing it. And I love that about it. That it's—it's just you can't be thinking about bills and X's and edibles and whatever. You can't think about anything when you're—when you're paragliding. I don't mean edibles like edibles. I mean like what you should be eating and diet and that kind of thing. But is that, you know, as I've been on this tour lately with North and Known, that's been a question that's come up again and again and again.
You know. But
I think that's what it feels
like to—to end. And—and my answer is always that no matter what I do, the sailing around the world, that it's always anticlimactic to end. But it's—it's—why I do them is because the—the struggle, the—the—the living in the present, I—I don't know another—I don't have another way to get to that unless I'm doing this stuff. That it just—it just draws me to right now. Not—not now or not what's gonna be now. It's right now. And is that, you know, I don't have the depression side of things, but I understand, you know, the come down. I mean, it'd be like, you know, coming off a huge high, I'm sure, from drugs. That's why people get addicted.
Is that kind of what you found with paragliding? Is that it's just, it's so all-consuming that it pushes depression aside?
But let me tell you, the moment I start that dangling, I'm so involved with what I'm doing that there's no more brain cycles left for me to actually process feelings like fear. And like you said, it's just, you're completely immersed in that present moment. It's this meditative moment that seems so hard to access in any other, you know, facets of our daily lives that for sure that has, you know, that's what I'm doing. I can relate to that. And then the greater question that you're, I think, sort of touching on there was that notion of, you know, the journey versus the destination. I don't mean to sound cliche, but if there's anything that I've learned, it's just that's not cliche.
That's real. Like the destination sucks. The destination you need because the destination creates the reason for the journey. But, you know, we're all. And our destination, pardon me, is death. And so if we can relate to any project that way, we can realize that, you know, we're always working towards the end, but we need to enjoy the working because that's all it's worth.
Do you, you know, each of these big journeys that you've had, there's, there's, it sounds like there's been a major component of either social awareness or raising money or there's been a real good side. Is that, is that how you balance the selfishness of these undertakings?
Yeah, for sure. That's, that's exactly it. I mean, I'll, I'll be honest. There's, there's a side of me that recognizes that it's a good, it's also good for, for public relations, but it is the example I want to set. And, you know, like a lot of people who do things in big ways, often they're trying to cover up for something that they feel an area in which they feel they're inadequate. Right. And something that I've never actually said publicly, it's kind of come to the resolve that I can say this is that when I was young, uh, for whatever reason, I kind of got off on this, um, bit of a wrong foot. And I, I became a thief. Like I was a fucking, I was a, yeah, it, it hurts to say that, but I stole from my mom, from my dad, from my friends, from stores.
Like I was a thief and that gave me something. Right. Right. But I remember when I was stealing, I would always tell myself like one day I'll have everything that I need and I will give back. And, and then, you know, I grew up and I became this photographer and whatever. And I just made people look sexier or tougher than they actually were in photographs and with Photoshop. And I realized I wasn't doing any of that. And, and so when I discovered my real passion through adventure, I also felt lit up and I felt like, you know, I was like, I'm going to do this. You know, this is my time, like, this is my time to give back. Like I need to do something here. Otherwise I'm going straight to fucking hell. And, uh, for, you know, for what I've done for the first, you know, whatever, 16 years of my life.
So I think that a lot of it is actually due to a, uh, a lot of my fundraising and benevolence is due to a deep seated guilt that I carry. And I think that I still carry and I'll probably carry to my grave, but at the same time, I just need to feel okay. Okay. Okay. Because I realized that it is causing me to do good in the world. And I, something I take a great deal of pride in and, uh, I want to, I want to motivate, I want to motivate people around me to, to think of ways that they can do what they love. And at the same time, uh, inspire people to be generous towards causes that could use a, use a hand that are worthwhile to them. Of course.
So that's a perfect transition to Malawi where you and I met, uh, obviously that was, you know, a big jump into, uh, this desire to give back, uh, you and Erica set up the school of dreams there and you got involved with Godfrey and your film, uh, just kind of a breakout film. And certainly in the paragliding world, uh, the boy who flies, uh, that, that was, uh, you had, you've had an amazing journey there and you've also had some really hard stuff there. Do you want, do you want to? You want to give a summary of, of that whole thing, not only your relationship, um, but also Godfrey and, and I'd love to hear if you want to talk about it.
So, yeah, so, uh, after the, the, the paragliding across Canada journey, I produced a film, uh, called the Canadian dream about that journey. And, uh, I was screening it and I've done a fair number of screenings in Europe and in Canada. And, you know, I always got the same question. It was like, uh, what are you going to do? What are you going to do next? What are you going to do next? And I hate that question because I was still dealing with the depression of, um, of, of having completed that journey. And that, that went on for a couple of years, uh, basically right into from 2009 to 2011, uh, where I was basically just kind of reliving my past, selling my book, selling my film, answering the same questions. What are you going to do next? And I said, I don't know.
I don't know. And, um, and I was in Nelson, BC. Basically my hometown at the time and where I live close to today. And I was doing a screening at the Capitol theater and a little girl asked me, what are you going to do next? And I didn't have the heart to just tell her. I didn't know. I wanted to say something. And I had had this vision the night before of being in Africa and, uh, working with kids and flying kites with them, building kites and flying kites. And so I just kind of pulled that out of my head. I said, well, I, I guess I'd kind of like to check out Africa. I've never been to Africa before. And I want to just. Basically play with kids there and, and fly kites. And that made everyone laugh and kind of made me laugh too. Cause I'd never actually said that out loud until that moment. And at the end of that, a guy came up to me, it was in the audience and he handed me his card and he was an African tour guide, like specialist.
He'd spent his whole life basically sending people to Africa and going with them. And, uh, he knew all about the continent and we had coffee and I said, look, I don't know. I've never been to Africa before. I just realized it wasn't a country. Um, and I need to know something because I want to go over there. And I think I, I think I'd like to teach someone to, to fly a paraglider. Like where's a good place to go. What's you know, where, where's politically safe. Where are people friendly? What's not too touristy. And he said like, oh, you should check out Malawi. And so I ended up going online, researching paragliding in Malawi. And sure enough, I found nothing. Um, and I realized, wait a second. Like I could potentially. Help someone. Would become the first person in their country to do this thing. That is my passion. That is my life passion.
And, uh, that really turned me on. And so literally inside of two weeks, I was getting off the plane in the long way and had no idea, uh, of how I was going to make this happen, but just kind of literally followed my dream, like to, uh, to, uh, you know, to the script where I just went and I just started, found myself in a community, found some materials to build kites with, started building kites with kids and attracting a fair bit of attention, as you could imagine this funny looking white guy out there. And, um, long story short, I met Godfrey. Godfrey was interested in what I was doing and he wanted to, he, he, he told me that he always wanted to fly that kind of came up through the, uh, the kite flying.
And, uh, we had a great time talking about it and in the end resolved that I would, I would teach him to fly. So we spent basically a month, uh, riding these just simple local bicycles around his country. And he showed me everything, uh, he could about his country. And that was awesome. We just stayed in local villages and, and every second day or so we would stop somewhere in a field and I would teach him how to ground handle, uh, forward launches, reverse launches. We started doing workshops at schools. I did them to begin with and he would translate and then he kind of got good at them. So then he started doing them. And it was just a, you know, basic teach kids how to build kites, tell them that, you know, these kites represented their dreams and ask them what their dreams were.
And then we'd go outside and we'd fly the kites and it was just this really good feeling. And, uh, you know, of course I was documenting the whole thing and that all that ended up in this film. And then, um, yeah, in the end, nobody really believed that he could do this. He was telling them, listen, I'm going to fly off that mountain right behind your school and kids didn't believe it. I guess in some ways we didn't even really believe it. But, um, yeah. But just kind of put one foot in front of the other and we got up there and luckily we had just perfect conditions for it. And, uh, he, uh, he had a great flight and when, when, when we landed, it was amazing because you could literally kind of like the policeman's story, uh, the police officer story from, uh, from Canada, we could see children running from every single direction.
You probably experienced that yourself when, when we did and, uh, you know, they're all shouting. And he said, take a, and he said, take a, which was sort of our chant that we had instilled in them, which means it is possible in Chichewa. And it was just this moment where you just wanted the ball and I could hardly contain myself as I, as I documented this incredible miracle and event, uh, which of course is sort of the, the, the wrap up of that film, you know, sort of an aside, uh, during that time with Godfrey, we spent a lot of time sort of trying to figure out how this could become sustainable. And I knew from the get go that it had been his dream to fly, uh, you know, commercial airplanes. That was, uh, what his uncle had done.
His uncle built a business from rags to riches, uh, and Godfrey was born into this family that, uh, you know, was, was doing quite well. And that was his destiny too. He was going to take over the business and become a, uh, you know, commercial airplane pilot instructor, all that kind of stuff. And then, uh, and I think it was 96 Malawi completely, you know, hit the tanks. Uh, as far as their, uh, inflation and anyone who had, you know, what would be the equivalent of like a dollar in their pocket now had a cent in their pocket. So what that did is it essentially leveled the playing field for the rich and the poor. And, uh, you know, he'd come from a fairly wealthy family, but, you know, they, in the end they had absolutely nothing. And so he wasn't going to be able to do that anymore, but certainly he was a good paraglider pilot.
And so we thought, well, let's get a business going here. Let's get. Let's call it the school of dreams and you'll motivate kids to follow their dreams. And you'll also be able to earn a living teaching paragliding and, and doing tandems and that. And then eventually you'll be able to go and get your commercial airplanes license and that, because you'll, you'll do quite well with this business. That was the idea. So we focused on that and, uh, that turned into a, uh, you know, this, this movie that I made to, to popularize that idea and get funds coming in for that. We did a big tour in the States that was like three months with Erica and God. Free in the bus. We showed the film probably about 35 different locations, all the way from like Brunswick, Maine, down to San Diego, California. And that was awesome. And it got a lot of people behind the project, literally like tens of thousands of people, all contributing anything from like 10 to 20 bucks to make this happen.
And, uh, and then that sort of skipped forward to 2014. And now we're in Malawi and we're trying to figure out where are we going to put this school? And that's when we met you and, uh, you know, Nick and Beechner. We're traveling around looking for locations and I guess, you know, Erica and I had been, uh, we, we'd been, we'd been together every single day for the better part of a year at that point. And Godfrey had spent three months with us, tolerated three months with us in the school bus. And then also now we were living out of a, an SUV and in Malawi and things were good, but things were also really hard. Our car broke down. Literally every single day. And that really put a huge stress on our, our team.
We realized like we were foolish to try and do this with a, you know, buy our own car. We didn't have enough money to really buy a real car. And so we had this kind of, you know, POS, um, just that took literally 50 % of our time and caused a lot of grief. And, uh, I guess I'm going down a bit of a rabbit hole here, but, uh, after about two months of being on that trip, two out of the four months, my friend Godfrey just decided that he'd had enough. And he realized that he didn't want to be a part of this, that this wasn't fun for him. And that what he really wanted to do is he wanted to fly airplanes. And so he, he and I had a conversation and, you know, what seemed to be on quite good terms, he left the project and, uh, left it, you know, for Erica and I to, uh, to manage.
And we all felt okay about that, but we were also quite concerned because the last thing we wanted to be was a couple of white people trying to make a difference in, in, in an African country. And the idea was always that this was his project and that we were just there to be his friends and support him in the best way that we could. So he ended up back, uh, in the States, sort of connecting with the community that we sort of built during our tour and, uh, found a lot of support there. But at the same time, uh, something had happened inside and, uh, I'm still, I still don't have resolution around it. I don't know why he had built some sort of a resentment towards me. Um, I always sort of looked at him as sort of a brother and sort of a, in many ways, a son. I'm about 10 years older than him.
And, uh, and it, it brought me a lot of pain. Um, but at the same time as that was happening, it, uh, it also put a ton of stress on my relationship with my partner. And, and so inside of losing my relationship with my buddy, Godfrey, I also lost my relationship with my partner. Uh, and, uh, that was pretty much spiraled me into the darkest segment of my, of my life. To date and, uh, something that took me about two years to recover from. So I'm glad that I did. If you want to interject at this point,
you can. Well, what I, I mean, I, what I'd like to hear about is in that darkness, uh, you, you, you need confidence and you need light to undertake, you know, what you ended up undertaking. Uh, so how did, how did you go from kind of that, uh, despair, a couple of really hard things there? You know, in a way I, and I, I, I know Godfrey, of course, really well. I know exactly what that would be like to learn, to lose a friendship like that. He's an amazing guy. Um, I've imagined that'd be really complicated. And, uh, like you said, something impossible to get any kind of closure about, uh, you also lose your, your partner, uh, and you're, you're, you're very, you've been very honest about that in other places.
So we don't have to go into details here. You've talked about that in other spots. But how did you, how did you, how did you, how did you, how did you, how did you, how did you, how did you come out of that?
The reason
that I felt so bad about the whole thing was that I had made this promise, you know, together with Godfrey to so many people, we had stood on stage looking people in the eye saying, this is what we're going to do. And, uh, you can count on us for that. And, you know, I don't, I mean, I can't speak for other people, but like my word is my life. Like I don't, if I, if you can't trust me for what I say, then I may as well not be here. And that's how I relate to it. And if I say I'm going to do something, God damn it, I'm going to fucking do it. Even if it kills me, like I have to do it. And, and if I can't do it fine, but I need to say why I can't do it. And I need to adjust my word to allow my word to meet with my actions.
And I considered telling people, okay, look, you know, we screwed up. Things got too hard. We had to throw in the towel. I'm thank you for your support. I'm going to do my best to resurrect this, but I don't know the future of this. I couldn't write that email to everyone. I couldn't do that because at the end of the day, I might've composed it a million times, but I didn't know exactly what was going on and I didn't want to misrepresent the situation. And I guess at the end of the day, what it was, was that I had received so much praise something that I'd never needed before. But as a result of this, that project, the boy who flies the school of dreams, I'd receive so much praise from people that all of a sudden I felt the absence of that.
I felt like all of that was going to be stripped away from me. And, you know, it's a funny thing. I had, this is, I hope I can tell this right. And I want to respect everyone that I mentioned right here, but I also want to be honest. You awesome pilots coming to Malawi was really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really the, when you joined us in Malawi for those, uh, for that two weeks, that was a great time. And that was really just a few days before that huge shift, uh, occurred in our project. And, and I still, in many ways, although I'm not clear on it, attribute the, and I'm not saying it wasn't for the better, but I attribute that, uh, as sort of as the catalyst for the shift in, in Godfrey's thinking.
I think he, he saw. He, he had only known the dirt bag project. He had only known this sort of, you know, self-funded by the seat of my pants. No, we're going to ride bikes around the country kind of lifestyle. And that was, you know, that was, that was okay by him. And then, you know, you guys, you guys clearly had a much more professional approach to, to everything with, you know, the, the, the vehicles and, and, and all the tools and, and you came across that way. And I think that he really. Liked that. And I think that in his position, I would have too. And I feel that that really opened his eyes to realizing like, wait a second, like, you know, there's Ben and then there's these guys and these guys have money. And the last thing that he told me before he had this sort of, well, I'm not going to say, cause I, out of respect for him, but the last thing that I really remember him saying before we had our conversation was him grabbing me by the shoulders and shaking the shit out of my body and saying, the project has no money.
The project has no money. Which was, you know, completely not true. Like we had more than enough money to do what we needed to do, but I suppose he didn't feel that it did. So I'm just saying that because, you know, that, that you guys, you guys being there was a result of our tie-ins at the cloud-based foundation, uh, which does a lot of great things all over the place. And, uh, I'm very, you know, I'm very proud to be connected to it in the way that I am. But when I kind of started pulling my head out of my ass, uh, about a year after all, that went down, I, I got on the phone with Nick and I kind of foolishly expected Nick to be able to, you know, ask, you know, access some funds and support me going back to Malawi and, you know, bringing this project back to life.
Cause I kind of felt like we, you know, we, we done the CBF a solid, you know, like we, we showed you guys around Malawi and, you know, you guys made some awesome content from that. And I kind of felt like that changed everything and not through any malicious intent or anything. Just, it just did. And I expected something from the CBF and it was on a phone call with Nick that I realized that actually the CBF didn't owe me anything. And that just completely, that was like the final straw for me because I just felt like, wait a second. If like, I'm, I'm so concerned about how I appear publicly inside of this whole mess now.
And this one group that I felt like I was in tight with, uh, that could support this was not going to support this. And again, like, I guess I'm a bit of a cry baby, but you know, I went, I went to my bed and I just fucking bawled my eyes out realizing that the one support I thought I had, I didn't even have, I lost everything. And I, and I, it was in that moment in my bed that I said, I'm going to do this. I'm like, how the flip did I get to this point? Like, why am I so upset that this, you know, this, this guy, this pro paraglider isn't, you know, that's attached to this charity isn't so enamored by my idea that he wants to throw a few grand at it. Why? Like, why is this such an issue? This has never been an issue for me before. When I first went to Malawi, I didn't tell anybody.
I didn't tell anybody cause I didn't want people to tell me that it wasn't a good idea. And that was the approach that I'd taken to projects in the past. And so I realized somewhere along the lines, I had gotten completely obsessed with praise and addicted to it. And now that I was, you know, I felt like I, I no longer deserved it because, you know, all my shit hit the fan. Like I, I felt worthless. And so I said, okay, I need to go back to square one here. I need to be that guy that I was that didn't need praise in order to move forward. And I said to myself, wait a second, what is it that I'm not doing in my life? Because I'm not doing it. I feel like I need praise in order to do it. And two major things came up for me. One was this school of dreams project.
And I realized like, wait a second, I don't need anyone to, to help me get back to that country. I can scrounge the money to get together to get back there. I can help train someone else to do, you know, essentially what Godfrey said he was going to do. And he can, this project can have a life. And second, I realized something even more profound. Which is that the reason that the dream that I had when I moved out to British Columbia 10 years ago, and it was a naive dream because I obviously, like I said, at the beginning of the program, I didn't even know how to thermal was that I wanted to fly across all of the mountains. I'd heard that in the mountains, you could fly great distances. And I dreamt that I would fly across the whole flip and whack of them. And when I got out here, I met up with some paragliders and I said, Hey, you know, do you think it would be possible to fly across British Columbia?
And the response I kept getting was like, Technically, but technically, but, and if, you know, oddly enough, uh, maybe the summer before I had this sort of breakdown that I was just describing, I was in a landing zone and I, I saw some, you know, young pilot come in on his EN glider, he, uh, ENA glider. He probably just, you know, flew for an hour for the first time. It was so flipping jacked, like that unbound enthusiasm. And he went up to this other pilot, not me, this other pilot is a bit older. And he said, Hey, do you think it would be possible? To fly all the way across British Columbia, like with that same exact look in his eye. And I just was rocked. And then the other pilot looked at him and he said, technically, but, and I realized
that I wasn't doing that, that, that I wasn't living that dream because I felt that people, I needed people's approval to do it. And so going back to Malawi and making this school of dreams project happen, and then coming back. To Canada, uh, and flying across British Columbia and mountainous Alberta from West to East became the things that I needed to do in order to move forward in my life, because I needed to do these things that I had no approval around and I needed to thrive inside of them. And I needed to feel that. And I needed to see that.
I want to give Ben, let me cut in here for just a second. I want to give some people, I want to give the listeners some perspective on something. I want to be careful. I don't know how I articulate this, but it sounds to me, you know, when we flew with you in Malawi in 2014, you know, I would have categorized your, you know, your skill level at that, at that time is pretty intermediate. Would that be correct? Yeah, I think that's fair. I
think that's fair to say. I
think that you. Like you're from a cross country standpoint, you know, you had, you had power paraglided across Canada. Um, you know, you had hours under your belt, but from a cross country standpoint, you were pretty green. You know, you were, you were really. Soaking, uh, you know, you were looking at what we were doing as a sponge and you could tell you had that fire and, and, and desire, but, um, you didn't, you didn't have a ton of cross country, uh, experience and under, under your belt. And so I'm assuming going into this massive cross country undertaking, you were about the same, right? I mean, you obviously you had more experience, but you, you, you were not, uh, you know, you weren't massively experienced cross country pilot when you decided to take off and fly across Canada.
No, and, and, oh, sorry, across, uh, well, across the, across the Rockies. Yeah. Across BC. Okay. So another, another great question. Thank you for asking that. And this is really cool. Cause it actually relates to you in some ways here. Since that time that you saw me in Malawi, when, you know, fair enough, I, you know, I definitely lacked experience a lot, a lot happened for me in my life and my mind. And as a pilot, maybe not so much in terms of like, oh, how many hours I got and how many places. I flew, I did, I did some hours, I did some flying, but it was more about the psychology that went into that stuff. So, as I mentioned, uh, I was very alone after that. Uh, there was no more, uh, God free to fly with or my partner to fly with or any of that.
I was just living alone, uh, in my, in my converted school bus, uh, in California, uh, after that project, trying to figure out what I was going to do with my life. I, I was flying. I was, I was living in Bishop. Uh, I flew the, the fall season there. And then, you know, I was pushing it harder and harder and kind of realized that I was taking bigger risks than I'd ever taken before. I, I, I realized that again, this is kind of hard to say, but like my, my life didn't matter so much anymore. Like it was more just that feeling of major accomplishment that I was chasing. So I was willing to fly some much bigger, bigger terrain. And I did some, you know, pretty, for me, some great flights there in, in, in the Owens, you know, a hundred plus K flights there that, that season, which I, I was excited about.
And that gave me the motivation to go to Mexico for the first time. I'd never gone there. Cause everyone always talks about Mexico, Mexico, Mexico, via, via, via. And I thought like, I don't want to go somewhere with a million people. Well, I'm glad I went because I had seen your post, uh, after shortly after I met you briefly in there in Columbia about, uh, flying that, that ice peak pro. And, uh, I, you had mentioned that you'd set a, um, a triangle record there. And I thought like, Whoa, that's crazy. Like I just met that guy, you know, and he, you know, he's now in this, you know, popular flying spot and, you know, having this significant achievement. So when I went there, I, uh, I was completely hell bent on taking that, taking that away from you, Gavin.
Actually, I gotta say like, and I, and I had you in my head is like, you know, like, Oh, I'm right. Like I was, as if I was neck and neck racing with you in my head, you know, that, that year, I actually put it in the trees really hard, making a bad move, uh, during a competition there, the, the via intrepidos and, uh, you know, that's, that's because I'm a, I'm actually a really bad loser. And I was trying to make an extra K on the task that I wasn't even going to finish. And I put it into a shallow bank of trees and that was that. So there I was basically competing with you in my head. And every day after that. That incident, I ended up having to fly someone's old, um, what was it? A Cayenne three, I guess that I'm really grateful that, uh, uh, a guy named Hector lent me, uh, cause that was really generous of him.
And I, I flew the crap out of that thing. And I chased your triangle every day. And, um, did you get
it? I haven't paid attention.
I, I got the ENC, I got the best ENC that I could find, uh, yeah, that, which was huge for me. I. And, and, but what, what I really got out of it was I got a whole shit ton of skill. Like I flew that line again and again, and again, just saying like, how can I do it faster? How can I, you know, or how can I not bomb out there or whatever? And I, that gave me so much, so much, uh, additional skill. I came back to, to the, to the Owens Valley right after that. And now I'm flying Bishop in the spring, uh, or flying the Owens in the spring, which is a whole other animal. And the flights are getting even bigger. Uh, Dave Turner. Eric McAuliffe, uh, Eric Steinman and I did a, uh, a vol biv, uh, I don't remember exactly the distance, maybe about 250 K over three flights, uh, from an area they called, I think nine mile, uh, all the way North to North of, um, Mono Lake.
We tried to make it to Tahoe, but the weather kind of, you know, took it out of us. So we, uh, that, that was an amazing experience. That was my first big vol biv. So things are getting bigger, getting better. Uh, I come back to Canada. Now I'm really struck with the nostalgia of my lost love and, uh, cause we, you know, had so many amazing times here and, and, uh, I'm, you know, the depression really struck me hard and that just seemed to drive my paragliding even further, uh, in terms of the risks I was willing to take. And as you know, flying in Canada involves some risks because, uh, you know, we haven't, uh, you know, really colonized this land so much. Uh, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, uh, I mean, when you're flying XC in Canada, if you want to fly wherever you want to fly, you're flying sometimes 40, 50 K or more where you can't land.
And, uh, that summer I was doing my first stretches of like 50 K, uh, I flew over the bugaboos on a two day vol biv, which was another big thing on my list. Cause the only person that had ever done that prior to me was, uh, you know, will God. And, uh, and I was feeling really accomplished. And then can
I. Yeah. One little quick question. question because i i don't you know i don't have personal experience with with depression but i i know a lot a lot of people do does it when you're when you're battling that kind of mind frame or lack of confidence or the the things that come packaged with uh with depression are you are you are you willing to take more risks or be more callous with your life because it has less value are you are you conscious of that or
there's there's it's definitely like that's that's it like that's what i'm trying to talk about okay okay it's just it's it's a strange thing where it's just uh you know and i've also fallen in love you know uh as well and and seen the opposite effect occur uh where i want to be more careful and and so it's it's it's very much that it's just kind of this wave but now it's happening and the biggest way it's ever happened before i've lost my partner i've lost my like my best friend and uh and a guy who i you know considered to to be family and a major project and so it's just okay it's it's on like i'm yeah i got nothing and you just feel like you're at rock bottom and it doesn't matter what happens at this point like you could just walk out into the street and tell everyone to fuck off and it wouldn't matter because it couldn't actually get any better and in fact it may actually get a little bit better because you'll have a brief moment of adrenaline so that's what i was doing with the paraglider and um i was flying these big lines uh here in the west kootenai region a lot of like nothing nothing that i i mean no one flies out here because there's just nowhere to land uh and all these stretches and so everything i was doing was a first and i was just feeling like more and more of a badass pilot that lands me basically in uh
india after i'd had that car that difficult conversation with uh my friend nick and i realized that i was truly alone inside of making this all happen and that gave me that kick in the ass and and now i'm training for
xbc uh i got so it's on your it's it's definitely on your mind now you're you're you're planning it i had that
breakdown moment i had that moment where i realized like shit like i got it i have got to do whatever i want to do and i have not i have need to not worry about what other people are
going to do and i've got to do whatever i want to do and i have
and so literally that night i get an email uh it says last call for v for vimp vancouver international mountain film festival slash mec mountain equipment co-op basically the canadian version of rei adventure grant so vimp adventure grant last call submissions i got this idea i'm going to put a proposal together i wrote to them and i said i'm going to fly a mother flipping paraglider from vancouver to calgary uh this summer uh if you support me i'm going to fly a like you're like you won't regret it and i got it and all of a sudden my whole world changed because it was just like i went from this thing that was this impossible dream to this thing now where there was this company this big reputable company that was invested in it and that sent me to nepal and india and i did my first uh 200 plus k in india out in return so i'm like visibly advancing in your training your training you're working i'm getting it and i'm taking risks i'm i'm going over the back not for distance but just for fun like you know throwing myself for a loop every now and then just to see like if i go there can i get back from there and feeling like desensitizing myself to risk and also
accustoming accustomizing myself to realize realizing when i make bad choices and what is a good choice and what is a bad choice when to listen to the inner voice when not to listen to that inner voice and uh you know just just how to you know to send it
and then
sort of as a brief interlude i i ended up in malawi after that for a couple months and i basically re-established from scratch the school of dreams concept uh where there's now a a wonderful young man who's uh you know a decent novice pilot they're flying and uh there's a place where pilots can go and they can stay and they can do the same if they have the experience to train someone else or they can just go fly solo and be an inspiration to the community there that really lifted my spirits too that's why it's important to mention here in terms of my paragliding because it really gave me that sense not of worthiness that i i i felt like i needed but it gave me the sense that like i could do it like i i could do this and i did not need anyone's approval and i did not need support like this was a good idea it's just that sometimes good ideas take a while to work out and i needed to feel that way because i was about to fly back to canada and go straight into the craziest thing that i'd ever done so
so let's let's jump to that the opening scene uh well one of the opening scenes in the film uh that made me really laugh because you know my alaska project was six years for me planning and uh you know the first year first well the second day of post-holing up over this pass with dave turner uh neither one of us have gators you know and we just look like a couple of total knobs uh you you You set off on this thing and you're sitting in Vancouver and you go, well, fuck, I've got the timing of this completely wrong.
It's stable. It's the middle of summer.
What's going through your head at this point? Like, okay, am I way over my head or whatever? It doesn't matter. I'm just going to overcome this.
Right. So, okay, well, I mean, I, so yeah, so I, I started in Vancouver. I started from the MEC store, my sponsor there in Vancouver. I walked from the store 15K to Grouse Mountain and I climbed that thing and I hadn't told anybody that I was going to do this for all the reasons that I described. I didn't want anyone to discourage me from this. I didn't want anyone to know better. So I was, you know, blissfully in my ignorant state. Moving up Grouse Mountain and expecting to have the most epic flight and fly east to Agassiz, which is a site called Woodside, which is a popular site, a bit more inland. And that was my first flight.
And now I knew that no one had ever done that before, but it didn't matter to me that no one had ever done it before because I was going to do it. And there was no, there was no logical reason that no one had ever done it before.
And, you know, given that there's such a, that's the, that's the concentration of pilots in the lower mainland. And there's definitely some very worthy pilots in that area. You know, Alex Raymond, Brett Haslett, and probably a few more that I'm not mentioning right now, Nicole McLaren. So I'm there on Grouse Mountain and I remember launching off that thing. And oh, to make it funnier, I didn't want anyone to know what I was doing. So I was up there and I hid in this trench, literally beside the launch in case a pilot showed up. And certainly a pilot did show up. And there I am in this trench trying to organize. All my Vol Biv stuff for the first time ever, stuffing it in the, in the Oseum being like, how does this work? You know, and my first time flying a pod actually.
And yeah, and I just stepped up from an ENB to a C on the, on the Alpena. Now I was on the Swift prior. And so there was a lot of newness. There's a lot of nervous energy and, but a lot of, you know, arrogant self-confidence. And I let, I watched that pilot get off and up. And I thought. Like, all right, it's on, we're going. And so I went out and I could not connect to the dots. I could, I just couldn't, I couldn't figure it out. It was my first time flying there and I was finding little stuff every, everywhere where it should have been, but nothing to get me above the mountain. And after about an hour of struggling, I ended up on the ground and, you know, quickly I started trying to pack up cause I didn't want anyone to see me. I'm hiding under this tree and then I see that other pilot coming into land.
And so I hide behind the tree and I don't think he sees me. And, and he walks off to his car, uh, with his glider in a Rosette and I'm thinking, all right, sweet, he's out of here. But then like two minutes later, he walks up to me and he's like, Hey, how's it going? Now you have to understand one of the other things with grouse is that you need all sorts of credentials to fly there. It's an inner city site. And one of the reasons I moved away from Vancouver was that I felt like I didn't want to jump through all the hoops to fly that local site. I felt like it was kind of like a, a tight little club of people that, you know, didn't want, you know, any, just anyone flying there, which, you know, with good reason. Mm-hmm but at the time, you know, I, I was not accepting of that. And so I didn't want to get in trouble or any of that. So he comes up to me and he's like, Hey, how's it going?
And I said, oh, you know, not too bad. And I, I told him what I wanted to do. And he told me XC is really hard here right now. Like you have a sea breeze that comes on every single day at around 11 o 'clock right after the thermals kick off and they don't develop more than, you know, you know, getting a couple hundred meters over the mountain at best. So you're not going to be able to do that. The closest place for you, if you want to make some distance is going to be to have to start from Whistler. Now Whistler is approximately a hundred, maybe 115 kilometers north. It's a famous ski town here in Canada, north of the city of Vancouver. And, um, that was going to be the closest place that I'd be able to get firmly out of the sea breeze. You know, one of the aspects of this trip, one of the things that I really wanted to do with it is to do it with just completely on my own.
And, uh, and I wanted to go from Vancouver to Calgary. I didn't want to go from Whistler to Calgary or Whistler to Canmore or something like that. Like I wanted to go from big city to big center. And so I had to walk and I'd been training for, for months and months and months, uh, walking uphill, uphill, uphill. But let me tell you, walking along a flat asphalt highway in hiking boots is a whole other animal that I had not trained for. And the blisters, let me tell you, Gavin, it's like, I, I ended up hiking. Okay. Up these, like up to these lookouts, these tourist lookouts along that highway thinking like, okay, I'm going to fly from here. I'm going to fly from here. And as you'll see in my film, my landings were, uh, you know, horrible because I was flying in these areas where there was no thermals and having to put it into all sorts just to, you know, get back on the road.
In the end, I ended up walking all the way to Whistler. So that was sort of a roundabout thing, but very, very humbling experience. Very humbling first week of my project.
Yeah. I was going to say, I mean, I, I, I totally understand what you're talking about with blisters. Cause I did the X-Alps and it looked like somebody beaten on my feet with hammers at the end of that puppy. I had blisters on every single toe and every, I mean, that was, that was, it's miserable. So you, you show some of that in your film. Uh, and so maybe, maybe this isn't, uh, you know, the, the, the, there, there was maybe some creative editing with this, you know, as there always is in every film, but your, your first flight in the film, you, you crash, you, you landed in the trees. Um, so you, you're, you're, you know, you go from this, okay, I've got total, I've totally got the timing wrong. I haven't looked at the weather very closely. Uh, I, you know, I've completely started in the wrong place. I've got a hike all the way to Whistler. Uh, you hook up with some guys that are, that are the, like, they're pretty good pilots.
Uh, you're all psyched and you crash and you land in a tree. Is there any, is there any point? I'm, I'm guessing the answer to this is no. After this, this talk with you, it doesn't sound like you let things go. Very easily. But is there, is there ever a point in this thing where you're like, I don't have this, you know, that, oh, dude, that was like
that, that pretty much the whole trip felt like that. Um, but, but also an interesting comment. Um, yeah, I, I guess I, I hadn't thought to mention the tree thing. Cause I guess I, I, I like the element of surprise that it's there, but totally cool. Totally cool that you mentioned it because it's worth talking about. Yeah. My first real flight, like, well, that's not my first real flight. Cause it still didn't go XC. I still just like bombed out, but from a big higher point was my second flight of two flights along that highway where I tried to, to basically start my journey from that point and not have to walk all the way to Whistler. So I hiked up to this ridge called Brougham Ridge, uh, behind Mount Garibaldi, which is sort of the, in the Squamish area there. And, you know, I hiked up and I, I'd hiked up the night before because I didn't want to fly on the same day that I hiked for energetic reasons.
And so I'd hiked up way higher. And
I hiked
up the night before. I didn't know where I was. I was just kind of going by GPS. And I, uh, anyway, I ended up waking up and realizing like, I was still way low. I still needed the hike quite a ways. So I did that. And so I hiked for another few hours to get up into the Alpine and took me a long time to figure out where I could launch, where it was steep enough grade to launch. And I finally found it. And I watched the day from, from the outset. It looked like a great cross country day. There was great queues forming all day and pretty much right up until the point that I launched when I was basically there out of half hanging under that tree, uh, after bombing out and having to do that. I should say, because it was either that or, uh, a raging river, um, which I, I thought the trees would be better and I had some experience with them already.
So I, uh, I, I was sitting there and I realized like, I broke, I broke my rule. Like I, I had not intended to fly and hike on the same day. Like I made a bad choice. I knew better. It, it's, it had blown out the, the sea breeze had come in, the thermals had stopped and I launched anyway, because my brain just was not working. And at that point, as I sort of sat there, uh, you know, eating humble pie, I, I made a promise to myself. And that promise was that I would never hike and fly on the same day. I just wouldn't do it. Even if it was a great day, I was not going to hike and fly on the same day. Not in this project. There was too much. It was too much at stake. It was way too risky. The flights were way too risky. I needed a hundred percent of my brain right from the start of that flight.
And, uh, and that's how I flew. And that's, that's my approach now. And wow. Interesting. Is
that, is that one of the, and I don't want to give too much away, but I think you're, I think you talk about this in the, you know, both in the trailer, but also in the writing, in the writing. So we know it took 38 days to complete the project. Um, is that one of the reasons it took so long? Were you skipping a lot of good days of flying because you'd hike?
No, I didn't. I wasn't skipping a lot of good days of flying because I hiked. It just happened to work out that way. But, but, but what it did cause is it caused on a number of occasions for me to hike way into the night because I wanted to wake up and fly the next day or I wanted to wake up and have the chance to fly the next day. So quite a few launch, quite a few places. Like I didn't do a ton of top landing. I, I, I top landed a couple of times out of the, out of the 14, uh, flights, probably 10 of which were actual. I,
I mostly landed at the bottom of, of, uh, mountains and then found my way up the mountain, uh, on foot. Um, there's a number of reasons. Usually I was way tired at the end of the, at the flight and I didn't want to risk twisting, you know, breaking an ankle or anything like that. I don't have a lot of top landing experience and, uh, and yeah. And so I would often end up landing around sunset, collecting my stuff, sun's going down, it's getting dark, dusk, uh, and. And I would just keep hiking for four or five hours until I got to somewhere that I thought was approximately where I wanted to be, put up my tent. And then, uh, the next day I would maybe, you know, have an additional kilometer or something like that to hike in the morning to figure out where I'm going to launch from.
But that was generally my approach so that I would not have to be hiking, expending energy, hiking, and then flying on the same day.
Interesting. Tell me about your, tell me about where you are, uh, mentally on this thing. You know, you're, you, you've, you've come from a pretty dark place. Uh, now you're living it. You're, you're in the dream, but you're solo. I've done a lot of solo stuff, uh, and solo is different. Uh, you know, it's, it's really different. You got a lot of time with your head. And, uh, you know, when, when Dave left, uh, in the Alaska project, I've, I've said this many times, so I don't want to get into it too much, but this has nothing to do with him whatsoever. But for me, it was just blissful. One, because the flying got really good and it had been really bad and we'd been really struggling, but I was able to move at my own pace and make my own decisions. And there wasn't nearly the weight on the decisions, you know, when there was two of us, you know, getting, getting to a launch in Alaska was a, was at times really atrocious, you know, just the alders and the kind of the stuff that you're battling in BC.
It can be just really tough. And, uh, and so to, to either, to make the decision to go to launch, if you weren't both on the same page and. You ended up going with your decision and it was the wrong one. You know, there was never any blame from either one of us, but there was this weight on the decisions that, that left when Dave left, you know, suddenly I could just do it at my pace, which I, which I really, uh, I really enjoyed, you know, when you, when you're by yourself now, um, you're, you're undertaking this massive project. Uh, what were the, were the insecurities, were the, the, the stuff with that you were the dark places that you'd left? Behind where they left behind for the duration of the project or where there's still times like, what the fuck am I doing? Oh yeah.
For,
oh no, for sure. I mean, okay. So I almost feel like that's a two parter. Like it is. Uh, so, so yeah, so the, the insecurities around, like, should I be here? What am I doing? Uh, fortunately that didn't happen in the air too many times. Um, because there was definitely some hairy moments in the sky where it was just like, oh my God. And then. Yeah. Yeah.
I had
to, you know, try to stop, uh, stop that to kind of maintain my mojo, if you will, uh, of just kind of this, you know, ignorant butterfly, just kind of making his way across these mountains that I feel like that was kind of like my mode for success. Uh, when I started thinking about it too much, when I started rationalizing too much, like maybe there's a reason no one's ever flown over this range. Like then, yeah, that a lot of those insecurities would come up, but you know, it's interesting. Like what you said, like. I love doing things by myself. Like, I love, like, don't get me wrong. I love people. I love people. I especially love women. Uh, and when, you know, it, it can, it can burn at times to just be by myself, like when I want to be sharing an experience with someone. But so many times I, I just like when, you know, I, I want to say quick aside, like, you know, I'd be traveling, you know, whatever, Indian Nepal, and I'd see a couple traveling and they'd be like fighting or like arguing or having arguments.
And I'd be like, Oh, I'm so glad that I'm here by myself. Like, this is awesome because, you know, I don't have to, I can just make an own choices and they can work out or not work out. And I don't have to deal with resentment or any of that kind of stuff. And, you know, props to people who can do that well and, and, and maintain that flow with their partners. That's an amazing, amazing thing to be able to do. But, you know, I'm, I'm much, much better in a situation like this where I'm just making those left and right calls. On my own. And I, I certainly relate to that bliss and I feel like that bliss was, you know, that's, that's the thing that I appreciate about being alone. So the insecurities that came around, you know, losing these important people in my life and how alone I had felt for those couple of years leading up to this project were kind of transformed into something that was very positive for me.
I, I loved it. I was, and I was, as you see. In the film, I was, I was quite literally losing it. Like I was losing my mind because I had very little outside influence. Uh, I was very much an outsider, uh, just especially when I would make brief contact with civilization, like walking along the highway for certain stretches, for instance, and just feeling completely like an alien and, uh, going crazy and documenting some of that, fortunately that I could share. And I look at those moments now and I love. Myself, I know as moments, like I don't get to experience that very often, but yeah, that complete isolation, that complete shift that can occur that, that kind of crazy that you can go. I love that. That's just like, that's where the best, that's where the best ideas come from.
You know, that's where, and that's where a lot of strength comes from when you need to flip in, like march up that hill, like without water and you're just desperately like looking for a source, you know, that's, uh, yeah, I think that that, that solo aspect is really the only way to accomplish that. Certainly for me, some of these, uh, these bigger tasks that I've, I've, I've done in the, that I'm looking at doing
Ben, why don't we, instead of, you know, kind of dissecting the movie and taking the listeners through it, I I'd like the movie to do that. And then the story to do that, what I am curious to know is that question that you hate what's next. And I'm going to ask you to, sorry, I do, I do this all the time and I'm always told to keep it to one question, but you know, I, I, I do want to know what's next now because you, you, you finished this massive thing and we've talked already about, uh, that that can be pretty difficult, but also I want to know, you know, you're the, these, this darkness that you faced for years. Sounds like in one way, this is great that you can have this escape.
But in another way, this is not a sustainable solution. What did you, what are your takeaways from this? What are you, what are you working on as you take one step in front of the other since this project ended? Because you can't, you know, for the rest of your life, you can't just keep going on bull bivs to escape the demons. Right. Well, um, I, I
feel like, you know, I'm not, I'm not the same person that I, I do feel like there's some sustainability here because I don't feel like I'm the same person that I was when I started, when I sat out on it. Like this project has been a healing project for me. This has been my therapy. And, uh, you know, further to that, uh, sitting and working on this film for about four months where I, you know, I've literally done everything from write the script to edit it, to compose all of the music myself and put it all together, uh, has been my opportunity to truly examine who I was at that time and learn from that guy. So I have done so much healing, Gavin. Like I am in. I'm
in a
very, very good place right now. Wow. Cool. I have, I have a lot to say. I don't need to keep doing this. I do intend to do more of all bivs and no, I will not say what those are because I do feel like there's a certain element of surprise that I like to keep as well. I didn't tell anyone about this prior to doing it because I wanted to feel comfortable with the idea of failing and not having other people sort of witness that failure real time. Um, I, I, I can't, I can't wrap my head around how you are able to, you know, uh, be successful. So open and, uh, with your actions as you're doing them. I think that that's tremendous, uh, but it's not just definitely not my style. So I won't talk about the ball bivs of greater measure that I have in mind. Uh, they are there and they should happen in the next few years.
What, what I'm doing right now is I'm getting into public speaking and I had my first really big talk. Uh, just actually, I just missed you there at the Vancouver international mountain film festival. I heard it was
absolutely fantastic by the way. Uh, I had a lot of people approach me and, and our, you know, we had the last night there at the, at BIMP and, uh, you know, I mentioned, Oh, Hey, did you see Ben's talk? And you, you, you killed it, man. Congratulations.
Thank you, Gavin. That was like that. Cause that was my first time ever doing like a real, like big talk like that. And, uh, you know, I certainly practice, but I didn't know how it was going to go. And people just, people just ate it up. Like I, I turned it, I told the story of my. cross country trip, but I, I sort of twisted it to turn it into this conversation around approval, uh, sort of going into a bit more depth than we did in, in this, uh, this show, uh, right now. But yeah, people just really dug it and I thought they're going to love it or they're going to hate it. And they loved it so much. And I feel like, okay, I got to take this bigger. So I've got this film and I've got this speech, if you will. Uh, and I want to spread that around. I want to give talks and, uh, in film screenings in Europe, like you're doing, I want to do that, uh, you know, and.
In the United States, certainly the Western United States, uh, as well. And so that's what I see doing, uh, this summer and next fall. And, uh, you know, as, as you may know, I'll be supporting, uh, Carisha Berlinger in the Red Bull X-Alps, uh, there. So we'll be competing this summer and training starting in basically a month from now. And, uh, yeah. And so I'm just about to release this film and that should be out by the time that this, uh, this podcast hits the streets. So, well, let's,
let's, uh, let's. Let's wrap it up with that. Then how, how can listeners find you? How can they, uh, learn more about your, your film and, uh, and how, how do you like people to, to contact you? Cause I know you're, you're very open with that. And if they want to ask you more questions about the school of dreams or the journey across BC, uh, to Calgary or anything else that you, you're, you're doing.
Right. So I think that I should just invite everybody to check out, uh, what's going on right now. At, uh, the film's website. So that's strong, the wind blows.com. Um, there they can, uh, access sort of a pre-release copy of the film. They can vote, uh, for what language they want me to have it professionally translated into. Once we get enough votes, uh, then I'll have it translated. So my intention is to have this available and, you know, dozens of languages, uh, hopefully by the fall. And, um, yeah. And then they can contact me through that website. There's tons of extra multimedia. There's tons of other things that they can do about the project, like maps and photographs and stories that are on that site as well. And, uh, yeah, it's the best way to kind of figure out what's going on with me right now.
And that'll link through to everything else that we've talked about too.
Ben. Awesome. This is, uh, we're almost two hours in, I've got a lot more questions and curiosities and thoughts, but we'll have to take that up maybe in a part two or something, but good luck with the film and, uh, congratulations on your epic journey. And that was, it was, uh, it was very inspirational. I know a lot and very inspirational to all pilots out there. So well done. Uh, thank you so much for your time and, uh, really stoked for you, man. And it will, it sounds like we'll be seeing you here in Europe pretty shortly.
Yeah. Gavin, I honestly, I can't thank you enough for the opportunity to, to express myself through your, your, your show here. And I just want to thank you for, for keeping it real and, and, and, and getting this out there. And, and, uh, yeah, I look forward to seeing you. I look forward to seeing you in the sky, buddy. All right, bud. Cheers. Cheers.
I hope you enjoyed that. That wasn't, uh, it wasn't the easiest conversation by any means. We went to some pretty dark places, but it was, uh, it's always great to catch up with Benjamin and, uh, share in his, in his life of, uh, demanding adventures for sure. So yeah, very cool to hear about that story. I hope you enjoyed that as well. Uh, the ex-Alps are getting pretty close here and pretty soon I'm going to be heading across to Europe and, uh, learning more about the course. Uh, training's going really well and I appreciate your support and, and following along with all of that. And I appreciate you listening to the podcast. Uh, as always, all we ask for is a buck a show. If you've got something out of this or one of the previous episodes with all the amazing guests we've had on, uh, don't send us just dollars. Wait, after you send, after you listen to five or 10 or 15 or 20, however many, uh, send us a little bit of money.
That'll keep us, keep us on the air, keep us going, keep making things better. And, uh, PayPal will take less of your money. If you send us more than just a dollar. And, uh, another way to support the show is through patreon.com. It's a new way to have support where you can kind of set it, forget it. You go to that patreon.com forward slash cloud base mayhem. You can see some really cool footage from the Alaska traverse that, uh, some of it's not actually even in the movie. So check that out. Thanks very much for listening and we'll see you cloud base. Cheers.