Happy Holidays! We’re re-gifting this episode of the Live It Up Podcast. Well, not really. It’s a brand new episode but, for the first time ever, we are having a guest back on the pod for round two. Frank Wolf is on the show today. It’s the Re-Wolf.
Writing his own epitaph on a freezing trip in the Arctic, he said, “Frank was a somewhat notable person who wrote some things and made a few strange and mediocre films about esoteric outdoor subjects.” Which is not wrong, but there’s more to this adventurer than that. Host Feet Banks digs in to talk about the new book, not needing toilet paper, canoe-trip tricks, and more.
Check these highlights from Feet Banks’ conversation with Frank Wolf:
Ups & Downs
“[In his book Two Springs, One Summer] I wanted to do it all sequentially within the course of 10 months, just to show people the ups and downs of committing your life to these long, passionate journeys. It’s not always like fun and games and everything’s amazing. But my time between the trips is often more difficult than the trips themselves, just because I find so much purpose and joy from these journeys.”
In Service to the Journey
“When I’m on a journey, I’m basically in service to that journey and whatever makes it work best is what should be happening. And just through my experience on the 30 years of doing these kinds of trips…I’ve made a lot of mistakes along the way and I’ve gained experience through it. And generally my [trip] partners, I let them kind of do what they want as long as it doesn’t interfere with the course or the progress of the journey.
I think sometimes I can suggest—based on a lot of experience—what someone should be doing or maybe should try. On my kinds of trips, you’ve got X amount of food, you have this much distance to cover, and you have to keep on moving every single day, because at some point the wind’s going to come in and stop you or something is going to slow you down. So you have to bank kilometres when you can take advantage of conditions.”
Zero Sugarcoating
Feet Banks: I think a lot of people who write books like this don’t want to offend the people that they’ve done a trip with, so they don’t actually tell the whole story.
Frank Wolf: I tried to be fair to my partners, but also express what I was actually feeling and not hide that or sugarcoat it.
FB: Has there been any bounceback from trip partners about that?
FW: Not from my trip partners. I mean, I’ve already had some people say, ‘You’re being pretty hard on’ another trip partner of mine. He was a wonderful guy, but I had to kind of lay down the law on him pretty hard because he was giving me the wrong [paddle] stroke at the wrong time and putting the canoe in a dangerous, exposed situation in rapids. He’s such a nice guy and his feelings get hurt easily and I felt terrible doing it, but I had to lay it down on him. But that’s the way it goes sometimes, right? It’s never meant to be hurtful. But if you’re not in service to the journey, then there’s a bit of a problem.
The Canadian North
“There’s less than 100,000 people in all the Canadian territories [Yukon, Northwest Territories, Nunavut]. And so it’s such a last frontier and it’s kind of guarded by its remoteness. It’s guarded by the heinous bugs. It’s guarded by the cold in the winter. So there’s all these uncomfortable aspects to it that probably keep people away. But if you’re willing to kind of take the time and immerse yourself in it, in a simple way by skiing or canoeing or kayaking, the rewards are endless.”
Advice for Young Adventurers
FB: You have always found a way for 30 years now to make adventures happen on a dirtbag budget. So what do you have to say to the people who say, ‘I don’t know how I could ever afford to do that, or I don’t know how I could ever get the time?‘
FW: I think if you really want to do it, then you for sure can. The luxury of time is more important than money. If you can carve out a month and have a really cool idea, you just gotta look at it like a weekend trip with a bit more food. You can get to a major city like Yellowknife or Whitehorse for a couple hundred bucks from Vancouver, for example. And then you’re there. You’re right on the doorstep to vast wilderness that goes forever in all directions. Once you get in there, have a line or a vision, and just start moving forward and that’s it. And I’ve carried up to 50 days of food in a canoe. So there’s definitely no problem in a canoe, for example, or towing a sled, you can carry three weeks of food easily, doing these Arctic ski journeys.
If I’m away for six weeks, I spend less money overall than I do living in the city in a day-to-day way… I don’t spend a dime. And basic things like sponsorships are not too hard to get when it comes to just gear and that sort of thing. I usually don’t get a lot of money, but it doesn’t take a lot.
Listen to Feet Banks’ full conversation with Frank Wolf here.
