On the Heights

By Lucius Harwood Foote

HE crawls along the mountain walls,
From whence the severed river falls;
Its seething waters writhe and twist,
Then leap, and crumble into mist.
Midway between two boundless seas,


Prone on a ragged reef he lies;
Above him bend the shoreless skies,
While helpless, on his bended knees,
Into that awful gulf profound,
Appalled, he peers with bated breath,


Clutches with fear the yielding ground,
And crouches face to face with death.
The fearful splendor of the sight
Begets in his bewildered brain
A downwright torture of delight,


The very ecstasy of pain.
A sudden frenzy fills his mind,--
If he could break the bonds that bind,
And launch upon the waves of wind;
Only to loose his hold and leap,


Then, cradled like a cloud, to sleep
Wind-rocked upon the soundless deep.
With eyes upturned, he breaks the spell,
And creeps from out the jaws of hell.
Pohono's* siren wiles beguile,--


He drinks her kisses in the wind,
He leaves the nether world behind.
Up, and still upward, mile on mile,
With muffled tramp, the pilgrim creeps
Across the frozen winding-sheet,


Where white-faced death in silence sleeps.
Up, and still upward, to the light,
Until at last his leaden feet
Have mocked the eagle in its flight.
Grim-browed and bald, Tis-sa-ack* broods


Above these white-robed solitudes.
A mute, awe-stricken mortal stands
Upon the fragment of a world,
And, when the rifted clouds are curled,
Sees far below the steadfast lands.
*Yosemite Park landmarks

There is a large house in front of mine. The owners of the house are currently working and living in Indonesia. When they told me they were going to rent the house out to nine University of Victoria students, my NIMBY reflex was alerted. I envisioned some sort of dysfunctional frat house with out-of-control parties and punishing rap music (oxymoron?) throbbing through the night. Of course, I was wrong and the reality is that you would be hard put to find nine nicer neighbors. They laugh, attend our parties, invite us over to pot lucks and let me enjoy the odd ping pong game. Their unifying force seems to be that they are active; they cycle, swim, surf, ski, climb, hike and generally squeeze the most out of Vancouver Island's challenging topography.

Given their love of the outdoors it was not surprising that they invited Nancy and me to an evening called 'Mountains Melting'.

During the summer, one of their great friends and house-mates had been killed climbing Mount Logan. His name was Stephen Canning and he was one of those charismatic people who seemed to inspire all who came within his orbit.

The students decided that he should be memorialized by creating a Stephen Canning Memorial Scholarship. Their target was to raise $10,000, which would be matched by the University. Ten grand is a lot of money for students to raise, but they obtained space at the Student Union and created an exhibition of Steve's photography and film, prepared food, solicited 60 companies to donate products and services for a silent auction and provided some good live music.

The place was packed with family, friends and wellwishers including David Suzuki. They raised $15,000 for this remarkable young man, whose friend, Shandell Susin, spoke with eloquence, wit and without a tear. She told a friend how it pained her that Steven's lifeless body was still up on the mountain. The reply was to the effect that 'Steve will become part of the mountain and that melting ice and molecules will run down into our rivers and water will evaporate and Steve will be everywhere'. Hence the title of the evening, 'Mountains Melting'.

Stephen was a writer and after his death this prescient piece was found in his computer. Unknowingly, he had written his own epitaph.

   Death

    by Stephen Canning

When I die, I want people to say that I inspired them. I don't care so much that they say I was a good man or a kind man or a happy man or a great man. I want them to say that they lived their life a little bit differently because of me. That they saw the world filled with a bit more adventure. That they were a little bit less afraid to do something that they truly wanted.

That seems to be the only theme running through everything I do. Writing is obviously about inspiration. Guiding, ditto. Environmental sciences, again, are really about finding enough evidence that you can convince people to live a little differently.

If even one person stands up at my funeral and says that I inspired them, that will be enough. The world will know that I died happily.

Chances are, I'll probably go in an avalanche or a climbing accident or something like that and people will say, "at least he died doing something he loved." What hogwash. It doesn't matter how you die. It's how you lived up to that point that mattered. Rather than spending most of my time trying to avoid the inevitable: death, I hope to have lived with it firmly in my view.

All of these activities: climbing and skiing and base jumping and whatever else it is that we do. We don't do these things merely for the physical sensation of doing them. We do them because they let us glimpse death. They let us live with death constantly in our lives. It is always peaking over the horizon. When a climber dies, they are perhaps one of the few lucky people who manage die acceptingly. They've looked at death before, shook hands, sat down for a cup of tea. Most people spend their lives ignoring death, pretending it doesn't exist, denying it to the end.

Once you have accepted death, your passing should not be tragic. It should be an inevitable reality. It is the final chapter, which was written before the first.

To live without a fear of death makes you capable of great things. You worry less about what people think of you. You worry less about money. You worry less about failure. You are able to put yourself more fully into everything that you do.

This is the inspiration that I want to have given to people. To let them live with a bit less fear. To push them a little bit closer to the eternal.

Steve at Alouette Lake
Photo by Shandell Susin

If you would like to make a donation to the 'Stephen Canning Memorial Scholarship', cheques should be addressed to The University of Victoria, with "Stephen Canning Memorial Scholarship" on the memo line.

Please send to the Development Office at UVic, their address is:

Development Office
University of Victoria
PO Box 3060
Victoria, BC V8W 3R4
Phone: 250.721.7624
Fax: 250.721.8961

e-mail: devdonor@uvic.ca

Website: http://alumni.uvic.ca/development/index.htm

Stephen's photographs are available for viewing here
and then contact Helen and Doug Canning at dcanning@telus.net for ordering information.