Wilderness Therapy - NoDak

Dusk in North Dakota. The sky falls like a dirty white sheet over the horizon and drapes itself across the landscape. From rear view to windshield, it’s tough to discern a beginning or an end. Riffing off the great mountaineer Conrad Anker, it feels as if you’re trapped inside a ping pong ball.

This is it, the last of the continental 48 states for me. I didn’t plan to be here. Actually the opposite. North Dakota...dead of winter?....NAH. Hard pass. And then, well, you know, fuck it.

I believe in synchronicity. Windows, moments, intuition...things just line up, and you go for it. Drop everything else. It’s the best way to travel (live?), it’s where all the magic happens. A Jungian concept, predicated on a awareness most adults no longer have....grade school throttles it out of children....it’s a sense I’ve had to redevelop. Sprinkle all that with some dumb ass luck....Adventure. That’s my recipe at least.

I’d left Chicago with the urgency and enthusiasm you probably have on a Monday morning, work week. Itinerary is simple: Hit Ikea on the way out of town, skirt south of Minny, plow through South Dakota, Montana....boom. 3 days tops. But then there’s a spark, or is it boredom....I can’t always be sure....a weather report leads to a Hotel Tonight search, some Google Maps....a decision to arrive in Montana a day late....and that’s it. Process was maybe 45 minutes, while pushing 80 mph, headin’ North on interstate 94. I’ve taken longer to decide on dinner.

The snow was like shaved crystal, so cold a night in Bismarck, the flakes shattered upon impact. I managed to find a travel window, a portal through North Dakota....it was 24 degrees in Fargo that afternoon....in just over a day it would be -24 (you read that right)....at which point I’ll be West a few degrees in longitude and safely through to Montana. Standing outside The Elbow Room, watching the street light refract through those Waterford snowflakes, I had forgotten about the National Championship game going on inside. Sub-zero temps have a persuasive way of bringing you into the present moment.

As I smoked my morning cigarette with coffee, my nose hairs froze, unthawed, then refroze with every breath. The elements, the expanse, the quiet. That’s what North Dakota gave me. In coastal US metropolis’, people shell out hundreds of dollars to slip into a sensory deprivation tank for an hour at a time. Float tank therapy. Here, just step outside at night. Absolute stillness, like an unreturned echo.

Wilderness therapy.