Interviewed by Chandra Sather-Gessner
My name is Nick Audet and I have been deaf since I was 18 months old. My deafness was assumed to be from Scarlet fever, but some of my family members think I was born deaf. I’m from a ‘country’ family that’s stuck in the cities. This is my Wilderness story.
Winter in the Boundary Waters
On this particular trip we traveled to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area that borders Canada for 5 days in the winter. We had a diverse group – people from many walks of life. None of them let anything stop them from experiencing the full spectrum of this adventure.
During the trip we had the chance to go skiing, dog sledding, and hiking. The group hiked at all times of the day – morning, afternoon, and twilight. We watched glowing artistic sunsets and sunrises that put any human art to shame. We slept outside in double sleeping bags while watching the stars shine – bright enough to see the night landscape all around us.
Choosing Wilderness Inquiry
I chose to go with Wilderness Inquiry both because I was invited and because I wanted to share my knowledge with those that had yet to experience such tranquilizing experiences. And yet, for all my experience, this still was more than I expected; I got a chance to see a true Minnesotan wilderness winter. The huge lack of mosquitoes helped just a tad.
The Wilderness Inquiry Experience
I am a product of both the deaf and hearing worlds as I can speak very well but can’t hear much – I sign very well and yet still have a sort of hearing mentality to some degrees while carrying equal part deaf mentality. That makes for some interesting experiences, I tell ya.
What Wilderness Inquiry gave me was not an environment of special privilege just because I am a deaf man but gave me instead something more valuable – common ground within an environment that fosters equal experiences based on whatever I have to offer as a person. In other words, they saw my deafness as a way of seeing new things in new ways, but the end result remains the same for everyone; the experience of nature through our own eyes based on who we were.
That’s when I realized that my deafness was just that, deafness. Just as their hearing is just that, hearing. Neither and both are just a mean to an end, pushing who we are to the forefront as the most important part of the trip.
Travel with WI
My advice to those considering travel with WI is that you only live once. There are marvels in nature – any fear we have pales in face of what the Earth has to reveal to the curious mind, heart, and spirits. Yes, sometimes it’s hard work just to reach that point, but isn’t that wondrous? Once we reach our goals, the rewards are bigger than the hard work we put in to get there.
Wilderness Inquiry facilitated this by letting me be who I am. They saw the world how I see it which helped them meet me half way. Just fellow human beings, being fellow human beings, in every respect.
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