"In that outer world that hums so urgently over the wires, wars and disasters come and go. The names might change -- and sometimes not even those -- but the tones and platitudes of The Voice never vary. Of course, the victims are to be pitied, but there is far more horror that never comes to our notice in this way. Each civilization creates its own dogma of importance, its own values, its own needs, and its own fashionable veneers. The voices I hear are qualified by the subliminal conditioning of a city of a million souls in the mild, coastal climate of Western Canada. It is as simple -- and as specific -- as that. The announcers might shape their mouths around earth-shattering events but how little their platitudes encompass life beyond their walls."
But our planet is a small place and in my chosen corner of it I am curious about those of its human endeavours and triumphs that the media deem noteworthy enough to pass on. Without TV, newspapers, telephone or regular mail, the radio is my only contact with that world. And while the wars and disasters make little immediate impact on whether the water bucket or woodshed is full, they will in the long run, for there is no movement, no decision, no destruction in this world that does not eventually have some kind of environmental impact. I might prefer to live apart from those crowded, artificial satellites by whose standards most people measure existence, but I could not isolate myself from them even if I wanted to. Twenty miles from the nearest road and neighbour I can filter much of the detritus of modern civilization and absorb what I need, but I am still undeniably part of the confusion and wonder of this sphere that we call Earth."

This, from the prologue of Chris Czajkowski's Nuk Tessli, The Life of a Wilderness Dweller. This is an account of life lived as close to the natural world as one can possibly get, by a woman whose personal convictions are so all-consuming that she easefully musters the courage to live in isolation but for brief -- and difficult to attain to -- forays into what she describes as the settled world of a gathering of people living in close proximity. But that world that she visits on occasion is itself located in a remote, northern area of British Columbia.

Chris Czajkoski lives in self-ordered isolation from the civilized world, in the company of two large dogs -- a company that revolves as nature takes its course with the life expectancy of canines -- who are both companions and work animals, helping her convey the necessities of travel, carrying packs containing food -- hers and their own -- fuel, tent, sleeping bag, stove and bare clothing necessities, including snowshoes when not being worn, sharing the burden with Chris herself. This when she and they undertake long, difficult treks out of the wilderness into settled, populated areas, however sparsely.

She is a transplant from Great Britain, who found in the coastal mountains of British Columbia her ideal home in close communion with the natural world that is her focus in life. Starting out as a seasonal tree planter, she moved from that arduous occupation into that of an artist-in-residence in cabins she built herself acquiring a facility with building and carpentry as she proceeded, so she could live among the splendours of her natural surroundings, enriching her life and eventually offering the opportunity to others to briefly share those surroundings with her, as a guide.

Her home is accessible by float plane from Williams Lake, where she travels occasionally to stock up on the necessities of living supplies; construction equipment, fuel and food when it is required, having it conveyed back to the small lake that sits in close proximity to her home cabin and the two she built to accommodate environmental tourists booking time to stay over with her in the environment that equates with the meaning of life to this woman and to the creatures whose habitat she shares.

We two resting on the ascent to Long Peak, at the Gates of Shangri-la

My husband and I had the opportunity to do some mountain treks across from the Stein Valley, years ago, when alpine camping was new to us, though we had for years previously ascended mountains in the Presidential Range of the White Mountain National Forest in New Hampshire with our then-young family of three children. It was our youngest son, long since occupied as a biologist, who took us to the mountains of the province in which he lives. The last adventure he shared with us was a week of canoe camping through the Bowron Lakes circuit, not all that far from Williams Lake.