Adventure’s been in my blood since I was a small boy living on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales in northern England. After leaving school, I hitch-hiked alone from Cape Town to Cairo and visited Afghanistan before the Russian invasion. Travelling and writing have always been my ambitions and I’ve been fortunate to be able to indulge them both. Living life as a great adventure and accepting whatever happens are key.
I emigrated to Canada in 1980 and in 1983-84 walked the entire length of the Ganges, India’s holiest river, raising money for Save the Children Fund. The fascinating journey took seven months and was the subject of my first book, “A Walk along The Ganges”. From 1985 to 1991, I travelled extensively in the Amazon in a canoe, carrying little more than a rain canopy, mosquito net and a hammock, and wrote about the experience in “Amazon”. During these travels I was fortunate enough to met and eventually stay with Yanomami Indians in a remote area of the rain forest north of the river Amazon.
At that time their land was being invaded by illegal goldminers, with government sanction. I was able to chronicle their fight to survive in “Savages, The Life and Killing of the Yanomami”. I was so intensely involved in their struggle that afterwards it was difficult to find any project equally compelling. So I took a break from travelling and writing and in 1995 built and operated Still Life Retreat in southern Ontario, Canada, offering peace and quiet to the “wilted and the wired”. I also edited and published two editions of the “Canadian Retreat Guide”.
I left Still Life just before the new millenium and soon took up sailing. Have boat, will travel! I now live most of the year on my 32-foot steel sailboat “Kuan Yin”. My current project is retrace in “Kuan Yin” the extraordinary voyage of an Inuit sea captain and Moravian missionaries along the coast of Labrador into Ungava Bay in northern Canada in 1811. I’ll be writing regularly right here about this voyage, and on other subjects of interest such as solitude and Buddhism.
Hi there!! Remember me? How are you? This looks a fantastic project!
Been a long time since we last spoke.
It would be so nice to talk to you.
Love from
Jane
Hi Den,
Thanks for the great time!
Have a good sail.
Dear Dennison, It was the fall of 1998 when my friends and I filled Still Life Retreat under your gentle guidance. We ate your lovingly prepared meals, we meditated with you, we walked, we laughed, we sang, we talked. Those were magical days and within a year, I moved to my little corner of the world in Tobermory, on the tip of the Bruce Peninsula. I’ve been operating Healing Rock Retreat ever since and while it is small compared to Still Life, I carry on your legacy of loving all who cross my doorstep. You modeled humanity at it’s best. May you be blessed wherever you travel … and if you ever sail to Tobermory I’ll be in the harbour to welcome you. Love Daryl
Dennison: Blaine and I just returned from a house exchance vacation in Leeds, spending much of our 3 weeks exploring the lovely and rather-more-rugged-than-you-might-imagine Yorkshire Dales, which set me to thinking about getting back in touch with you. Your latest adventures are intriguing, as always, and I see gray hair has caught up with both of us now.
You’ll find me these days in Fort McMurray (moved here in January with Shell–longish story), kids almost grown up, and looking forward to planning a permanent move to our home on Pender Island in the next couple of years.
I have 2 communications students working with my team this summer and I told them how you helped improve my writing back in the day, so have been paying it forward ever since.
If you can, do let me know your latest email.
always
Simone