The Explorers Club

In the midst of this past winter's no-I-don't/yes-I-do have Ankylosing Spondylitis drama I fired off an email to the Canadian Chapter of The Explorers Club asking how one becomes a member. Go big or go home, not going to let this disease nonsense stop me and I need big goals to work towards so why not working towards one day carrying the flag of the Explorers Club?

First, a bit of history. The Explorers Club is a private multidisciplinary organization dedicated to field research and preserving the instinct to explore. The EC has a long history of exploration firsts on the planet and many of the people whose books I've read and documentaries and television specials/series I've watched are members of the EC. These members have inspired me to pursue my own instinct to explore.

The Canadian Chapter introduced me to a sponsor who would help me work on my application package and I set off to work on my CV.

I haven't done a lot of exploring yet - the past 20 years of medical challenges have kept me pretty much on close tether, not to mention a full-time university science degree course load. But I am in a field based program and have had some field experience, presentation experience, and have done a lot of technical writing for school and work, so, at my sponsor's suggestion, I emphasized that side of my background.

I applied under the category of Associate Member as I felt with my lack of exploration background that category would be the best fit. With sponsor letter and application complete, I mailed the application off at the end of January and waited patiently for the next Board Meeting when membership applications would be processed.

On March 24th I received an email from the Canadian Chapter's communications director welcoming myself and other newly appointed EC members to the Club! To say I was thrilled would be an understatement! I immediately fired off an email to my sponsor to say thank you for his support and am eagerly looking forward to raising a glass with him in thanks.

The following morning I received an email from the BC/Yukon membership director welcoming the new members of the EC. There it was in print:
As an International Member, Barbara Durau, Prince George,BC.

International Member! I couldn't believe my eyes! I was expecting Associate! I fired off an email to my sponsor expressing my delight and surprise at this membership category. He reminded me my application made mention to the challenges I had been up against and he told me the Board took notice of this.

Membership in the EC, he told me, is not solely about amassing a list of "accomplishments." Members of the EC tend to have a different outlook on life than other people and as such they tend to look favorably upon those who have been knocked down hard, get back up again, and keep moving forward. His final words to me were "keep going!"

I don't have words to express how it feels to have a group of complete strangers on the other side of the continent look at a six page snapshot of my life and deem what I have been up against and overcome to be worthy of full membership in a very prestigious organization. It's as if, for the first time in twenty years, I've been accepted into a group of people to whom I don't have to explain myself. They know adversity, they know physical hardship, they know. They know.

Spending the past 20 years trying to explain to people to whom adversity is a barista taking too long to make a latte what it's like to hurt to take a breath, to walk a step, to write an exam numbed on pain meds, to be told you've lost mobility...

Explorers know, man. These are people who've faced frostbite, the bends, the thermias, the depths, the heights, the winds, the rains, the blazing sun, and gotten back up and done it again and again and again. Why? Because of that driving passion to keep moving forward, to keep exploring, to make that next discovery.

And now I am part of that "family." I'm not going to lie, I walk a little taller these days.

And you want to know the really cool part? Watching tv or perusing the shelves of a bookstore and seeing works done by men and women who are now my colleagues. That my friend is the cool part. It will be even cooler when I join them at ECAD, the Explorers Club Annual Dinner, held every March at the Waldorf Astoria in New York. Looking forward to hearing and sharing stories of exploration and, hopefully, meeting some of the people who inspired me to send off that application form.

Until then, I have final exams to write, convocation to attend and my own expeditions to plan.

Where oh where shall I go first....?

See you on the trails,
Barb