I decided to quit my job in advertising in less than 2 days. This desire to experience adrenaline having taken over, I chose to live the adventure and dared to step out of the world of private enterprise. What drives us to want to take root in the forest, to go and discover the authenticity of who we really are?

 

In my opinion, our personal quest must go through this need to connect with the true and the simple, with the people we meet in our path and with the nature that surrounds us and that we so often forget.

 

I realized then that this mission was going to become my personal quest. I also knew that from now on I was going to do everything in my power to convince as many people as possible to have their own adventures.

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WHY GO ON AN ADVENTURE?

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Go in search of silence, shiver in a gust of wind, soak up the scent of lichen and the wet earth beneath your feet, accept solitude, be lulled by the evening breeze, brush the morning dew on the stalk of a fern, feel the ground tremble at the passage of a horde of caribou, vibrate with wonder at the appearance of an aurora borealis; it is for these reasons that we are leaving. It is to encounter the extraordinary in every detail of our existence on this planet and to become better people that we dare, most of the time, to face loneliness in distant lands. I sometimes feel selfish to leave my family to find myself better. Every time I leave my family and friends behind, who are often worried. And sometimes I am, too.

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Leaving pushes us to explore unknown interior areas, hostile territories as much on the road as in our mind. Crossing rivers and torrents usually helps me gain strength. I hold on tight and go for it, still stronger than the day before, thanks to the trials I have overcome so far. We give everything. We are cold and very hungry a few times, we get dehydrated, we test ourselves every day, we are rarely safe from a downpour, our layers of merino wool clothes get wet, we shiver and we dream of being near a crackling fire. I chose to go for it and invest everything in my profession, to tell the stories of my encounters over the kilometers traveled.

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One by one, the discussions with these extraordinary beings who cross my path change me forever. What more do we need than remembering the connection to nature and the great outdoors that our ancestors worshiped? What more is needed than welcoming the arrival of the sun in the morning and looking up to the stars at night. There are times when our thinking deviates from logic, when we have to listen to that voice that comes out of our guts and urges us to meet the unpredictable and against the established plans. She tells us to trust our instincts, ignore convention and go for it. There is nothing more magical, after a last glance at those you love, than the first gestures that initiate the departure.

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The reason I work as an explorer and adventure filmmaker is that I have this intrinsic desire to feel, every day for the rest of my life, in harmony with this side of me that I discover a little. more with each expedition, each race, each difficult experience encountered. It's by facing my greatest fears and taking on the challenges one after the other that I believe I can more easily connect to my community and the environment and be always more honest with myself - even. Who are you really after a cold night in a tent, during a sustained effort to climb a mountain or during the last kilometers of a race?

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Through those moments of doubt that we all experience at one point or another in our lives, we become authentic and transparent to ourselves. Because when we overcome certain challenges in our daily life or during an adventure, we are not only grappling with snow, rock, wind, storm or crevasses on our way, but also with ourselves and with our human fragility. By going in search of stories to tell in a context of surpassing oneself, by filming and producing documentaries, I come to better understand my essence, my reason for being.

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My feet hit the ground in many places, my arms suffered from repeated paddling, my toes suffered from frostbite. Despite everything, I am still at the beginning of this exploration, the one that pushes me to seek even more answers, to find what defines me as a woman. Some expeditions made in recent years have allowed me to move forward on this path of recognizing my existence. I had the good fortune, during these experiences, to meet people who marked my pilgrimage to unknown lands. With this book, I have the chance to recount some of these encounters as well as show the path I took from one expedition to another. It was after going through a few adventures that I wondered if I could translate some of the concepts learned in the field into my daily life in order to improve the time spent at home between two expeditions.

 

Every trip in nature, whether short or long, has taught me lessons and inspired theories that guide my path today.