“Beyond the edge of the world there’s a space…where past and future form a continuous, endless loop.”
– Haruki Murakami
On Saturday night, my young neighbor Keshua popped by the yurt and told me his family was heading to the city of Victoria on Vancouver Island the next day – would I like to come?
I briefly considered the situation – that I had been on Salt Spring for exactly one month just that day, and from the moment I arrived, my world had been beautifully reduced to a circle of canvas and latticework measuring exactly twenty feet wide.
I wondered if a little civilization might do me some good.
But really, it was the thought of a little adventure that got me racing to finish an article that night to free up my Sunday. If you could have seen me getting my backpack together for our jaunt across the Salish Sea, you would not have guessed I was going away for a mere nine hours. Packing my watercolors and sketchbook. Charging my camera battery. Even laying out what I would wear – something besides my everyday ensemble of sweater and jeans and cold-weather socks.
Once our ferry reached the Swartz Bay terminal, Keshua’s dad Houston dropped him and his brother off at a birthday party (the impetus for the trip), and then the rest of us headed towards the city center. I knew nothing about Victoria, and to keep up this sense of mystery, hadn’t let myself google it. Houston had made plans for the day, and so I expected my solo exploration of the city would most likely fall into a rhythm of wander, sketch, wander, sketch. Things could be worse, right?
I didn’t find the island particularly inspiring at first. While the rugged, evergreen-lined coast was just as beautiful as Salt Spring’s, it had been significantly more developed. For the first time in a month, I found myself stuck in traffic on a featureless freeway, bright green exit signs pointing to suburbs, leading us past Wal-Mart and Target, Subway and Starbucks, giant malls and chain motels.
We eventually entered downtown Victoria, but Houston kept driving. “I’m gonna drop you outside town,” he said, “but I don’t think you’ll regret it.”
I told him I didn’t think I would either – for now, it was enough to be in a new city on a new island, without so much as a map to follow. We reached the end of Government Street and turned left along the coast, where Houston said, “This is mile zero. Basically, Canada starts here.”
“If you look out that way—” he said, pointing towards the horizon – nothing but the finest of lines between the sea and sky, “the next land you’ll come to is Hawaii.”
I thought he was being poetic, but then we rounded a curve and a sign appeared in a wide grassy median – Mile ‘0’. And as if to prove the official-ness of the spot, there was even a tour bus parked by the median, waiting for a group of two-dozen people to finish having their photo taken.
It seemed there really was a Mile Zero – capital M, capital Z – and that was when a tiny thought ran through my mind:
This is why you’re here.
* * *
At the time Houston dropped me off, I thought I was standing on the westernmost point of Canada.
As it turns out, the honor of that designation actually belongs to Boundary Peak 187, located in the Yukon. Mile Zero instead marks the end – or the beginning, depending on which direction you’re traveling in – of the Trans-Canada Highway, a nearly 5,000-mile route (8,000-km) spanning the entire country and passing through all ten provinces.
But I didn’t know this yesterday – I imagined only that I had reached an edge of the country I’m currently inhabiting, and the thought of it thrilled me.
All plans of heading back into the center of Victoria were suddenly postponed – without intending to do so, Houston had brought me to the perfect place. I accepted the tour bus driver’s offer to take my photo by the sign, and then I crossed the road and stood along the coast. Cars passed noisily behind me, but before me there was only the sea.
I was about to keep walking when I spotted another sign: “Please use extreme caution. Steps may be slippery. Beach fires prohibited.” My eyes followed the railing the sign had been posted to, and saw that it did indeed lead down to a sheltered cove, one that was hardly visible from the road given all the overgrowth on the cliffs encircling it.
The pebbly shore gave way beneath my boots, the stones shifting with each step. I walked to where the waves curled up, and then turned right and began to climb the coast’s massive boulders, feeling suffused with sunlight and sea air. I felt as though I could walk all day, but decided to do a sketch instead – to commemorate having reached Mile Zero. And as I sketched – the winter sun warming my face, the sailboats and paddle-boarders passing, the gulls shrieking overhead and waves breaking just below – I thought of the other edges I’ve journeyed to over the last few years.
In New Zealand, I made the trek to Slope Point – the very bottom tip of the South Island – and to Cape Reinga – the northernmost point of the whole country. And in India, I took a train to Kanyakumari, or Cape Comorin, the Subcontinent’s southernmost point.
I thought about these edges I’ve stood on, and realized the one thing they all have in common – they’ve all ended in water. Not just a lake or a stream but a body of water whose vastness almost invokes a sense of oblivion – an ocean.
And as you walk up to that final point, to where a nation meets its end and a great ocean begins, you look out at the horizon. The ending is palpable and unmissable. You tell yourself that if you keep going in that direction, you’ll hit Antarctica or Australia, Sri Lanka or Hawaii, but here on the edge of a country, you have only a crystalline sea and the sky above you. You must trust those other lands are there; that the only land is not just the one behind you. You must trust it is also a beginning.
What keeps drawing me to these points of extremity is the metaphor they gift us. We’re always standing on the edge in life, aren’t we? The edge of comfort zones and careers, of relationships and long-planned journeys, closing out chapters while waiting for new ones to begin, but the transitions aren’t quite as tangible.
And so it is here at Mile Zero, in a place where the road meets its end and the land turns to sea, that you find the courage to navigate the vast unknown.
It is here you believe – sometimes the edge is both end and beginning.
I’m at another “transition” period at the moment (i seem to be there a lot these days..), so it was an interesting thought you ended with. Sometimes I know where you are going with your posts and sometimes not. Lovely place, and that is really neat to have been to the edges of so many places. I love sitting and looking out and imagining myself as those first explorers so many years ago who made it to the edge and dreamed of what was beyond the horizon without really knowing it. Sometimes it is sad a bit having all that knowledge now, and maybe that is one of the reasons people don’t really explore as much anymore. Hopefully you never lose that lack of wonder and excitement when you look out from those horizons and dream of the stories and adventures beyond her shores.
Thanks for your lovely comment, Anwar! And with what you said about sometimes not knowing where a post is going, I hope this was a good twist at the end? 🙂 But not only have I been in that same transition period before, but I seem to be there right now as well. One of my favorite ideas is that an end is often just the beginning of something else, and I suppose that standing at Mile Zero on Sunday – which is both the start and end of a highway, depending on which way you’re traveling – just seemed to connect with that. Sometimes I’m so intent and focused on what just ended, that I fail to look out beyond the edge – at what awaits us on the other side of an ocean of uncertainty…so I guess that’s what I was trying to share here! Thank you as always for reading, and I’ll be thinking of you as you walk through this current transition.
Nice pictures as usual. Nice sketch too!
Thank you, Reunka! I’m glad you enjoyed them 🙂
Candace. Lovely sentiments, photos, and sketches…I, too, seem to search and end up at “milestones” or “extreme points”…and I feel it is a fitting metaphor for my life, and the way I love to live it.
Thanks so much, Corinne! I really appreciate you reading and sharing about your own search for these geographic milestones. What are some of the ones you’ve been to? I’d love to hear about them 🙂
“… a moment when you feel perfectly aligned with the world”… love this Candace!!
And I really like the pictures showing your sketching at this spot. There’s something incredibly meditative about it, in the sense of getting hold of the moment or actually “carving” it…
Oh, and the “feathered fellow” may have been a “sign” as well, right!? 😉 Take care and thanks again for the impressions form the edge!
Thank you, Oliver!! I’m delighted you enjoyed this journey to the edge. And you are exactly right about the meditative quality to sketching…this time last year, I was getting ready to head to Japan, and while I was there, I visited the sacred city of Koya-san. One morning, I got up quite early and attended a meditation session at one of the temples, but I wasn’t especially moved by it or felt like I’d truly stilled myself, you know?
It was only later, as I sat sketching on a stone bridge in the Okunoin (a massive cemetery!) that I realized – sketching has actually become the way I meditate. When I’m sitting in the same spot for hours, focused on bringing a singular scene to life in my sketchbook, that is the only thing on my mind…so that was quite an interesting lesson in that sometimes, what works for others might not for us – perhaps the act of meditation looks different for us all 🙂
And yes! I had the same thought about this little feathered friend…he actually stood by me for ages while I was sketching, and just as I finally got up the courage to reach for my camera, he took flight – I thought it was quite a lovely sign connecting with these last few weeks 🙂
Thank you as always for reading – the insights you share here mean so much, and I hope all is well in Edinburgh!
I must say as a proud Newfoundlander, you’re sadly mistaken. Mile Zero is over here on the East Coast. 😉 Though I will admit, the West Coast is pretty wonderful too!
Also, just from reading this post, I think you would find a lot of inspiration here on my side of Canada. I know I do!
Lisa! My heart started racing as soon as I began reading this comment – I’m always terrified that I’m going to gravely offend someone or get some fact terribly wrong, so I was relieved to keep reading and see that that thankfully wasn’t the case here 😉 But yes, I loved learning that there’s actually two Mile Zeros to the highway – what a perfect compromise for both sides! And don’t worry, I absolutely can’t wait to explore the East Coast one day…whereabouts are you from?!
Haha oh my goodness, I’m sorry! I’m like that too. Definitely not the case. 🙂
I’m from St. John’s, Newfoundland, so pretty much exactly on the opposite side of the country. It’s amazing how different Canada is from one coast to the other. I can’t wait to get back out to BC again!
As a kid, I’d stand on the coast in Oregon and imagine those shores way, way across, on the mysterious other side. When I was 13, I visited Hawaii, and back home on mainland I carried memories of those tropical islands sharing our Pacific Ocean. Later, I lived in New Zealand, and again my Oregon shores felt richer for the connection to that off-the-horizon place… On the waterfront in Lima, Peru, I marveled at the idea that my toes were in the same ocean water that I’d swam in in Mexico as a kid, the same waves I’d watched from Washington, California, and home during so many drives up and down the coast. You’re so right. The edges are rich with meaning.
So glad you loved Victoria! I’m overdue for another visit. I’ve been about half a dozen times, and each trip earns another set of wonderful memories.
Thanks for sharing your sketches. They’re splendid.
Bethany, I can’t begin to thank you enough for your beautiful comment – I loved reading about all the edges you yourself have stood on, and I love the idea that you shared…that all these different countries share an ocean, and that by feeling the same waves from each different side, they take on so many layers of new meaning. That is lovely!
Thank you as well for your kind words about my sketches – I so enjoy sharing them here, and only hope that we’ll have the chance to meet up in person soon and pull out our sketchbooks together! Whereabouts in Oregon are you based? I’m hoping to pass through Portland again this summer, and it would be wonderful if our paths could cross while I’m in your home state 🙂
Yes! Send me a note when you’re headed to Oregon. We live in NE Portland, and I’d love to catch up for a coffee and a sketch. When this summer do you plan on passing through? I’ll look forward to it. It’s such a treat to get to meet up with other appreciative travelers. 🙂
I will absolutely do that, Bethany! I’m not entirely sure when I’ll be passing through this summer, but I so look forward to finally meeting up in person and talking all things travel and sketching 🙂 Hope you all are doing well!
A wonderful reflection. I’m just about on the edge of one life and about to begin another, this post made me smile and feel a bit less alone in those freaked out feelings I have at the moment, so thank you 🙂
I’m so glad you enjoyed the story, Laura, but was even happier to hear it resonated with you in your own current transition…please believe me when I say I know those freaked-out feelings all too well! Something else you might find relevant right now is this poem by an Irish poet named John O’Donohue – it’s called “For the Interim Time,” and is all about the pain and possibilities of these murky in-between moments: http://webelongtostories.blogspot.ca/2009/01/for-interim-time-john-odonohue.html Wishing you all the best for the life you’re about to begin 🙂
You’ve captured in words why it is I love the ocean and why it’s my favorite body of water (nothing against the other bodies of water, which I also love). There’s something about it that makes me feel so small, yet so alive. I love staring out into the horizon and just letting my thoughts drift in and out with the waves. I haven’t been to Victoria, but maybe I’ll venture up there while we’re temporarily living in Seattle.
I couldn’t have said it better myself, Carmel – I too love the sense of perspective the ocean gives us, but at the same time making us feel incredibly connected to the world. And I would definitely recommend making it up to Victoria while you and Shawn are in Seattle 🙂 I’ve heard even more beautiful things about the northern part of Vancouver Island, so I’d love to try and explore that soon as well. Enjoy your last few days in Asia!!
Wonderful thoughts and images, as always. I’ve always been fascinated with these places, but I don’t know if I’ve ever really realized why until I read this piece and found myself nodding and smiling. When we were in Portugal at the beginning of the year, we went to a point just beyond Sagres. I was immediately in love with the narrative of the place. It’s the southwestern-most point of continental Europe, and in the ancient times was considered to be one of the known boundaries of the world: if you sailed beyond Sagres, sea monsters would get you. How amazing is it, to stand at the edge of what was once the boundary of the known world? These places on the periphery have a sense of adventure to them, even if they are on the edge of suburbs and developed cities. Thanks for the reminder.
Katie, I absolutely love what you’ve written here – thanks so much for taking the time to share about your own moments of standing on the edge. The idea of these places having a narrative is especially poignant, and I wonder if that’s what it was that struck me so much about Mile Zero. I hadn’t heard about the point just off of Sagres, but will now definitely aim to get there one day! It would indeed be incredible to stand there and imagine that being the end of your known world. Thanks again for stopping by 🙂
Hey Candace. So pleased to have discovered your site. You’re a girl after my own heart. You have the same toolbox of toys too! Look forward to visiting again.
I was equally happy to hear from you here, Margaret – thanks so much for saying hello! I just found the art page on Red Moon’s site and loved seeing a few pages from your sketchbook there – do you have any more sketches up on your blog? I’d love to take a look at them 🙂 Thanks again for stopping by, and I look forward to staying in touch!
There’s a category on the blog “From the sketchbook”. I think there are few more images dotted through posts there. I’ll be tuning in too.
Perfect! I look forward to checking them out soon 🙂
Wow, such a talent.. it’s pretty rare for an artist to paint beautifully like you do and match it with poetry. And you did get a very nice spot.. things happen for a reason, eh?
I couldn’t agree more with you, Sofia, about how things happen for a reason 🙂 Thanks so much for stopping by, and for your lovely words about the sketches!
What a gorgeous place to spend the day!
It truly was, Andi! I’ve heard the northern parts of Vancouver Island are even more beautiful, so I’ll hopefully have a chance to explore there more soon 🙂
Oh i thought you were going to say that your next grand adventure will be to hike all the miles (kilometres really) of canada. That would be an anviable adventure and i could likely arrange some stops for you along the way!
That would definitely be something! I’m not sure I’m quite up for hiking 5,000kms just yet, but as soon as I am, you’ll be the first to know 😉 Hope all is well with you, lovely!
Wonderful pictures and story. I’ve been to Victoria as well as Newfoundland & loved both. I’m originally from Long Island and spent a lot of time at the beach while growing up. That’s where I learned to meditate, looking at the sea and being lulled by the waves. I remember looking out over the ocean, knowing England was over there and wanting to go so badly. I finally did, many years later and it was everything I thought and hoped it would be. Sometimes the past is prologue…
Thank you so much for your beautiful comment, Roberta – I always look forward to hearing from you! I especially love what you said about the past being prologue – I’ve actually been working on the prologue to my own book recently, and that’s very much a theme…about how the many pieces that make up the puzzle of our lives keep connecting in unexpected ways throughout time. It’s a lovely image to think of you looking out across the ocean towards England, and I’m so glad that it ended up being everything you hoped it would. Thank you for sharing that, and thank you as always for reading!