Choosing Adventure with Caroline Côté

WHY GO ON AN ADVENTURE? 

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's for these feelings that we adventure. It's to encounter the extraordinary in every detail and to become better people. It's to dare to face loneliness in distant lands. I sometimes feel selfish when leaving my family. With each trip, my friends and family express worry – and sometimes, I feel it, too.

Leaving pushes us to explore unknown interior areas, hostile territories as much in our mind as on the road. Crossing rivers and torrents makes me stronger. I go for it, still stronger than the day before, thanks to the trials I have overcome so far. We give everything in these moments. We are cold and very hungry, we get dehydrated, we endure downpours, our layers of merino wool get wet, we shiver, and we dream of being near a crackling fire. I choose to go for it and invest everything in my profession, to tell the stories of my encounters over the kilometers traveled.

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. It's by facing my greatest fears and taking on big challenges that I connect to my community and to the environment. It enables me to be more honest with myself.

Who are you after a cold night in a tent, during a sustained effort to climb a mountain or during the last kilometers of a race?

Through those moments of doubt we become authentic and transparent to ourselves. When we overcome challenges, we are not only grappling with snow, rock, wind, storm, or crevasses, but also with ourselves and with our human fragility.

I am still at the beginning of this exploration - the one that pushes me to seek even more answers and to find what defines me as a woman. Some expeditions have allowed me to move forward on this path of recognizing my existence. I had the good fortune of meeting people who marked my pilgrimage to unknown lands. I began to wonder if I could translate some of the concepts learned in the field into my daily life in order to improve my time at home.

WE CREATE CITIES AND TOWNS TO COMFORT US

Maybe we feel lost when we leave the concrete streets and the worlds drawn on paper. Why do we need to orchestrate and direct the construction of every square meter of our living spaces?

My studies left me with many questions, and it was then that I decided to go in search of answers.

I changed careers towards that of an adventure filmmaker, whose job title in itself was almost non-existent at that time. I had to invent certain new concepts and modify my equipment in order to practice this profession in so many unusual and majestic places.

Very often, we put off these changes, because fear is always present. Confronting it and jumping into the void in order to live my dreams is the best feeling I have had in my life, and I still experience it every time when developing a project.

Over the years, I have acquired some knowledge, and this is what I retain from my various journeys:

The mountain bequeathed to me:

Collaboration

The river gave me as a lesson:

Innovation

The forest taught me:

Regeneration

The glaciers transmitted to me:

Honesty and vulnerability

Trusting my intuition is what helps me go forward.

We are all leaders of tomorrow. Going off the beaten track means reforging the future and rethinking our way of life.

CAROLINE CÔTÉ  -  MOUNTAIN EXPLORER. ADVENTURE FILMMAKER. PHOTOGRAPHER. ENDURANCE ATHLETE.

Caroline Côté is an adventure filmmaker and photographer based in Montreal. From punishing long-distance races, to frigid expeditions across jagged mountains, she's completed and documented journeys that most will only ever dream about. Her main focus is to capture images that will subsequently be presented to the general public in the form of documentaries. Caroline is already gearing up for her next adventure – a 2-month trek across the frozen tundra between Norway and the North Pole.

Follow Caroline:

Instagram: www.instagram.com/caro.line.cote/

Web site: www.caroline-cote.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/carolinecoteaventures