This blog is hard for me to write, but I feel that I need to nonetheless. I’ve been mulling it over for a month or so now, since I found out that Archie passed away.
Archie and I met on the first trip I took with Heritage Expeditions last year. We met in the dining room on the second evening, and promptly ended up on the floor covered in beer when a particularly rough swell sent everyone (and everything!) flying. He was a soft-spoken man with a quick sense of humour, and we got to know each other sharing photos in the bar after Christmas day on Enderby Island. Archie always had his little video camera in hand, and took a prolific amount of footage over our journey, just as I took thousands upon thousands of photographs.
What really struck me was the huge appreciation Archie had for the natural world. It manifested in a quiet, peaceful joy that I really admired. While I was chasing images, over-excited and overwhelmed, Archie had this quiet joy that inspired me to slow down, every once in a while, and just breathe. To simply sit and enjoy the experience that we were having. To watch penguins wander past unperturbed by us and the cantankerous elephant seals that would huff and roar at them. To stand and marvel at the scale of the environment that we were in. Sitting in front of the King Penguin colony in Sandy bay on Macquarie Island, we caught each other’s eye and shared the biggest smile. We spent a long time there watching the comings and goings of penguins, photographing, videoing, and simply enjoying.
To stop and simply appreciate what is around us – this whole amazing world in its diversity and wildness – is something I think we all should do. Just be. Let the world wash over you, let it open your eyes in new ways. Feel the relentless thrum of life in the wildlife that surrounds you. Feel the enduring, ancient pulse of the earth beneath your feet. I am the most myself when I am in the wilderness. And I am truly humbled, because when I am gone the earth will remember nothing of me. Not the photos that I took, the joy I felt, or even the weight of my footsteps. We are all ephemeral, and it is how we shape our lives and the lives of others that gives us meaning.
When we parted in Invercargill, Archie and I shared a tight hug. He held my eyes and said “You have enriched my life.”. I couldn’t find the words to tell him how he’d inspired me.
The internet is a marvellous thing, and it kept us in contact – sharing photos, stories, and videos from our adventure. Still feeling that sense of quiet joy, being able to re-live it in a multitude of ways. Memories are precious things, and photos go a long way in preserving what gets muddled in the mind as time passes. Now on the eve on another trip to the subantarctic islands, I’m in a flurry of planning and preparation – and I can’t wait for the cold bite of the Southern Ocean to wake me up. For everything else to drop away, and the joy of simply being there to wash over me again.
Thank you, Archie. For your quiet joy in wild places. For inspiring me to step back and appreciate the world around me. Rest well, my friend.
(Always a sense of humour…I found this photo in Archie’s shared Drive folder – taken by David Stowe from the bow of the Spirit of Enderby)
