Books

A few more books that I just finished were great reading and educational...Here is the first book that all lovers of snow and Ullr would enjoy...It is written by a younger journalist Jeremy Evans with a foreword by Glen Plake.... The name of the book is In Search of Powder: A story of America's Disappearing Ski Bum.

This is a pretty straight forward book filling you with some history on different ski areas, the ski industry in the US, and how it is becoming harder and harder to make a living as a ski bum!!! Even though I never would say I was truly a ski bum over the years I have had plenty of friends, family(older bro), and lots of friends that have given it a hell of an effort working summers and skiing all winter....This does not mean I have not had my share of days skiing; be it backcountry, slackcountry, lift service, or just waiting to hit some nice corduroy at the local nordic center...Skiing has been in my blood since a very young age when my parents got us into nordic skiing and then at a little older age my older brother got me into the apline world...I truly hope I can get some form of skiing in until the day I die!!!

That being said one of my favorite sentences from this book is found on page 107...." if people are doing what makes them happy, then they are living life right and they got their priorities straight." I would add to this if you are doing this and not hurting or harming anyone else then you definitely have your priorities straight!!! One more sentence I felt worthy of passing on is on page 194...."What was impossible yesterday is today's absolute limit, tomorrow's commonplace. Today this is the limit."

Cheers to an enjoyable book...



The second book was written by Wade Davis, it is a series of the Massey Lectures, "The Wayfinders" that broadcast in November 2009 as part of the CBC Radio's Ideas series. The title of the book is The Wayfinders: Why Ancient Wisdom Matters in the Modern World..

These lectures to me were a wonderful experience and I will reach for them in different aspects of my life to keep in check....This book contemplates what it really means to be human and reviews a few different cultures from different regions around the world. One passage I really enjoyed was about the Polynesians and how they traveled centuries ago. On page 77 it went something like this:

"How long they would stay depend on the wind. Time meant little. Wealth was not defined as ownership, but by the prestige and status that came to one who gave well and thus secured a social network, a sort of human capital of culture, a treasury of ritual debts and obligations that would yield interest to one's clan and family forever."

To me this is a beautiful paragraph and I would have loved to have seen the Polynesian culture or any culture for that matter at this time in history...

Hope you all are enjoying yourselves and cheers to good reading to get the mind on an adventure!!!