学进去

I don’t remember when my love of the protected Great Bear Rainforest began — it’s something that’s always been there, even though I haven’t spent longer than a month there in one go. I grew up in a small village by the sea and planned to study marine biology and live out on the water. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, my lack of scientific talent quickly put paid to that idea, but the love of nature remained and has been an anchor (锚) in my life and in my writing.

The Great Bear Rainforest is vast, splendid and wild but also friendly, fun and diverse. I travelled there by myself at the age of 20, planning to spend my 21st birthday camping, and hiking in the forests.

I woke up on my birthday in a tent on the edge of the water. Behind me, the trees of this largely untouched wilderness emerged. Endless carpets of pointed trees reached right down to a thin rocky shore. It seemed there was no way in. This wilderness held its secrets close. Stepping from the beach into the forest, I immediately sensed the history of the area — it felt ancient, and it was impossible not to be humbled.

With a guide for safety, I hiked a few miles through the wilderness. The sounds of the forest were everywhere. Birds sang. Insects buzzed. Something bigger moved through the undergrowth and my guide stopped dead. Listened. My heart was in my mouth. Then, after some invisible signal, my guide relaxed, and we went on.

We continued the hike and emerged onto a cliff with the most breath-taking view I’ve ever seen. From terror to wonder in only a few hundred steps. It was that sense of unsettled ground — of shifting emotion, secrets and awe, beauty and fear — that’s fed my writing across four books, none more so than Children of the Sun, and implanted in me a lifelong love of the wild.