TREK - THE SOLUTION IN THE CRISIS

In 2021, I wrote a book - a book about a Trek that my father took with another man in 1956 through the wilderness of Northern British Columbia. After reading the book that I had published, called "Following the Telegraph Trail - a Trek of a Lifetime", my friend Roberta said “Being forced off the raft is what saved their lives. For that crisis pushed them into the direction of rescue.” 

As I considered her words, I realized that they were true. 
If they had continued along the planned route - by crossing the final river and continuing on the trail - they would never have found the way, since the trail further on had been wiped out by slides, winter was closing in, there were no more lakes where miners or geologists with aircraft could be available for rescue, and there was no more food, since there was no longer any game to shoot and berries were done for the winter.
If they had stayed on the raft and carried on down the river, they would have ended up south of the only lake that late in the year where there were still other people who could help them. Without a source of food, they would have starved to death, long before they could have been found and rescued, since no one knew where to look for them.

When they were forced off the raft by the overhanging branches and lost one pack, they were forced into chaos, into a crisis. In the crisis, the two men weighed the options and were forced to decide on a new path, one of moving south on the west side of the river, toward the lake that my father had seen on the map before the map was lost in his pack. He knew they needed help sooner than they expected, for they had lost even his share of the food that was still in his pack. From his previous knowledge of the region they were in, he knew that the chance of finding anyone who could help them at that time would be near a lake. When the two men followed the new path that they were pushed toward, which was now clearly the only choice, they were indeed rescued. 

Moral of this insight, when finding yourself in a crisis or chaos, look for how the universe is redirecting you to a better result.

Another insight is that the two men were no longer in agreement. Even though they were still traveling together for survival, one man wanted to continue and the other man had had enough and wanted to stop following the trail on the map and  head out to safety.
That tension between them contributed to the creation of the crisis. And that crisis saved their lives.

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