Beyond the Horizon, by Colin Angus

I recently agonized that I thought my TTC reading was causing me to fly through books as I travelled across the city, and while that may cause problems for the Jane Urqhart novel I’ll be starting tomorrow morning, I finished last week’s commute with a book it was okay to race through on my long journey home – one about a man on a longer race for home – the race to achieve the first human-powered circumnavigation of the planet.

I’ve confessed I’m not a motivated non-fiction reader, but crazy Vancouverite Colin Angus had enough motivation for the both of us. In June 2004, Angus left Vancouver on a bicycle (along with his expedition partner Tim Harvey), determined to not only complete a historic feat, but to show the world that if a person can circle the entire planet without generating any carbon emissions, the rest of us can leave the SUV in the driveway when we need a carton of milk.

The journey that follows defies imagination. After the bike ride to Alaska, Colin and Tim row (yes, not sail, just PADDLE) across the Bering Straight in a converted sailboat. And this precarious voyage is only the beginning.What follows includes a bike ride across Siberia in temperatures as low as -100 degree celsius, a bike across the highways and byways of Europe, a row across the Atlantic ocean, and a bike in the blazing heat through Central America all the way back to Vancouver.

To put things in perspective, it’s worth noting that I did my own small expedition about a year ago – a 1.5 week bike trip along a section of the Eastern coast of Australia, and it was one of the hardest things I ever had to do. Biking long distances in the heat and bugs on highways where the shoulder is often non-existent, littered with kangaroo carcasses and tube-puncturing debris, showering in truck stops and camping in ditches, near swamps, and along the highway makes for hard living (especially, if like me, you refer to the bicycle as the “two wheeler of death”). It was an incredible experience in a lot of ways, but not one I’ll run out to do again. But I digress. What I mean to say is that I have some small idea what that kind of lifestyle entails,  and I can’t fathom what it would be like to be force yourself to the limit of physical and mental endurance every day. Not to mention throwing in the stresses, of managing food, a place to sleep, navigation and safety.

Beyond the Horizon progreses swiftly, and Angus manages to give us a feel for the endless prepartions and daily struggles without ever getting bogged down in the mundane. He manages to include salient cutlural and historical details, and adds a few dashes of humour (his time in a hospital in Anadyr made me snicker on the subway) which are a nice relief after the stress of near-death experiences and serious conflicts with his partner. And it’s commendable that the obviously-still-alive Angus could still make me anxious as he digs an emergency snowcave to survive a night of  minus fifty exposure or prepares to weather a hurricane on the seas.  Despite the fact that he lives to tell the tale, it seems like no one SHOULD be able to survive this. Angus has turned his arduous journey into a book that is both exhilirating and conversational,  and more than a little bit inspiring. (That’s not to say I’ll be departing on any more bike adventures soon, but I am considering participating in Oxfam’s 48-hour 100 km hike).

In any case, I’m so blown away by the book and the journey, I’ll be advocating for Angus at tomorrow night’s KIRBC meeting. But until then, I’ll finish off with some stats:

Kilometres Rowed: 14,000
Kilometres Cycled: 29,000
Total Kilometres Travelled: 43,000
Countries Visited: 17
Near-Death Experiences (by my count): 6
Carbon Emissions: 0 (with the exception one emergency plane ride)
Entertained readers: 1 JK.