From the Editor

What I have found most interesting about much of the writing and images we have received for the current issue the Expedition Journal is the internal, subjective experience of adventure. What one explorer sees and experiences in the wilderness is a unique, personal and--I’ll dare to say it—a spiritual expression of discovery.

When we began asking for writing from young people across the country, what we imagined we would be seeing is a lot of poems about spring flowers in the high country. Instead, what we notice with pleasure is that our writers and artists turn inward, noticing the direct and subtle changes that travel, place and adventure bring to their own lives.

One writer who had impressed me with his ability to connect the world around him with personal landscape is John Landretti, whose work I had read in Orion magazine. When I asked, John very kindly agreed to write a piece for our “My Wild Youth” department, and sent us “Surf,” an intense and personal account of his own early years of exploring the world around him, armed with the sense of amazement that youth gives us all.

That said, I’m enormously proud of the will risk that our young writers in this issue are taking in sharing their stories with you. The act of recording and publishing your personal experience is a political, risky, challenging, wild thing to do. It takes sweat to crank out and polish the words, and it takes guts to put your name on it.

These young writers see and report with fresh eyes the world unfolding before them as they set off on a lifetime of adventure. They share with you what is too important to keep locked only in memories. And when they look back thirty years on, as Mr. Landretti has done, I suspect that they will recall their early exploits with the vivid, creative clarity that only the passing of time can bring to a good story.

The Expedition Journal has set out to cast a wider net, and will continue to seek work from schools, outdoor education programs and individual adventurers from around the world. Thanks for reading.

Sincerely,

R. Gerard Lester
Executive Director
Great Outdoors Academy