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Boundaries are everywhere: physical boundaries from lines on a map, to fences, to an imaginary line on the car seat between me and my kid brother. And my own personal boundaries, boundaries of others, and cultural or conventional boundaries. We spend our lifetime relating to boundaries. From my perspective, they are things to overcome. They are blurry, require navigating through, and must eventually be crossed. I appreciate the need for boundaries (most of the time), but I generally think of boundaries as temporary and changing with the times and circumstances. I don't think of them as hard and steadfast. This is a scary thought for protected areas (PAs), but maybe it depends on what they are protecting. Exploring the navigation of boundaries through personal experience, looking at advantages and pitfalls, can help reveal possibilities for parks and PAs. What follows is that exploration. I poke at memory and connect events. I draw from my life's experiences, some of which forced and invited me to examine boundaries. I hope the words and images that follow lead you to places uncomfortable at times. I ask more questions than I answer, believing that others have insights that will help figure out the myriad challenges facing parks and PAs. My connection to the natural world and big questions began early for me. They persist.
I remember sitting on the coarse gravel of a beach at Osprey Lake, in the Interior of British Columbia. Looking up at the sky, I wondered, "What made someone decide the sky was blue? Who is to say the sky is, in fact, blue? It is really just because we all agree? If I wanted to, really, really wanted to, I could convince myself the sky was green." I was about 12 years old. This moment planted the seeds of doubt in my mind. The world may not necessarily be as it seemed, or as "they" said it was. I regularly questioned why things are the way things are, which also applies to boundaries, borders, and barriers.
Then at 17 years old, lying in a hospital bed, I imagined life as a duffle bag. I decided to fill my duffle bag of life as full as possible so that at any point, I would be...