Uplifted Like Mountains: Guiding Boys Through New Rites of Passage
Past expedition to White Goat Wilderness Area, AB
The world needs men who listen to others and value their wellbeing.
Next Gen Men is a Canadian nonprofit working towards a future in which boys and men experience less pain and cause less harm. The organization develops, delivers and evaluates school-based programs, resources and professional development to engage boys in topics like mental health and healthy relationships. I’ve been leading its youth programming for five years now.
Last year, we piloted an initiative called the Rite of Passage Expeditions Project, taking two groups of young adolescent boys on backcountry canoe trips where they could develop meaningful relationships and practice resilience in the pursuit of adventure.
“Something happens when you paddle together day after day,” I wrote in a reflection after the trip in August, “when you muscle through portages as a team, and spend each twilight laughing about something you can’t even remember the next day. It’s hard to put a word to what it is exactly. But when the mystery of that relational depth is paired with opportunities for quiet reflection and thoughtful discussion about the meaning of manhood, that something gains purpose.”
That purpose became a calling card for the following summer. As the winter came and went, my colleagues and I prepared behind the scenes to once again buffer youth from the pressure of school and the distraction of media, and walk with them towards the wide-open horizon of a world yet to be discovered.
Our first expedition this year traversed the the French River delta on the northeastern shore of Georgian Bay.
We met early in the morning on the outskirts of Toronto, and headed north. “Drive faster,” the teenager in the front seat called to me an hour or two later, wind blowing in his hair. “I want to pass that car and flip them off.”
I kept my eyes on the road. “I think I’m okay,” I answered.
“Jonathon, please,” he urged me. “You don’t know how much this means to me.” Then he ducked his head back inside, passing ambitions already forgotten. “Fine, then can I hold the steering wheel?”
“I answered that question already.”
“Can I drive?”
I rolled my eyes and turned the music up.
“What did he say?” one of the boys in the back chimed in.
“He’s pretending not to hear me over the music,” my copilot declared, then paused. “Although, that’s fair since it’s Taylor Swift.”
On we drove, the boys’ energy bouncing around the car as they started debating the best Taylor Swift songs. The city was gradually replaced by farmland, which became interspersed with forest, and then ultimately gave way to the Canadian Shield that dominates the northern Great Lakes.
Before long, we were in the north.
Our first campsite on the French River delta was at The Elephants, a series of smooth rock outcroppings on the shore of Pickerel Bay. From there, we paddled down Fox Creek through the remnants of a forest fire that had swept the area five years earlier, and camped on an island in Dorés Run.
The first few days saw our relationships lengthen and deepen like late-afternoon shadows. We built teamwork shouldering our packs across sun-streaked portages, and found friendship playing cards surrounded by the hum of twilight mosquitos. The further we travelled from the complexity of our everyday lives, the closer we got to the task of simply being together.
I say that because togetherness is more than just the happenstance of being in the same place at the same time. Togetherness is an intention.
When we reached the campsite in Dorés Run, some of the youth asked if they could paddle together around the island. When they didn’t return on time, I and the youngest boy took another canoe to go looking for them. Eventually, we found them—they had intentionally changed course to explore the Outer Fox Islands instead, and unintentionally gotten disoriented on the way back. I tersely led them back towards our island campsite, silently processing a similar wave of emotion to any parent who has lost and then found their child.
“Sorry, Jonathon,” one of the teenagers called across the water.
Togetherness means responding, even when it’s not easy. “Hang on, stop paddling,” I told the boy in my canoe. “I’m making them uncomfortable by being silent, and that’s not fair.” I let the other boys catch up, and explained to them how I had been feeling. Despite being upset, I told them I wasn’t mad, because I recognized my fault in not being clear on exactly where they were going and for how long.
Togetherness means making amends when you impact someone in a way you didn’t mean. “We’re sorry,” one of them said again.
And togetherness means accepting the imperfection of the people you love. I caught his eyes across the water. “Thank you,” I answered, honestly.
The next day, we paddled through the smooth islands that dot the northern coastline of Georgian Bay, and crossed two kilometres of open water to the windswept rock of Tanvat Island. Our final campsite the following night was on French River Island itself, tucked out of the wind at the intersection of the Eastern Outlet and the Main Channel canoe routes.
One of the defining parts of each evening was what we called story-sharing. I adapted it from an exercise in Partners for Youth Empowerment’s Art of Facilitation training. The rules were simple: over the course of four nights, each young person would share a story for ten minutes. The rest of us wouldn’t react, acting as a collective silent witness to whatever they chose to share. And then their story would never, ever be spoken of again.
When I first explained the rules, the boys were somewhat taken aback. “We won’t be able to follow those rules,” one of them joked.
Sometimes I think adults are so quick to underestimate boys that boys start underestimating themselves.
I looked at him steadily. “Then we won’t be able to do the story-share,” I told him. “I can tolerate not trying it in the first place, but I can’t tolerate these rules being broken.”
They got it.
So with each boy who shared his story in the soft quiet of the forest after dusk, we heard something different. In the cool summer breeze on that moonlit island, something new was forged.
Is it chimeric to call it closeness?
I know that not every boy spoke on those evenings, and not every boy will keep in touch when the summer is over. But I saw them go from standing shoulder-width apart in the parking lot in Toronto to cuddling against each other on the pine-needle floor of our nighttime shelter, and I know that that kind of intimacy is hard-won and easily lost in the tumultuous world of boys becoming men.
There are plenty of things I’ve gotten wrong in the process of developing a modern wilderness-based rite of passage. Giving young people the space to meaningfully connect with each other is not one of them.
The second group trekked to Cataract Pass in the Rocky Mountains of western Alberta.
If the first crucial element of Next Gen Men’s rite of passage expeditions is for youth to develop meaningful relationships, the second is to undertake a real challenge. Despite many of them not having backpacking experience, our group of young people aimed to follow an unmaintained trail to summit Mount Willis deep in the rugged terrain of White Goat Wilderness Area.
Two days before our journey started at the Nigel Pass trailhead, we met at the Change Centre, a rural property in the foothills maintained by Change Health Alberta. We spent the time getting to know each other, discussing bear safety and divvying up food and extra gear.
On our first evening together, we gathered on the porch to watch a lightning storm—until the wind picked up a driving rain and we got a call from a local on the landline warning us about a tornado touching down not 25 kilometres away. Most of us slept together in the basement storage room, pressed closely together as we rode out the worst of the storm.
Little did we know what was to come.
Two days later, we departed from the gravel trailhead with all the vigour of a group of bright-eyed day-trippers. The group hiked swiftly along an old logging road before crossing Nigel Creek and embarking into the evergreen forest that filled the valley. Misty clouds clung to the edge of distant mountain peaks above us like dandelion seeds caught in the wind. A light rain came and went, and faint blue sky filled the cracks in between.
We got into the habit of taking short breaks in order to ensure we stayed close enough together for bear safety. By the time we reached Nigel Pass, however, the group was ready for a bags-off, sit-down, appreciate-the-view kind of break. Behind us, we could see all the way to the curving ribbon of the Icefields Parkway below Parker Ridge. Ahead of us, the tree line dwindled into the loose scree and uplifted stone of the Canadian Rockies.
We reached a boulder-strewn plateau on the edge of the Brazeau River as daylight started to fade. With some youth keen to reach higher altitudes and others burning low from the day, we ended up spread out across the hanging valley, shouting to each other about where exactly we should camp.
The group woke the next day to find clouds hanging low on the mountain ridge above our camp. Undeterred, we ate a hot breakfast, packed up the tents and rejoined the trail. The moisture in the air caught in the grass and dampened the rocks ahead of us, then became a drizzle that gradually turned to rain. I zipped up the jacket of one of the smaller boys while he blinked raindrops out of his eyelashes.
Around midday, we stopped to check in. With a break in the weather, the youth decided to pitch camp at the glacier-fed alpine lake below Cataract Pass.
They spent the afternoon exploring the headwaters of the Brazeau River and climbing to the pass above the valley, throwing rocks and writing in their reflection journals. Two of the boys stripped down and went for a dip in the lake, practicing Wim Hof-style breathing regulation at 2,500 metres of elevation as the temperature dropped and the rain started to fall.
When the rain came back, it came back in force.
Before long, the youth were all sheltering inside tents that had been battened down to the ground. I cooked them dinner, then a small team of boys worked with me to clean up and relocate our soaking food backpacks far from camp for bear safety.
It wasn’t just that it was cold. The tents were holding their own, but two days of rain meant that we were running out of dry clothing, and some of the youth were burning through energy they didn’t have to spare. Even I had given away every extra layer I had. A few of the boys started throwing around the word miserable.
We settled in for a long night. I hung out in one tent and then curled up in another to read a story out loud while they snuggled deep inside their sleeping bags. My co-leader played a loud game of never-have-I-ever with some of the other boys, flashlight flickering in the fading light. Laughter rolled in from their tent, but was drowned out by the steady drumming of rain.
I had glacier water boiling for breakfast the next morning before most of the youth were awake. They slowly stirred inside their tents, but when I told them the hot chocolate was ready, they quickly decided it was time to get up.
It wasn’t long before some of the boys were asking if we could head back to the trailhead instead of spending another night in the mountains. I told them we would discuss it once breakfast was finished and the tents were packed, because the weather forecast on my GPS was indicating that the rain was coming back.
Bags packed, damp jackets zipped, eyelashes wet, we gathered in a circle.
“I’m not an expert,” I told them, “but in my opinion there are two ways that you can fail while travelling in the backcountry. Anyone want to guess what they are?”
“Giving up?” one of them guessed.
“Not going in the first place,” I answered, “and not making it back. So I want to be really clear that this is not a conversation about failure. Failure doesn’t play any part in what we do today. Does that make sense?
The group nodded.
“What are some reasons why you might stay out on the trail?” I asked them. “On any given trip, what might keep you out there?”
“If it was perfect weather,” one of the boys offered.
“Clear skies, great views, absolutely. Or if it wasn’t perfect but you knew you were up to it, you might enjoy the challenge.” I paused. “Another reason might be pride—not wanting to give up, or be the one who couldn’t make it.” I let that sink in. “What about some reasons you might head back? Maybe you’re tired, or you’re feeling scared that you can’t do it.”
“If it’s not safe,” one of them said.
I looked across the circle. “You get it. If any of you don’t know already, you should know that young men die far more often than anyone else from risk-taking behaviour. I’ve hiked past the grave of a young man who died from exposure in Iceland. In the mountains. In July. So what might contribute to our lack of safety here and now?”
“It’s freezing,” said one boy. “We’re all wet,” said another.
“Right,” I said, “and as far as we know, it’s just going to keep raining. So we are going to pull out a day early. But what I want to make clear is that if you’re in a situation like this as you grow older, whether it’s in the mountains or just in everyday life, I don’t want you to make a decision based on pride, or based on fear. Think about safety.” I gestured to the mountains. “That’s your unplanned lesson on manhood for today.”
I found out on the trek back to the trailhead that two of the boys had shared the same sleeping bag that night. At some point after midnight, they realized that they had both woken up from the cold.
“I’m freezing,” one of the boys whispered.
“Me too,” came the response.
There was a pause while they listened to the steady rain around them and shivered in the dark. “Should we try getting in the same sleeping bag?” the first boy asked.
In an ideal world, they would have been warm enough and dry enough to make it through the trip without struggling. Looking back, I’m not glad they were so cold that night. But at the same time, what I heard in that story was two boys facing the unyielding indifference of the world when it was hard, and learning firsthand that they are not alone. That matters. Boys all face challenges that feel insurmountable as they grow older. It’s one thing to be told they don’t have to be alone in the midst of hardship—it’s another thing for them to have felt the close warmth of actively caring for one another.
Most adolescent boys wouldn’t ask for help. Certainly they wouldn’t risk sharing a sleeping bag with another boy.
So in challenging the status quo of what it means to be a man, these two boys demonstrated to themselves and to their community that they not only belong to a culture that values compassion and trust—they are leaders of it.
That’s what a rite of passage is all about.
Men who value the wellbeing of others were once boys who experienced the strength of active compassion.
As I’m finishing this reflection two months later, I just got back from a trip to Australia where Movember kicked off a new program with partner organizations Next Gen Men, The Man Cave and Beyond Equality. These are national leaders committed to and skilled in nurturing the positive development of boys and young men.
I’m also still connected to many of this summer’s trip participants on NGM Alliance, our virtual community for masculine-identifying youth. They’re keen to know when and where our trips will be taking place next year.
We’ve all been talking a lot about rites of passage.
I don’t know how the Rite of Passage Expeditions Project and the broader reimagining of the culture of masculinity that it’s part of will ultimately unfold. I do know that from Taylor Swift to the Rocky Mountains, amidst wind-whispered stories and cold-night sleeping bags, we’re shaping the lives of boys becoming men.
And as they’re held in meaningful relationships and supported to overcome real challenges, a generation of compassionate, resilient and courageous young men is taking shape.
