What are your favourite summer outdoor activities? What's your dream adventure? What are your goals for this year? You can have outdoor adventures and travel with a purpose wherever you go'.

My goals this summer include improving my solo canoeing skills, exploring my spirituality, enjoying wild beautiful places in Alberta and raising money for conservation through the BIG WILD (www.bigwild.org)

The first in a series of trips I am planning happened in late June / early July. I embarked on a week and a half adventure including three days of canoeing on the Milk River in Southern Alberta and a four-day Vision Quest in Kananaskis Country, facilitated by a Cree Elder.

The canoe trip was simply majestic ' prairie rivers are so pretty and so different from mountain rivers. We canoed through sandstone cliffs, saw hawks, swallows, rattle snakes and petroglyphs, many kinds of cactus and grasses and flowers, oh yes, and cows. We ended on Writing On Stone Provincial Park and I camped and hiked in the massive hoodoos and cliffs by myself in the evening. I felt how sacred this place was to the aboriginals who visited it for vision quests for millennia. I prayed to the Great Spirit for a good and safe vision quest to come. The Creator answered with a massive thunder and lightning storm that night.

I drove to Kananaskis Country July 1 and settled into the Porcupine Group Camp where our small group of vision questers were to spend the next five days. A vision quest, for those who may not know, is practiced by many cultures in the world, including the aboriginal nation here, typically as a rite of passage or to mark a transition in life: the death of some part of you or your life, and making space for something new. I have wanted to do one for a long time and the opportunity came up exactly when I needed it! The vision quest is usually four days in the wilderness, without food or water, or other basic amenities; however, we were allowed a tarp and sleeping bag.

Our group participated in a sweat lodge to prepare for the vision quest. It was a very powerful experience, since when we entered it was sunny but while we were inside, a great thunder and lightning storm came over us and was so loud, we couldn't hear each other. When we left the sweat lodge, the storm had passed and the whole world was dripping. Once you have exit the sweat lodge you are in 'spirit world' and without speaking to each other, each of us went to our spots in the wilderness, marked by a circle made out of prayer ties. My spot was about one kilometre from the group camp, beside the river, where it forked. In the fork was a log jam and in the log jam was a yellow boat. In a vision quest, you are not supposed to be able to see another human being or man-made object. The boat was the exception for me, as I chose to view it as a sign that this was my spot! (after all, I love to paddle) and besides, if after four days, the boat was still there, I was going to haul it out of the river and take it home.

The vision quest itself was truly an exploration of the wilderness within. I spent four three nights in the 14' diameter circle, sitting, lying, standing, drumming, thinking and just 'being'. I did receive visions and messages (and surprisingly ' they had nothing to do with food or drink). I felt no hunger or thirst. I was in awe at the magic of nature all around me. I was visited by a hawk, a young male moose, a spirit bear and a butterfly and they all had different messages for me that will guide me in the next chapter of my life.

Upon return on the fourth day, I participated in another sweat lodge, which symbolizes coming back to 'reality' from the spirit world. It was great to spend time at camp with others sharing our stories and exploring their meanings. We also discovered a hummingbird nest! I got to see baby hummingbirds.