Way Out There: The Best of Explore

Janet Arnett is the former campus manager of adult education at Ontario’s Georgian College. She is the author of Antiques and Collectibles: Starting Small, The Grange at Knock, and 673 Ways to Save Money.

Bored? This anthology has 29 ideas to get you out of the house and out
of your comfort zone. Ideas such as mountain biking over the Andes in
Peru, overlanding in war-ravaged southern Sudan, or looking for
poisonous snakes in Vietnam. Too tame? How about hunting giant eels in
New Zealand, mountaineering in the Himalayas, racing HPVs (human powered
vehicles) in Nevada, or visiting headhunter territory in the Solomon
Islands. Prefer your adventures closer to home? There’s always winter
hiking in the B.C. rainforest, underwater cave diving, sea kayaking off
the coast of Nova Scotia, cold water marathon swimming in Quebec, or
tracking wolverines in Northern Ontario.

This collection of articles from Explore magazine covers a range of
outdoor activities “where there might be blood involved.” Fear,
risk, pain, and incredible examples of human endurance flow through most
of the accounts. There are daring travels in dangerous places (“where
even the chickens know to take cover”), extreme sports, and
descriptions of situations beyond what most people have experienced.
Regardless of the specific subject, the articles are united as examples
of our “hunger to test ourselves against the earth’s extremes.”
Most are the kind of adventures that lead one to ask: Is this even
possible? A minority of articles explore terror of another sort: the
evidence of irreversible environmental change. For location, the scope
is worldwide, with many of the adventure tales set in Canada, especially
British Columbia.

Although the work of 24 writers represented, the writing style
throughout the anthology is characterized by generous amounts of detail,
vivid imagery, a consistently upbeat fast pace, and openness to whatever
humour the subject allows.

Perfect for the armchair Indiana Jones.