Before I moved to Banff in 2014, I imagined life in the mountains of Banff national park would be idyllic. I’d work from home in the mornings and swim in icy lakes in the afternoons. Instead, I occupied the shadow side of mountain culture, one not portrayed in tourism brochures. What came next was internet addiction, isolation, social anxiety and insomnia, much of it fuelled by my crippling fear of bears.
The one place where I felt safe to walk by myself was a small clearing in the woods on the edge of town. There were long sightlines between the conifers, so I could watch for approaching animals. Still, walking the same 500-metre route between a train track and a small cluster of hotels soon gets old. To mix things up – and because a glamorous early aviator named Beryl Markham used to do it – I began going barefoot.
Of course, I felt like an idiot doing this. But I was far from bored. Not now I had to pay attention to rocks and roots. Now I could recognise the small joy of finding a dandelion stalk caught between the toes. It’s true I was missing out on epic things: on mountain climbs and swims. But as spring turned to summer, here were trees seeding clouds, a twig like a chicken foot, and birds singing “chubby cheeks” and “cheeseburger” as they flew away, startled. Here was more than enough.
My fear of bear attacks has now faded, but I’ve continued with these barefoot walks, because now I think the joy of gripping rock and feeling sensation exists not just for skilled climbers picking their way through ice to a snowy summit. A softer version can occur while walking under a cleared line of pylons, on a short and familiar walk without needing to hit our body’s maximum rate of oxygen use during exercise, or VO2 max.
If you read the hippie articles online, you’ll read that going barefoot is called “earthing” or “grounding.” You’ll read that negative ions from the Earth’s surface spill into a person’s feet as they come into contact with the ground’s electrical charge. These ions, apparently, can charge a person up like a depleted iPad. They can make a person feel happier, calmer, less anxious.
Maybe this is true. But maybe scrambling at ground level, touching rocks and roots, just feels good. And we need all the help we can get to feel good right now.
Ailsa Ross is the author of the illustrated children’s book The Woman Who Rode a Shark: And 50 More Wild Female Adventurers
