Zand Martin

The air smells different in the North; it is clean and crisp and straight from the lungs of ten billion spruce trees; after so long away, it hits with the force of a deep and intentive intoxication.  Every year since I was thirteen, I have gone ‘north’ in some form, and each year, I went farther afield: from Maine to Quebec to Ontario and in 2008 to the Yukon Territory and eventually above the Arctic Circle.  I found there – in the north – a deep love of place, and I have been lucky enough to be invited back to the Yukon for the last three years to lead expeditions for the National Outdoor Leadership School.  I just picked up my plane tickets today, and in only a few short weeks I will smell that smell and see the disappearing sun at 11PM and know I’ve come back to one of the places where I am most alive.