Text and photos by Alice Weber

Standing on the porch of Jody Simmons’ house in Vancouver, BC, I look out over the chaos. Freshly seam-sealed tarps and tents are draped over the clothesline, boxes of white gas are stacked next to the house, and miscellaneous stoves, pots, water bags, water filters, cans of bear spray, ropes, pulleys, books and marine radios are piled on the lawn. Four kayaks—three singles and a double—are lined up on one side of the yard, surrounded by sponges, pumps, paddles, towlines, flares, strobes and an EPIRB.

Robyn Irvine holds a jar of peanut butter upside-down; its contents ooze into a clear plastic bag. "Alice, how much can we eat in four months?" she asks, and looks at me with a grin, eyeing the dozens of jars on the picnic table beside her. Jody stands on a big blue tarp amongst hundreds of food bags that are lined up in neat rows, as well organized as the columns of numbers in her expedition accounting book. We will be mailing three one-month food rations, weighing 250 pounds each, to re-supply points at Klemtu, Port Hardy and Nootka Sound. The deck is littered with long strips of white paper where Kris Maddox hunches over a stack of charts, cutting off the margins. Buffy Lundine is sitting against the side of the house, her knees pulled up to her chin, the portable phone pressed to her ear.

I look over the clothing list one more time. Kris, the artist of the group, has doodled all over it: striped socks, a poodle skirt, a bikini and a fleece cap with earflaps and a pom-pom. Everything I’ll be wearing, including a dry suit and a sundress, fits into two small dry bags.