WhiteCrowWalking: A Writer's Trek Across America
Jesse WhiteCrow Talks About His Journey Walking North America
Aug 19, 2008
What began as a soul-salving, must-do trek became a book in the making.
WhiteCrow is back in native Northeast region of the United States, and is living in a 1948 Airstream trailer he rebuilt before his walk.
He now is working to distill his experience into a book. His writing began with journals; his publishing of those writings began with a blog: WhiteCrowWalking.
Now, he pauses to talk with Suite101 about this life-changing period that occupied his early 40s – and how and why he became a writer during that time.
Suite101: Walking for three years across North America, how did you manage the logistics and mental energy for being a writer under such strenuous, extraordinary circumstances -- keeping a blog updated, thinking about a future book, keeping a journal?
Jesse WhiteCrow: When I began the walk I did not consider myself a writer. Writing was merely an exercise to keep my thoughts straight, and to preserve the ocean of information that was constantly feeding into my senses. Being in the field, I knew that my writing would be less than polished, and I had to just release into that knowingly.
S101: You weren’t carrying a computer, for obvious reasons. How did you maintain a blog for years, consequently building an unknown, but seemingly sizeable following of readers from coast to coast, while walking across the continent?
JWC: Libraries provided the computers for updating the blog/website. At first it was laborious finding libraries in small town America. Computer Internet is a new venue for communication in many states. Three years ago this was more so. Once I learned the patterns of programs, basic hour structure of libraries, and the dependable luxury of sitting in a warm room to write – and dependable bathroom with running water – every week or two...or three, it was a luxury I held ahead of myself like a coveted shower or the restocking food supplies.
S101: How did you manage the demands of what had to be an exhausting-beyond-imagination, physical, mental, emotional journey?
JWC: On the journey I carried everything that I needed to survive on my back until I got to Oklahoma, where I made a two-wheeled travois to pull an additional five gallons of water, food, gear...approximately 150 pounds in total, allowing me to cover extreme open ground. I pulled it all the way to Corvallis, OR.
As the seasons changed, and new equipment wore out, I was re-supplied while on the trail by a friend that requested to be my support network. Sending gear I had previously purchased for the journey when the need came, she would help iron out as many little hurdles along the way as she could from New England.
In the years that I walked across America, Kirin Loomis (formerly Betty Dunbar) proved a diehard, and the depth of her commitment, totaling more than 10 trips across America by car, not because she needed to, but because she wanted to make contact, share a meal, provide a hotel, as well as exchange one season’s essentials for the next, and see the country I was writing about.
S101: How did you fit writing into that weary, demanding kind of existence?
JWC: Writing was part of every day. Being totally alone, the journal became my therapy, a confidante that allowed me to celebrate or mourn, discuss, or set things down that I needed to leave behind. There was no future while on the walk outside of the loose idea of some far away ocean. I could not bear the burden of more weight outside of what I already carried to stay alive, including woes of the future.
Each day did have “sufficient its own badness” as the Bible reads...it also had more rewards than my mind could fashion. Constantly I was gifted in the most unexpected places and fashion. My goal was to stay alive, and to maintain an internal supply of food and water (by eating anything), find a safe camp, and unravel the never ending mystery of the road and town before me.
Thoughts of the future was a luxury I could not often afford to waste energy on.
NOTE: This is Part One of the interview with Jesse WhiteCrow. Part Two will be published next week. Subscribe to this feed, so not to miss reading about his process of becoming a book author who transitions back to the "regular" world.
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