He Walks Among Us

Today, it was announced publicly that Barry Blanchard has been awarded the “Order of Canada”, which is described as being, "the highest degree of merit," awarded to an individual who has made, "an outstanding level of talent and service, or an exceptional contribution to Canada and humanity. The contributions of these trailblazers are varied, yet they have all enriched the lives of others and made a difference to this country. Their grit and passion inspire us, teach us and show us the way forward."

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A few years ago I had the pleasure of introducing Barry to the audience at the Bozeman Ice Fest ahead of the premier of a documentary made about him by Andy Arts and Ivan Hughes. The film addresses much of Barry's climbing history but also his long road back from a head injury suffered not while climbing but instead on a flight of stairs. In the days following that wreck it was not clear whether he would recover or recover his impeccably sharp memory, still replete with stories yet to be told. I was honored to make this introduction, the text of which is below.

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They say that when you save another man’s life he becomes your responsibility. Perhaps it's because you had the power to interrupt fate but maybe something else. If this is true then Barry and I have been responsible for each other since 1988.

I got him down from over 8000 meters on Everest when the cerebral edema hit him and we were up there alone, the last two guys on the mountain that season and for some reason we didn’t have any oxygen, or a rope, or any bivy gear beyond a tent and a stove.

Later, Barry saved my life by teaching me about unconditional love. He forgave and accepted me even though I sometimes behaved like a dick, when I was too strict with my ideals—and hypocritically so—to be a good and understanding friend. Even during those times we remained bound together by the rope and what we had experienced together and that bond remains unbroken.

I knew of Barry and hero-worshipped him before we met below the Weeping Wall in 1988. When we did finally meet I had no idea what was in store for us but I should have followed the old Ronald Reagan advice to, “Trust. But Verify.”

When Barry invited me to join he and Ward Robinson and Kevin Doyle on a Himalayan expedition I should have asked whether we were going to nearly die but I didn’t and we did. As the shit kept hitting the fan we looked into each others’ eyes and wondered, “Is this it?”

Once or twice back then our ambition outstripped, not our ability but certainly our luck, when we moved too fast for good fortune to keep up. In our youth we got away with more than we had earned the right to expect, and we both lived to tell.

Barry is an author. He writes prolifically and well. There was a time when, although I loved the letters he wrote to me, I did not like his public writing because it wasn’t how I would have written and my ego needed everything to be how I wanted it. When he wrote about Mount Chephren, and a new route on the east face, he spoke of a goddess, a lady, maybe a chalice, and certainly a blade but I just couldn’t get there with him because I was trying to make every essay the equivalent of a two minute punk song.

Unfortunately, turning everything into a verb cost me many memories. I lost details and sometimes entire experiences by editing them down to their essence, constantly distilling and searching for “the active voice”. Happily, Barry guards those memories for me, for us. His razor-sharp memory and command of language allows me to rediscover experiences we lived and shared and nearly died for. He has preserved the details that I lost, and he is a damned good storyteller. His first book, "The Calling", is extraordinary, and he finished his second book, ever working with a discipline I always wished I had.

Barry and I have been our highest, best selves together and also our lowest, most base: we went to Nanga Parbat and Everest with small teams and hard ethical stances, balanced by closing down a bar in Argentiere and Barry still slam dancing in the passenger seat while I drove the car, eventually breaking the windshield with his cowboy boots. There was the first ascent of the "Richard Cranium Memorial" in the Alps and also opening champagne bottles with a sword at a different bar called Atmosphere. There were two weeks of subzero temperatures and 13 broken picks in the Canadian Rockies and then late-night bar hopping in Banff that led to, umm, “conduct unbecoming …”

And now, with more behind us than ahead of us, we sometimes dwell upon what we have lost instead of celebrating what we have lived. A dear friend once told me that, “Loss is the totality of love,” and we have lost plenty so we also love plenty — the gift of loss is to be able and willing to love because we already understand the cost. Of everything.

That Barry is still here to be introduced and I am still here to introduce him says much about our responsibility, our duty to share what we have learned. You don’t come back from the edge, from having seen and experienced transformative things without also shouldering the weight of communicating those lessons, without knowing you’ve been given a gift that must be shared. Barry and I have been to the edge, and broken ourselves against it. We accepted the weight of those experiences, carried it, and promised who or whatever allowed us to survive that we would share and communicate what we had seen and learned. Barry has done a better job of this than just about anyone I know; from writing to speaking, to teaching, to sharing, he is the guide—sometimes a spirit guide—that we and the world so very much need.

Tonight we are fortunate to have Barry with us, and to watch a film, to see him communicate about the great adventure of his life, and to learn about the many lives that Barry has changed by way of his presence. He is a man, and sometimes I think he is a wolf, he is my dear friend, and he walks among us.

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Movie trailer here

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Full movie here (and yes, I do believe it’s quite worth the price of rental or purchase)