interconnecting

efficacy of motion and flow

☸︎ Canary ☸︎

is the name he prefers on trail, as is customary once one has been initiated into the tradition of thru-hiking (essentially connecting a series of backpacking trips in one continuous event from A to B to Z).

What was little more than a title intended to provide levity on particularly long days took on new life and meaning when Christopher “Canary” Blackwell sought to achieve the ultimate athletic record in 2022 and instead found himself enduring an escalation of cosmic left turns along the path, successfully dodging falling trees on the switchbacks and less successfully avoiding elk on the roads.

He yielded the coveted calendar year triple crown fastest known time (CYTCFKT) to become another’s destiny, emerging several thousands of miles later with a menagerie of birds in his mind that weren’t the chipper golden friend he struggled to identify with.

Wandering from one desert to another with clothing deteriorated as his ever-porous soul wrung bare, elk blood still stained to his shoes, relentlessly seeking truth and peace, the original reasons that guided him to the mountains.

Captive to desire, his coddled cultural sensibilities required him to deviate from the trail and to remember why it was he wanted to attempt the impossible in the first place.

To reach beyond perceived limitations and evolve his being into its highest potential. To risk life for one worth living.

To discover the uniting force face to face that leads others to their graves when they cannot contend with the prerequisites of truly awakening.

Thousands of feet below the surface of a terrain no man with inner certainty had any business in, the same intuition that led him through past dark nights abandoned him to the harsh reality of nature’s phenomenal indifference.

After a failed attempt to subjugate his humanity, expecting technology to provide panacea to his ignorance, he tried calling for help in the form of an SOS corresponding to a letter admitting how regretful he was to have wandered into what was increasingly feeling like a life ending situation to his folks, clearing the air in the increasingly likely event he would perish.

When the few hours of warm sun that would blanket him between frigid chasms waned and his device proved itself incapable of sending the emergency beacon, his stubbornness for survival meant no choice but to take the leaps of faith toward his way back to the surface, through an abyss roaring with the laughter of pulsating snowmelt, echoing fears from prior lives exceeding his wildest imagination.

As he ultimately surrendered to the despair, he was reignited with a spark of clarity that instructed new purpose in life and the patience in which to apply skills he had never attempted before in a moment when the stakes were never higher. Embodied with a new frequency of understanding, synchronized to the ideal of a superior consciousness of whom adopted him as a long misplaced part of the whole.

  • ~70% solo, 20% alongside my partner Belle n’ our pups Shani & Sweetie, 10% together with friends made along the way between the :

    • Appalachian (AT), Continental Divide (CDT) & North Country (NCT) National Scenic Trails

    • South Beyond 6000 (SB6K) 40/40 completed 04/2021

    • Adirondacks (ADK46) - 24/46

    • State High Points - 27/50 AZ, CO, GA, IL, IN, IO, KS, KY, ME, MI, MN, MS, NE, NH, NM, NY, NC, ND, OH, OK, SC, SD, TN, VT, VA, WV, WI

  • Between daily trips & fishing around lower Michigan & the Great Lakes region

  • With my Sony Alpha mirrorless camera :

    • 55 thus far available to be printed

    • 300+ flagged to finish processing

    • a seemingly unlimited amount of hidden gems

recent prints for sale

Floatation
from $35.00

January 2021 | Michigan

Fujifilm 232 g/m² Silk finish with honeycomb structure

Unification
from $35.00

April 2021 | North Carolina

Fujifilm 232 g/m² Silk finish with honeycomb structure

Solitude
from $35.00

January 2021 | Michigan | Snowshoeing NCT

Fujifilm 232 g/m² Silk finish with honeycomb structure

Mouth of the Two Hearted
from $35.00

June 2020 | Michigan | North Country Trail (NCT)

Fujifilm 232 g/m² Silk finish with honeycomb structure

Miscellany
from $35.00

October 2022 | Michigan

Fujifilm 232 g/m² Silk finish with honeycomb structure

Gestalt
from $35.00

June 2023 | Michigan

Fujifilm 232 g/m² Silk finish with honeycomb structure

trail angel check-in :

simply another traveler

wishing to support without expecting anything in return

for the will of the greater good

simply another traveler ・ wishing to support without expecting anything in return ・ for the will of the greater good ・

$
3% Cover the Fee

Anything helps to encourage me to keep producing!

blessed be

all is all

to love

blessed be ・ all is all ・ to love ・