before leaving the city of yellowknife, i saught out an elder of the yellowknife tribe, fred sangris. i wanted to acknowledge that i would be traveling across his people's homeland and i wanted to do that with as much awareness of his culture as possible. we talked about my route and his life living on the land, hunting and trapping. i asked him how he honors the land as he travels, and he said he lights a ceremonial fire, separate from the cooking fire, d offers tobacco. in meeting him i felt like i'd met a kindred spirit and would be welcomed on the land. the true measure of a journey is not in arriving at a destination but in how the traveler himself is changed. for me it was a gradual expansion of my awareness, a clearing away of false identifications. i honor the role of fire in burning away what is not real. as i watch the wood dissolve into heat i feel a visceral sense of my own impermanence. something inside relaxes from the grip of a lifetime, of having to get it right, of having to know what to do. i offer cornmeal and prayer to be transmuted by the flames to the spirit worl