Silly, silly man, they say.
What was he thinking?
He went out into the dead of winter with barely more than his wits.
Went to his edge — then a step beyond.
Silly, silly man, they say.
What was he thinking?
Without ever having met Richard Code, I have an idea.
Code was the 41-year-old Scarborough, Ont. man — and TV Survivorman fan — whose body was found March 3, in the bush of the Almaguin Highlands. The area is considered the gateway to the province’s northern region.
With a hatchet, knife, fishing gear and the clothes on his back, the city man had hitchhiked into the snowy hinterland. Friends and family say Code was a self-taught wilderness apprentice, who wanted to test himself against a harsh reality.
But since he was reported missing — even before his remains were found — news site comment boards began to fill with scorn and ridicule.
“It seems like a rather sour type of love,” one national newspaper readers commented on Code’s reported closeness with his friends.
“How is this an accident exactly? Sounds more like the result of poor planning, poor training and pure stupidity,” read another response, on a CBC site.
And across a multitude of response boards, people assumed Code likely had a death wish. But just perhaps, he felt the opposite.
At this point, I’m supposed to state the obvious — no one should repeat Code’s ill-planned exhibition. That his death should serve as a warning. That you can die out there.
Yadda. Yadda. Yadda. It’s all true.
But I think Code was compelled by instinct, rather than alerts and warnings and cautions.
Most boys becomes men and then one day, decades later, die of something like prostate cancer — and never once test their limits.
We wonder — quietly — what we’re made of. But apart from slightly exaggerating the time we hiked near a bear while camping in the Rockies or the night that big guy started hassling us in a Mexican resort bar before the manager stepped in, as men, we live and die and, in between, stay clear of trouble.
Close shaves are what happen in front of our mirror.
Less sophisticated and far less-safe cultures once sent young men off on their own, to see if they could survive.
You either passed the test or died trying.
As a father of four, I’m not calling for a return to those days.
However, for the most part, our sons and daughters learn early on, to please stand well back from the yellow line, follow safe operating procedures as described in your owner’s manual, wait 45 minutes before swimming, do not take on an empty stomach, you must be this tall to ride, may cause serious side-effects, understand in small print legalese that all car commercials are driven by professional drivers on a closed track and service charges will apply for late payments and thank you for holding.
Our children can’t play on playground equipment if the ground is made too hard.
And as adults, ‘know your limit’ is a slogan for not using rent money to buy lottery tickets.
Should Richard Code still be alive? Yes, and I grieve for those who love and miss him.
Did he make wrong choices? That’s a given.
But here was a man who decided — at his own peril — to shrug off the safety net and go it alone.
To do more than sit at his computer and post comments on message boards — that are also moderated for safety’s sake.
Silly, silly man, they say.
What was he thinking?
Just being boundless, I suppose.
