Book Review | Take Me Outside by Colin Harris
by Chase Parnell — May 19th, 2021
Disclaimer: Rocky Mountain Books, the Canadian boutique publisher of Take Me Outside sent me a copy of this book for free in exchange for an honest review. If you’d like to purchase this book, you can do so through their website or ask your local bookshop if they can order a copy.
Take Me Outside is many things wrapped in one; it’s a book that advocates for getting children outside and off screens, it’s a book about the author Colin Harris’ relationship with the outdoors and his epic quest to run across Canada, it’s about interpersonal relationships and the inner dialogues we all grapple with as insecure humans, and lastly, the book is about the Canadian landscape itself and how interwoven it is with the national identity of our neighbors to the north. How’s that for a run-on sentence!
Colin grew up moving around a lot, from Winnipeg to Toronto to the Red River Valley and beyond. His parents always pushed him out the door to spend his days outside. He says, “In today’s vernacular, we were all free-range kids. It wasn’t a conscious choice by our parents; it’s just how it was.” Many of us grew up similarly and yet this style of upbringing is essentially nonexistent today. I don’t know if our world has changed or what really happened but parents these days don’t really allow their kids that long of a leash, myself included. Our five year old boy can go in our backyard all he wants, but we don’t let him set off into the neighborhood or the woods near our house. Sadly, there’ve been too many horror stories out there for parents to trust society like they used to. With that said, I have to believe there is some overlap between the rise of screen time and parents’ fear for their children. At least when they’re watching Netflix on the iPad we know they’re safe and sound. But how will our present comfort as parents effect our children’s development longterm?
Colin transitioned from free-ranging boy to spending his summers working at outdoor adventure camps for kids. He said, “Spending my working hours outside rather than sitting at a desk for eight hours a day appealed to me. After a summer leading canoe trips, I devised a plan to spend even more time outdoors braving the elements instead of staring at a computer screen.” What a blessing to know early on that you don’t want anything to do with a traditional workplace setting. Anything that whittles down the prospective professional landscape and provides direction in early adulthood seems like a real gift.
Colin also knew from an early age that someday he wanted to run across Canada. He was just seven years old in 1981 when Terry Fox, a man with a prosthetic leg designed for running, ran a marathon a day across Canada and raised millions of dollars for cancer research. With Fox’s story as one to emulate, Colin set out on his own cross-country run but instead of raising money for cancer, he decided to use his run to launch a non-profit, Take Me Outside, which raises awareness about the decline of children engaging with nature. During his trans-continental run he’d chronicle his journey online so people could follow along and he’d stop at as many schools as possible to share his message and encourage parents and teachers to get children out of their desks and classrooms, off the screens, and get them outside.
On a cold winter day, 36 year-old Colin Harris set off from St. John’s, Newfoundland (Canada’s most easterly point) with a fresh pair of running shoes, an old-beat up RV, his dog Koona (a Cree word for snow) and his friend SP. 181 marathons on the Trans-Canada highway would cover the distance.
The bulk of this book revolves around Colin’s hardships naviagting three things: a failing relationship with SP, an RV that seemed hell-bent on derailing the trip, and a running commentary on what the body and mind go through when running a marathon a day through a harsh yet wildly beautiful landscape. Having walked across Spain on our honeymoon, Nikki and I can attest to the unique experience that is seeing the landscape change little by little each day. Colin’s journey was 10x what we did so I can only imagine the bond he must’ve formed with his country.
As I got into the heart of the book, I have to say that I found myself wanting more depth from Colin. I had the sense that he’d start to wade into something difficult, like why his relationship with SP was failing, but then refrain from really divulging the details that would shine the light on our common humanity. Maybe Colin is just that good of a guy, or maybe because this book is so closely tied to kids that he couldn’t address some of the more “adult” themes we all contemplate, I don’t know, there were more than a few cliffhangers where I started to connect with Colin in some way and then he’d quickly shift gears and forge on to the next topic or event. This book is not a long read so I wish he would’ve extrapolated on some of his core struggles a bit more. Not an easy task I’m sure when trying to condense an epic year long adventure into a few hundred pages.
Yet what the book lacks in emotion, I think he makes up for in a string of gold kernels, bits of wisdom he picks up along the run. He does a nice job of weaving in quotes and studies to substantiate his thoughts and experiences. One memorable one for me was his struggle with the hierarchy of living things: why do we care more about the golden eagle than the sparrow or the bear more than the squirrel? To poke at this concept, he quoted E.O. Wilson, “If all humankind were to disappear, the world would regenerate back to the rich state of equilibrium that existed ten thousand years ago. If insects were to vanish, the environment would collapse into chaos.” So tell me exactly why we think we are more important than the honeybee?
I’ve never wanted to visit Canada more than after finishing this book; beyond the border towns and into the heart of the country. A few of the lengthly descriptions that I particularly enjoyed were of Cape Breton Island, the St. Lawrence River, the cities of Montreal and Winnepeg, the Prairies, and Banff National Park. And then just hearing the brilliant names of some of the Canadian towns he passed; can I live my life without ever seeing Thunder Bay, Medicine Hat, Sugar Beach, Whitewood, Red Deer, Iron Bridge, and Swift Current?
To wrap this up –spoiler alert– Colin ultimately makes it to Victoria, British Columbia and dips his toe into the Pacific Ocean in a fashion that I could relate with. Colin writes, “Perhaps it was my calm demeanor or my inability to display too much excitement in front of others, but the evening seemed to pass just like any other.” Sounds like the finish line of every ultra I’ve ever finished, never raising my arms in celebration or producing so much as a fist pump, even after winning races.
During Colin’s 4,700 mile run, he had a lot of time to think so in the final chapter he leaves us with three considerations or take-aways that are worth considering here. I will encapsulate them by drawing one poignant quote from each.
(1) “If we care about the healthy social development of our nation’s children, we must take every opportunity we have to model to our younger generations. We will never succeed at this unless we are honest with ourselves about our individual screen-time habits. […] The average user is on their device three to four hours daily. Over the course of an adult life, that equates to 11 years spent staring at a phone.”
I will repeat for emphasis: eleven years.
(2) “Take Me Outside, aside from the concern with the amount of time kids are spending plugged in, is a nationwide effort to encourage and assist educators in the use of nature as a classroom. […] My memories of school are selective, but in a general sense I can remember playing outside during recess and lunchtime. Yet I can’t recall ever having class in any of the core subjects outside. Even through junior high and high school the vast majority of my memories entail sitting at a desk in a classroom made of concrete blocks with a tile floor. The closest we got to outside — save the occasional field trip to a farm or zoo — was a lonely window or two, it’s shaft of natural light dulled by the glare of florescent bulbs. Informed by research, the story is changing.”
More education should take place outside.
(3) “The story of our nation is a patchwork of individual identities assembled from Indigenous Peoples, European settlers, migrants and refugees. Their stories are the building blocks of Canada. However, the essence that weaves through the fabric of identities is drawn from our rugged coastlines, open tundra and Canadian Shield, the boreal forest with its thin and towering pines, the tall golden grasses and vast blue skies of the Prairies and Rocky Mountain peaks of grandeur. Without these physical spaces, our definition of Canadian would be altered. Our land is the common tie that bonds us together as Canadians. National unity must rally around not ownership of this land but the privilege of being its stewards.”
If you are a runner, a parent, an aspiring naturalist, or considering an adventure of magnitude, pick yourself up a copy of Take Me Outside. All author proceeds are donated back into the Take Me Outside non-profit organization.
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