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On The Road – Sara Jennings chooses the path less travelled

(Humans) cannot discover new oceans unless they have the courage to lose sight of the shore.' - André Gide She lives in the very belly of the beast — a place where conspicuous consumption has been raised to a high art.
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(Humans) cannot discover new oceans unless they have the courage to lose sight of the shore.'

- André Gide

She lives in the very belly of the beast — a place where conspicuous consumption has been raised to a high art. Where "re-creation" is just another product on the market. Where what you wear says who you are. Where... And yet. And yet. Sara Jennings' conscious decision to radically downsize her life — and pursue an activist's role in the resort town where she was born and raised — well... to me it reveals a side of Whistler culture that doesn't get as much respect as it should.

"Whistler made me who I am," insists the community's "first child." "The way my parents brought me up, the influence of their friends, just the way of life in those days — I mean, there's a story for me in every creek, every trail, every neighbourhood in this valley..." She stops. Sighs. "And I realized after being away from Whistler for a while that I really missed it. I missed being surrounded by mountains. I missed the snow. I missed the pedestrian nature of the village..."

Committed. Engaged. Totally convinced that she's on the right path. No question — Sara Jennings isn't looking to anyone else for inspiration. She's strong and smart and stubborn... and she's not doing it for brownie points or to impress her Whistler-born peers. She is simply doing what she believes she has to do. "I can only lead by example," she says. "I can only show by doing it myself..."

But enough dawdling, let's get on with her story. It's now 1994 and the 18-year old has just left Whistler for university. Convinced at first that she wants to be a sports doctor, she understands after a year that medicine isn't for her. Early childhood education, she realizes, is way more aligned with her principles and interests.

"It happened in a matter of hours," she says of her decision to switch career paths. "There was no real struggle; I just suddenly understood that working with kids is what I really wanted to do..."

Sara didn't waste any time. She immediately enrolled at Capilano College, and set about earning a certificate in early-child education. By 1998 she was working in East Vancouver at a day-care based out of a local community centre. "I was working with three to five-year-olds," she says. "Most of the kids were in foster care and all of them were seeing social workers on a regular basis..." She pauses. Takes a long breath. "I really valued that experience, you know. I'd worked with kids in other jobs — in North Vancouver, Whistler — and the kids were OK. They just didn't need me. But these kids — they needed me! They needed to be loved, hugged... cared for." It was the first time, she says, "that my studies in early child education really made a difference..."

City life, alas, wasn't really for her. So where to go? "I needed to live in the mountains again," she says. "But I wasn't ready for Whistler yet." So she decided to give Pemberton a try. But that didn't hold her for long either. After all, the new millennium had arrived. There were so many places to go. People to see.

"I wanted to travel," she says. "I wanted to experience the world." There's a hint of self-judgement in her tone now. "I was always a fearful child," she explains. "As a kid I shied away from anything that scared me. So now — I wanted to launch myself off the edge. Wanted to travel alone and independent." Pause. More laughter. "So I went to Australia — I figured that was still within my comfort zone..."

And then she gets serious. "It was during that trip that 911 happened," she says. "I was still in Australia at the time — in Cairns, and it was a real wake-up call for me." A long pause. "That's when I first realized I needed to change things in my life." Travelling, she adds, was helping her to see the world in a different way. "I was really worried about how the U.S. would respond to the attack. I realized just how vulnerable we all were. How much I wanted peace and not war."

Sara attended her first big peace demonstration in Perth. "I was still just a spectator," she says, "but I was really inspired by this sudden upswelling of anti-war sentiment." By the time she hit her next peace rally, this time in New Zealand, "I marched through the streets carrying a sign," she says. And laughs. "That was so scary. I'd never done anything like it before!"

Something about those marches must have clicked with Sara. For over the next several months she became deeply involved in the anti-war movement. "By the Thailand demonstration," she recounts with an almost giddy-voice, "I wasn't just marching in the streets of Bangkok, I was actively recruiting people to march." She stops her story for a quick breath. Smiles proudly. "I actually became one of the organizers for the Cambodia march..." She sighs. "I was learning so much. Not just about anti-war stuff, you know, but social and environmental justice stuff too."

She says she took it quite personally when the U.S. invaded Iraq. "I was so pissed off. I couldn't believe they would go to war after all these massive protests." So what did she do? "What any rational person would do," she answers straight-faced. "I flew to Washington, DC to voice my disapproval."

She spent two months in the American capital. "I did anything I could to help the anti-war movement there," she says. And she lived some unique moments. "I went on a three-day march to Baltimore; stood beside a Nobel Laureate during a silent protest at the White House and confronted Donald Rumsfeld face-to-face as he was trying to escape our demonstration." She laughs. "Not bad for contrast, eh?"

If it wasn't clear before, it certainly was now. Sara Jennings had found her place.

"I returned to Canada so uplifted by the experience that I was ready to walk across the country solo and tell people about what I'd learned," she says. Fortunately she heard about Otesha first. "It took all the things I wanted to do and catapulted them forward," she explains. "I remember thinking: 'Oh my god — this is designed for me! Here I am ready to walk across the country to preach the environmental gospel and this group is preparing to do the same thing — only on bikes." Not only that, "They were the first group I'd heard of that linked environmental and social justice." That was enough for Sara. She wanted to be part of their trip.

Which is how she ended up spending the summer of 2005 on a six-month cross-Canada journey with a gaggle of like-minded cyclists. Their mission: produce thought-provoking plays on the environment to school-age audiences along the way. "It was a hands-on program geared to high school students," she explains. "And the theme, pretty much, was that youth can make a difference in their own lives. For those of us on the trip, it was also about learning how to live and work in a tight group. Although I was further along that path — given my three years of travelling and hostel-living — I still learned a lot."

And she didn't wait long to put those new skills to work. A post-Otesha trip down the East Coast brought her in touch with another anti-war group, this time in Columbia, South Carolina. "They told me they'd invited a troupe of political puppeteers to come in and teach them puppet skills so I decided to join the session," remembers Sara. The troupe was called The Puppetistas and they were on their way to an annual peace vigil at a military base in Georgia. And they must have quickly sensed a soul mate in the young traveller. For no sooner was the session over than Sara was offered a once-in-a-lifetime gig. "If I agreed to help them build the puppets," she says, "I was welcome to travel to Georgia and perform with them."

Of course, the Puppetistas weren't just any puppet troupe. "We're talking massive props," laughs Sara. "You know, puppets with heads as big as VW vans. Makes for really cool street theatre." But it wasn't just the quality of their productions — or their political message — that attracted her, she says, it was also their commitment to a collective way of life. And it's kept her involved in Puppetista happenings to this day. "It's a very open lifestyle," she explains. "Very communal. And it's made me open up more, see more, feel things more. I think I've gained a lot of patience living in those kinds of conditions. I've become way more accepting..."

Sara's adventures are legion. And I've barely scratched the surface of her travels. But I'm already at the end of my allotted space for this week. And, well, I think I've written enough about her over the last three columns that you probably get the idea anyway. This is one exceptional woman. And the community is lucky to have her. But don't tell Sara that. It will only make her uncomfortable.

"Whistler is my home," she concludes. "This is where I grew up. This is where I feel most alive. Besides, we're all connected. If I want to make an impact — a real impact — it doesn't really matter where I am."