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Exploring sport’s spiritual side

B.C.-based author taps into secret side of extreme athletes in Explorers of the Infinite
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Paddle & Pen Maria Coffey and Dag Goering lead trips in exotic locales like Vietnam, pictured here. The pair are coming to Whistler to talk about Coffey’s latest book and present photos from their travels.

What: Author presentation

When: Tuesday, April 7, 7 p.m.

Where: Whistler Public Library

Cost: Free

The husband and wife team of Dag Goering and Maria Coffey run a home-based business out of Victoria, but they spend a good part of the year paddling around exotic locales like Vietnam, the Galapagos Islands, Croatia and Antarctica, guiding other adventurous spirits as part of their boutique adventure travel company, Hidden Places.

If Goering and Coffey weren't busy enough with their guiding trips, the pair has also co-authored Visions of the Wild, about their kayak circumnavigation of Vancouver Island. The two also led successful careers as a photographer and writer, respectively.

Though they've had plenty of chances to explore exotic destinations, both are happy to call B.C. home.

"We're always pinching ourselves... it's just beautiful. We wouldn't want to based anywhere else in the world," said Coffey.

Over the span of her career, Coffey has authored 12 different books, ranging from children's stories to tales from her adventures and travels. But in the last two books, Where the Mountain Casts Its Shadow and her latest, Explorers of the Infinite: The Secret Spiritual Lives of Extreme Athletes, Coffey has actually collected other people's stories, rather than writing solely from her own experiences.

"It's the most heavily researched book I've ever written," she said.

During some downtime in B.C., Coffey and Goering will be coming to the Sea to Sky region to promote Coffey's latest book, along with images from their travels, and to share stories from their many adventures.

"We're away a lot, so it's nice to have a period to catch up," she said.

The pair led a trip to Croatia in September, and then Goering went to lead a trip in Vietnam, while Coffey went to lead two trips in the Galapagos Islands, before eventually meeting up with Goering again in Thailand. In between, she returned to Canada to take part in the Banff Mountain Book Festival and do an interview with Oprah for her Soul Series web cast.

That's right, the media mogul herself.

"She was just exactly as she is on the television," Coffey said.

Coffey's latest book has clearly been met with acclaim: On top of the Oprah interview, it was featured at the Banff Mountain Book Festival and most recently it won the American Alpine Club's Literary Award.

"It's a huge topic, looking at the link between extreme adventure and mystical and paranormal experience," she said with a laugh. "...I have this very, very big question - 'Is there a spiritual lure to adventure and where does that lead people?'"

Before getting your hopes up, Coffey cautions that her book doesn't provide a definitive answer to that question. Rather, she opted to present all different sides of the argument and let readers draw their own conclusions. On a personal level, she believes science can go a long way to explain the nature of the transcendent experience, but added there are many elements of her collected stories that can't be explained through science just yet.

In this book, Coffey spoke with extreme mountaineers, snowboarders, kayakers, surfers and other athletes, all of who were eager to share their spiritual - and sometimes paranormal - experiences.

"There's a whole array of experiences, because part of the book, I talk about the deep connection with nature and the wild world," Coffey explained.

Even within this province, there were athletes who had such experiences to share.

Coffey recalled a surfer and experienced ice climber named Clay Hunting who used to ice climb in the Rockies, and the eerie tale he told her during the research for his book.

"He was climbing in the Rockies with a friend - they were climbing a frozen waterfall - and the waterfall collapsed and his friend... fell with the waterfall. And when Clay reached him, he was in a really terrible state. One of his eyeballs had popped out, he had a hematoma, his ribs were all crushed, he had several broken bones," she trailed off.

Since this was before the days of cell phones, Hunting was forced to hike out alone overnight to get help for his friend, with just one headlamp to guide his way. Though he could have easily gotten lost in the pitch-black night, he maintains that he followed a faint, moving blue light, which eventually brought him to safety in time to get help for his friend.

"Then there are some really extreme stories of mountaineers who have had encounters with ghosts and spirits and have really felt that they've been guided down mountains by spirits of the mountain and spirits of dead people," she added.

Beyond the average adrenaline rush, Coffey was inspired to write the book while researching her last, Where the Mountain Casts Its Shadow.

"I interviewed some of the world's top mountaineers and I asked every one of them, 'What was it that compelled them to leave their families and the people that loved them, repeatedly, to go on these very dangerous expeditions?' And without fail, every one of them said something like, 'well, it makes me feel absolutely alive,' or 'I get this sense of profound peace I don't get anywhere else.'"

Surprisingly, Coffey had no trouble finding athletes who were willing to share their spiritual stories.

"When I started contacting people, I thought it would be really difficult to get them to talk, but people were particularly open to talking about the spiritual dimension of their sport. There wasn't one who said, 'no, I don't know what you're talking about.'"

In fact, many of the subjects actually expressed a sense of relief at finally having an opportunity to talk about these experiences.

"I argue in the book that people don't yet really have a language for this," Coffey said. "There is a language for institutionalized spirituality, but not so much for this kind of nature-based or adventure-based spirituality."

At the Whistler event, Coffey will briefly read from Explorers of the Infinite: The Secret Spiritual Lives of Extreme Athletes, while Goering will take the crowd on a photographic journey to all corners of the world with a special slideshow. The previous evening, on Monday, April 6, the pair will give a more in-depth presentation at the Squamish library, sharing tales from their travels over the years.