100 Days of Summer: Above and Beyond Canada
Benjamin Jordan set up the Above and Beyond project to inspire school children in his native Canada. His mission: to fly west to east across Canada dropping in to schools and summer camps to inspire, educate and raise money for under-privileged children. Along the way he flew above storm clouds, crossed the Rockies, the Georgia Straight and over 10,000 km. This is his incredible story:
“Fly, fly, fly” the children chanted as I ran in the newly rebuilt engine, my heart beating so hard I thought it might explode. With an uncomfortably long run through the turbulent, tree-lined school yard, narrowly escaping a gap separating hydro lines from the gymnasium, never before had I felt so alive. Looking down as the children gathered into their formation, I whipped out my camera and began snapping away, the images better than I could have dreamt. Like a proud parent of some outrageous idea which had just come to life, I flew south along the shore-line, the Pacific sea-breeze in my face, leaving me soaring before an endless horizon of possibility. Then, a turn due west squeezed that horizon between mountain ranges and tight valley floors, a sharp reminder of the first of the great challenges which lay ahead: Crossing Canada’s Rocky Mountains.
Above and Beyond project dropped into summer camps to inspire the children
Above and Beyond project dropped into summer camps to inspire the children
IN THE BEGINNING
One grey Toronto morning I met a friend for coffee before going about my, once dream, but then routine job of being a commercial photographer. Telling him how I longed for more but couldn’t understand what, he told me “True love hides underneath that which we fear the most”. That night I caught a glimpse of a paraglider on television and scared myself with the thought of dangling high above the Earth by an arrangement of strings and fabric. His words still on my mind, I gave fear a chance by Googling ‘paragliding schools’ and calling to ask “Can an average city guy really do this?”
“Sure, what kind of flying do you want to do?” she asked in her cheery, New Zealand accent. Playing along, I responded with the scariest, most unrealistic thing I could have imagined; “I want to fly across Canada!” I said, expecting her to laugh.
“Sweet as! We have courses beginning in three weeks!”
I took that course five years ago and haven’t had a grey morning since. Free flight opened my eyes to world travel, and my heart to true love. I moved to the beautiful mountain community of Nelson, BC and met my partner Keren, a woman who believed in me so much it became impossible to avoid going for my dreams, even ones like flying a powered glider across Canada. Together we dreamt of surprising children by landing at their summer camps and encouraging them to tackle their fears while manifesting their own dreams. The plan blossomed into including schools in the spring and arranging the kids into formations I could photograph aerially, then sell as a book to send kids from low-income families to camp.
GETTING OFF THE GROUND
Ben Jordan and companion on their traverse across Canada for the Above and Beyond Project
Sponsorship came through after eight maddening months of phone calls, and in those five short weeks remaining, I convinced Keren to quit her job, bought an old school bus, built an awesome website and called out to my mountain community for support. I was floored as everyone I had ever shared my dream with came out in full steam, painting our bus with beautiful, bright colours, renovating the inside or donating the tools and materials needed to make it all happen. Overwhelmed, Keren had sent an SOS to our friend Jess, a tough and intelligent girl with an eye for photography. Having just wrapped up her third volunteer season of rebuilding houses for hurricane victims down in New Orleans, she was hungry for adventure, and totally stoked on our cause. My heart again full of love, we picked her up in Vancouver and continued barreling through the mountains, heading west to the small surf town of Tofino, BC, where it would all begin.
The Above and Beyond Project's bus: home for 100 days
Having spent the first two days of our journey crossing Vancouver Island, I began the third by describing the principles of flight to Nanaimo high school, adding that I was, “going to fly 40 km over the ocean and land on the mainland somewhere east of Metro Vancouver”. “Are you scared?” a young girl asked.
Pausing to think of something wise, I exclaimed “Hell yeah!”
Instantly I remembered how all of this started; this was the scariest most unrealistic thing I could come up with, and of the entire route, this particular stretch I feared the most. Somehow the twinkle of hundreds of children’s inspired eyes summoned the courage it took to put on that wetsuit, clip in, and begin my ascent.
As I pointed my leading edge north over the Georgia Straight it felt as though some sort of transformation was occurring within me. Upon landing three hours later, I couldn’t recall the slightest detail of what had happened, only now the feelings of fear were gone, and in their place an abundance of love for my ground crew, my country, my sponsors and myself.
Above and Beyond project - children create bike formation
