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From Only Human , 7:01 am on 30 July 2020

If you were asked to ditch your cell phone, social media, the latest news and even contact with friends and family for the adventure of a lifetime, would you do it?

 

Lucie Levesque is an avid adventurer

Lucie Levesque is an avid adventurer Photo: Supplied

 

Avid-adventurer Lucie Levesque launches into a life changing experience in this episode of Only Human -  a podcast about the human experience in its raw, and sometimes unexpected form.  

 

 

Today, the idea of going 'off grid' and taking a breather from the multidimensional online ‘connected’ world that we live in seems like a distant and unattainable dream. But for Lucie Levesque, being stuck in an isolated no-man’s land offered the chance to learn more about herself and bring her closer to nature.

 

Map of Spatsizi

Map of Spatsizi Photo: Lucie Levesque

 

Often described as the life of the party, Levesque jumped at the chance to do a three month stint living and working out of a remote lodge in the Spatsizi Plateau in north-central British Columbia.

 

The plateau is so isolated that goods can only be brought in via float plane and there is no running water or electricity. The only sign of civilization is an 8-day trek by horseback on a dirt road.

 

 

Blogs and travel articles describe the Spatsizi terrain as a kind of brutal face-off with nature - a place that tests the limits of the human capacity to survive.

 

With very minimal human interaction is wasn't long before Lucie began losing her ability to speak, followed swiftly by a sequence of challenging and life-threatening events that nothing could ever prepare her for.

 

“One day I was by myself with the horses and there was a grizzly bear rubbing his back near my little cabin," says Levesque who simply froze on the spot.

 

What happened next is almost beyond belief…

 

Find out more in this episode of RNZ podcast, Only Human where Lucie Levesque shares her extraordinary story of battling against the odds and why she'll forever appreciate the simple things in life.

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