I’ve been going through something. 1,855 days. I’ve been going through something. Ok, maybe it hasn’t been that long and I’m certainly not measuring my struggles on the K-Dot scale of trouble, but nevertheless I’ve been going through something. Call it, ‘united in grief’.
Early last winter my wife and I reconfigured our marital status. We did it unconventionally, with the most amount of love and empathy that each of us could muster. We have evolved into a family of 4 who love each other very much but just don’t all sleep under the same roof each night. I have been learning to accept my current situation just like I have been learning to accept myself. That’s not what happened first though. At first when the decision was made something inside of me became unmoored. Whatever cord that had been tethered to me that allowed me to see the future let go and drifted into a place I was not in contact with. For the first time in as long as I can remember I couldn’t envision a clear future. I couldn’t hold a thought beyond what was right in front of me. I couldn’t follow a long conversation. I didn’t know for certain where I’d sleep, where I’d work, or what I should be doing tomorrow. I became short sighted and focused on only the narrowest of visions. It was (and continues to be) a very odd, almost out of body experience.
It wasn’t all bad though. In fact it was quite the opposite. At almost the exact same time in my life this chaos was going on I was offered a dream project, on a dream piece of land, near where I live. It was a special kind of magic. I got to shape a mountain. I basked in every moment on the job. I decided to take notes. All kinds of notes. It will be my winter project to try and write down some of the totality of the things I’ve seen and felt on that mountain. Even if I only get a fraction of it on paper it will still be worth the effort. Maybe this job didn’t change me as a person but it did allow me to get closer to the best version of myself. For that I owe an eternal debt of gratitude. It’s just wild that it all happened at the same time.
I would have to say the 45th year of my life has been by far the most interesting. Maybe there is something about that number that makes it polarizing. Everything that I touch seems to go to the extreme.
Almost one year ago to the day I was plotting out a temporary layout for Ski Wentworth with my homie. It was high times. We were in the dreaming stage. It looked this was a project for down the road as I had a pretty good idea on how my next few years were shaping up. I had planted some seeds that were starting to take root. I had a great coaching gig with kids I adored in a school I had coached at for 16 straight years. I had some goals in mind that I was hoping to achieve with them in our upcoming season. Different courses I had started, including several in Newfoundland, were all amazing and they were all working their way towards becoming better. All 4 Atlantic provinces had schools doing cool things, and I was keenly aware that there was a big bid coming up in Moncton. I had already begun the work of clearing my schedule to make a real run at it. This bid was my future. I could see how the next 5 years of my life were slated to go. Then some things started changing. Wentworth got back to me and said they wanted to move forward with their course right away. So I made a new plan. I built a crew who could help me when Moncton came along.
With all that in mind I started to do my homework. Build Wentworth, prepare for Moncton. Eventually the bid came out. I started to dig in. I walked the land. I made notes. I grew attached to the holes. I struggled with the digital components of the bid. I found ways to partner with companies who had the skills I lacked. I went over the bid again and again but I couldn’t pick up all of the language. I did my best. I couldn’t articulate the fullness of my abilities. There were errors in their requests. I didn’t know what I couldn’t understand and even though I was the only company who submitted for the first bid I lost on a technicality. The second bid came out with an altered timeline. It was actually a better fit for me. I tried again. I flew in a pro. It was Paige Peirce. We discussed, dismantled, and designated together. I walked the land every week after she left, quietly, without telling anyone just to get to know it. On the second bid I was the only one to bid again, but again I came up short. I wrote to the city council, and I plead my case. I told them the equation they were using did not account for love. They made a new bid that only asked for the design and not the build. I was wounded but I bid again. This time there were others who bid too.
All the while this bidding process was happening I was still working. First at the Wentworth course, then periodically at a new course in Memramcook, and finally at the job I find myself on today at a new course in Gander, Newfoundland. It’s an odd thing to bid on something for the future. You have to project an image of yourself and your skill sets at the time. What’s truly odd about it is that you can lose perspective on the present. The two courses that I had created this summer were some of my best work. They were starting to reflect a deeper learning that I had amassed about my job and about the forest that I work in. I began to realize just how lucky I was. I had a dream job. It dawned on me sometimes this summer when, for a variety of reasons I would have to leave work early, that it always put me in a bad mood. I could spend 12 or more hours straight at work without any thought of leaving. I loved being there. I loved problem solving, tree cutting, and building things with my bare hands. I have a dream job. One that brings me peace, joy, meaning, and a deep fulfillment that rivals only seeing my kids happy. When I was very young I heard the saying, ‘if you love what you do you never have to work a day in your life’. I don’t think I fully believe that but the underlying message resonated with me. Find meaning and joy in your life and you will be happy. So I did. I created a dream job. It took 7 years of proposals before someone paid me to do it. That first contract I made about $75 profit. When Covid happened my services became more in demand but I didn’t fully have the skill set to understand how to build large scale and stay profitable. But I learned. Eventually after some wins and a lot of losses I found my stride. The 3 courses I created this year are the essence of everything I have learned. They are a reflection of years of quiet time spent in the forest watching water and learning about slow growth. They also summarize 22+ years of disc golf play and thousands of questions I have asked every novice, amateur, and professional player who would exchange ideas with me. I am not a master of anything but I have got to a place where I am just starting to understand how much there is to know. All of that led me to Gander.
As you can imagine it was hard to take myself away from Wentworth. A life-changing, dream project shaping a mountain in my backyard. I had helped shape the idea of a permanent course going in Gander a few years ago and the group there finally fundraised enough money to make their course a reality. They were ready to have me come and work my magic if I could. I had to delay the project a few times. Some for personal reasons, some professional. Eventually I got on the boat and made my way over pulling a trailer full of 40 baskets, 18 tee pads, and as many tools as I could jam in there. I rented an air b&b, which is a luxury I don’t often afford myself as I am quite happy sleeping in the back of the cube van or some basic equivalent. As with all of my projects I didn’t really know what to expect. I am always so nervous when I come to a new place because I know how important a disc golf course can be to the community of people who will use it. I never want to fuck that up. I will come to a place and then leave, but the locals stay here all year round. They see my work when I am gone, the trees I took and the ones I left, and if I am not careful and don’t honor the place I risk ruining some place they love deeply. This is always on my mind when I am designing. It’s not just, ‘is this hole cool?’ I also consider how deeply I am conveying the spirit of the place.
If you have never been to Gander let me try to explain it to you. It is a town directly off the Trans Canada highway. It was built during the second world war, and as legend has it the first few streets they constructed were in the shape of a goose (not a joke). It is north of St John’s by about 3 hours in an unsuspecting part of the province. If you only drive by on your way around the circle you can be forgiven for not thinking much about Gander. I’ve been past here many times for well over a decade and barely given it a second thought. All you see of the surface is a half dozen hotels, a few gas stations, and a couple of fast food joints. There is even a lake that is hidden in plain sight, undeveloped, that seems to suggest there is nothing here to look at and you’re quite alright to just keep rolling by. That is what's funny about only looking at the surface. Sometimes it masks the deeper truth of what is really there.
Now you might know a thing or two about Gander. It has a large military presence, it has an international airport with a large landing strip, so large in fact that planes were able to land here during 9-11. Those plans landing here and the subsequent response of the locals birthed the now famous play, ‘Come from Away’. It is the very true story of how a community opened its doors in a time of need to total strangers. It is both unremarkable for how common kindness can be here, but extremely worth telling for how human this story really is. Gander has been welcoming people here as a safe refuge for decades and when they got their opportunity to extend that kindness on a world stage they did not disappoint. Those people still live here. That kindness is the underlying fabric that holds this place together. So I shouldn’t have been surprised at what I found here. If kindness was a town it would be Gander.
What is truly remarkable about this place, and this project, and this particular time is just how perfectly it all fit together. This was the third attempt at building a course in Gander. The other two couldn’t quite materialize. This one did. A small group of dedicated people rallied together and made a plan. In roughly 12 months time they fundraised over $60,000 in money and in-kind services. They had a president who was kind and organized. She guided the ship. They had a board member who was gifted in community building and he put the pieces together. They had a few people who loved trees, and mushrooms, and could tell you the perfect time of year to take time off to fully appreciate the forest. They are a small but mighty group who do the work with their full heart, and just like the town they live in they are a surprising bunch who make you want to come back for more.
This is my 60’th course design and build. That is a wild number for me to think about. Gogans Greens opened very early in 2008, Sackville in 2015 and now Gander in 2025. What a long, strange trip it’s been. If you told me every single thing I had learned in my life brought me to this job I would have to say I believe you. Without a doubt this has been the pinnacle of my working career. To be clear it is not that Gander now possesses the world's best disc golf course. It’s not that at all it's just that for a 2 week span, myself and the people around me created something that worked perfectly. This has been the single most efficient job I have ever experienced, and it’s not even close. The Gander disc golf course is located at the Gander Cross Country Ski Club. It is a network of coloured trails that spans a few kilometers. It is well kept, subtle, and beautiful. There is parking, a chalet, and enough interesting trees and features to give this project a solid and respectable starting point. On the day that I arrived I did a quick one hour walk before daylight set in. On the second day I made it my mission to walk every single trail they had. It snowed as soon as I got out of the truck and all I could do was laugh. I walked over 20km that day. It is the greatest kind of working day I could ever dream of. I got mesmerized by an old growth birch forest that kept drawing me further and further from the trial network. I was sucked into a silent forest with a moss covered floor. I made a plan to bring back up shoes every day afterwards to keep my feet happy. I made a map, and then another, and then another. I went back to my place and I dreamed about all the ways I could connect them. In the morning I went back before daylight. I walked the trails again. I focused on connecting the magic places I had discovered. I thought about each player and their journey. I sought out views of the lake. I silently protected the guardian trees. By the third day I met with the president of the ski club to show them my layout. We talked about guidelines and the principals that I wish to follow. He found mushrooms and we discussed their origins. We were all on the same team, pulling in the same direction. We left that day in agreement.
On day 4 my first machine showed up. It was a small mulcher. We had access to the machines but no drivers, so I got behind the controls and mulched for almost 14 hours. I asked the president of the ski club if he knew a local operator. He had someone in mind. The man who runs their groomer. On day 5 I taught him how to mulch and what I wanted to create in a disc golf course. We got along famously. For the next 4 days he would mulch from 7-5 and I would mulch from 5 - until I was too hungry. I worked into the night as blissfully as the first moments I arrived there in the morning. This project did not seem to tire me. During the day I started to create walking trails through the woods without cutting trees. I found cool rocks and set them aside for later. I started to get to know the club members. I taught them about how to care for your chainsaw, how to limb properly, where to put brush, and all the ways that I knew how to work smarter rather than harder. We found 2 incredible holes off of the beaten path in a birch forest that needed to be shaped by hand. It was heavenly. On day 9 the mulcher left and the skid steer showed up so I got in and started making tee pads. By the second day with the machine I had 20 spaces flattened out and ready. My driver showed up and I taught him his second new machine. We were rolling.
At some point in the trip my life turned into groundhog day. Every morning I would climb up the stairs from my basement apartment before day break and would be greeted by a hazy yellow street light. Light would glisten on the freshly fallen rain that covered the truck and the ground. I would go to the gas station and fill up the jugs of diesel we had burned the day before. I would arrive at the site just as the sun was filling the sky, talk with my coworker and begin the day. I would work until after dark, climb back in the truck, get something to eat and then descend back down those stairs where I fell into bed. It was a blissful rhythm. One morning before work started I got an email from the school I coached at. They had decided to not have me back as a basketball coach. It was a devastating blow to me.
I’ve been coaching on and off for almost 30 years. I started when I was 15 after some encouragement from a high school teacher. I have coached baseball for 16 years continuously and girls basketball for 7 years now. I picked up basketball when my daughter was in elementary school. They had enough girls for a team but no coach. I said ‘why not?’ and I started a side quest of teaching basketball skills to young women. I like basketball, but I love coaching. The girls and I evolved together. After a few seasons I started to really enjoy it more than I would have ever dreamed. I loved being in the gym, I loved watching game sessions on film, but I cherished the practices. For the vast majority of the time our practices were well paced, smooth running, and fun. Most nights I think we all learned things. The coaches and the kids grew together. I ended up liking it so much that when my daughter aged out of my program I stayed with the high school jr girls team without her. Our first game of that season we lost by close to 40 points. We couldn’t score. We looked lost on defense. Six minutes into the game I thought to myself, ‘what the hell am I doing here?’ On our second last game of the season we beat that same team we played on opening night by 17. The score didn’t matter but it was indicative of how much that particular group of girls had learned. Without a doubt the entire season together was the most fun I have ever had as a coach. We lost in the semifinals without 2 of our key girls who were sick, or away. The second the season finished I already started to dream about getting that same group of kids for one more year. I thought about that team at least once a week every week since then. Then, for reasons that I partially understand and for reasons that I absolutely do not understand, I got the email saying they had given that job to someone else. I was devastated but over the course of a few days I accepted it. I thought, ‘what is this trying to teach me’, ‘what can I learn from this’, but I won’t lie it was on my mind a lot.
A few mornings later I got another notification before work. So I opened up my email to find the Moncton bid was ready to be awarded…
Before I go any further I want to tell you that what happened to me on this particular morning was one of the most genuine and truthful experiences of my life. It helped shift my way of thinking from one perspective to something completely different. It was profound and deeply personal. Not long after it happened I felt compelled to write about it and that thought came with a lot of trepidation. If I shared this very personal experience would it make it less authentic? Was I gaslighting myself? Was I doing something good in this world just so I could tell people about it? I have wrestled with these questions for a few days now and I have ultimately decided that what happened to me was real and it fundamentally changed how I interacted with the world. It was also so simple and silly that I feel like talking about it might actually help someone else transition from one place to another as completely as I have. So I have decided to share it with you, just to remind you that if you are going through something there is hope that it might not last forever.
I opened my email to find that I had lost the Moncton bid. I was devastated. I went completely silent inside. I felt so defeated. I had lost the bid fair and square. I was inadequate. I sent two quick emails to people who had helped me with parts of the bid and told them I lost. I exchanged a few early morning words telling me not to give up or offering condolences. Just as quickly as I had opened it I shut my computer again and started another of my groundhog days. But this morning was not the same. I filled the diesel jugs in a zombie state. Luckily I was solo for work that day so I didn’t have to make any small talk. I spent the first couple of hours wallowing in self pity. “What is wrong with me? Why am I not good enough? What don’t they see? What the hell am I doing with my life that I am failing so miserably?" Some versions of these questions just keep rolling through my mind over and over in an endless loop. Then it got worse. My marriage, my coaching pursuits, a work project I had started to build my identity on, all of the things that one year ago I had known for certain on the top of that mountain were all gone and I couldn’t see the future. These were unsolvable problems. At that very moment my thoughts slipped back into a vision about my host family and their one year old baby. I heard her cry in my mind and it reminded me of my son when he was that age. I thought about his cries and how I wished I could just go back and tell myself, ‘just go hold that baby. This is the most solvable problem you will ever face. All you need to do is just hold that baby for as long as it takes.’ That was the thought that broke me. It was as if whatever final string that was holding the fabric of my life together just let go and every emotion that I had been holding inside of me came out. I cried deeper and more intensely than I had in decades. I cried thoroughly until I didn’t want to cry any more. When my tears finally ceased I found myself staring at a moss covered forest floor as I prepared myself to dig beneath for gravel. It was a thick moss full of vibrant greens and reds. It was so perfect I couldn’t bear the thought of destroying it. So I shut off my machine and did the most rebellious act I could think of in the moment. I got out, got down on my hands and knees and I saved the moss.
At least I should say, I tried to save the moss. I’m not a botanist and I don’t know for certain the life cycles of Newfoundland moss and its adequate transplant sites. But I have spent a significant amount of quiet time in the forest and I am certain that moss has a soul so I did what I could to honour that. And piece by piece I dug up that moss and moved it to a place where it might be able to thrive. I am under no illusions that this made any difference to anything in the world other than me and that piece of moss. As quickly as the act started it finished and I climbed back in the machine and got on with my day.
A few minutes later the most profound shift of possibly my entire adult life occurred to me. It was as if a piece of the puzzle slid itself into place and the entire picture came into view. I had clarity for the first time in a long time. Call it an epiphany. Once I had it the next 3 days of my life were the most pleasurable and deeply satisfying work days any person could ever hope to experience. There were no more self-doubt loops, no more wallowing. It was so simple all I could do was laugh. Here is what I thought: I realized right now, at this point in my life I am not the type of designer who can win a city bid like this, but I am the type of designer who will save a piece of moss when no one is looking. And quite frankly I am ok with that. I don’t look good on paper, but that is never where I have done my best work.
From that point on I existed in a blissful state of self acceptance. I realized my worth. I stepped back and looked at what I was doing here and what I have done in the past. If you want someone who will wow you with a presentation, website and digital charm I am currently not your guy. But if you want someone who will honour the spirit of your land, who will show you cool rocks, and capture the essence of the sacred places we play on, you know where to find me.
In the span of 15 days I traveled to a new place, designed, refined, and built a 21 hole disc golf course with 39 tee pads, mulched shoulders, and fair fairways. I taught someone how to run a chainsaw, I taught someone how to limb trees, and another person how to drive a skid steer and a mulcher. I cultivated an idea into a reality and I empowered a community to work together to become stronger as a whole than as individuals. I helped capture some beautiful magic and shared it with the exact type of people who appreciated it. If people can’t see my worth that says as much about them as it does about me.
A few days later phase 1 of the project concluded. I packed my things, and after a very eventful final 12 hours, I started to make my way back home. Before I left Newfoundland I made one more stop to see a few good friends and to check in on a course I had created a few years before; Whaleback. Whaleback was another dream project that I helped bring into being two years prior. It is also on a cross country ski trail. It was also a dream. But now, after a few years the club and the town members had rallied together to take my dream and make it real. We walked the holes so I could see the progress myself and around each corner I was greeted with a landscape that exceeded every expectation I had ever had. My vision was now a reality. Just like in Corner Brook where the local club has done so much to make our course there shine, I have received very few gifts in my life that will ever exceed how I felt in this moment. It was as if whatever cosmic joke that makes this whole thing worth living was elbowing me ever so slightly saying ‘don’t give up, this is what the dream looks like’. So I won’t give up. I will honour my gift for as long as I can because I owe it to all of those people who have ever believed in me.
That night before I got on the boat I broke bread with some of my favorite people in the world. We talked about very meaningful things and I shed a few more tears but this time they fell for entirely different reasons. For the first time in what feels like a very long time I feel as if I am being seen. Not just by others but by my own eyes. I like me and I am proud of what I am doing. I have a dream job, one that brings me joy and meaning. I owe it to myself to pursue this with everything I’ve got. I’m sorry if I haven’t been myself this year, and I know I have forced a lot of people to pick up the slack for me on things I just couldn’t see. I realize that when the Moncton course becomes a reality it will be the hardest course in the world I will ever play. It will be a constant reminder of failures and shortcomings. It will be one of the legacy projects that represent my unsolvable problems. However, it will also be a constant reminder of how lucky I am. I have 60 other courses that almost all want me back. I have hidden secrets in each of these that I will share with anyone who takes the time to find them. If I am lucky enough to see my vision through, all the way through with Wentworth, then I am certain that I have some more gifts to share with the world. I apologize if this writing comes off as narcissistic. I feel as if I had to tell someone what I have been going through so I didn’t hold it in any longer. Now that the words are on the page they don’t have to burden me any more. I have done my best. I will continue to do so. Even though I don’t look good on paper that does not mean I have failed. We are all going through something and if I have learned anything it is just to be kind. First to yourself and then to others. Do your work, then step back. The only path to serenity.
