On the Ground

I’m walking through the forest, following paths made by homeless people who inhabit this strip of woods on the outskirts of town.

Their camps are scattered throughout.

Some are abandoned; others still occupied. All of them have the usual trappings - ripped up tarps, old sleeping bags with tufts of insulation falling out like spilled guts from roadkill.

Pots and pans are strewn all over, along with ripped garbage bags scavenged by various animals, as well as the usual bottles, cans, broken glass, rusting shopping carts and, of course, the ubiquitous used syringes and other discarded harm reduction gear.

By no means is this “leave no trace” camping.

The people that live in this patch of woods do not have expensive outdoor gear. What they do have has been donated by various individuals, outfitter stores, or charity organizations. Other items are pieced together from whatever was available at the time like sleeping platforms made from repurposed wooden pallets.

These people are resourceful, getting by with few material possessions. They exist in isolation from the greater society (though they are visible on the local streets). Most suffer from unresolved trauma and the subsequent mental health challenges it brings, as well as severe addiction to substances like fentanyl and meth.

Like most days, I am out here alone as I work.

Today I am searching for a client who recently dropped off the radar. This isn’t uncommon. Many of the people I serve simply disappear without goodbye. What happens to them is anyone’s best guess and usually, it’s reasonable to assume the worst.

This is reality for the population I serve.

The man I am searching for is wired to fentanyl and has had numerous overdoses. He is lucky in that his life has always been saved by someone nearby with Naloxone.

It’s unsettling to be here, searching the woods for a person who could be dead. I am not sure what I will find; what state he will be in and, if that terrible discovery is made, how it may impact me and my life.

As I maneuver around boulders and in between third growth Doug Fir and Cedar, occasionally slipping on patches of ice, I find myself stopped and starring at a particular item in an abandoned pile of camping supplies. It is a stuffed teddy bear with neon, psychedelic coloured fur, face down in the leaf litter. A few meters away a pair of black and pink running shoes.

I knew the person these items belonged to.

For the purposes of confidentiality, I will call her Sam. I can still see Sam’s face, weathered beyond her short life, yet radiating a certain playful innocence despite the hardship and internal torture she struggled with.

We had a good rapport and a great deal of trust. I miss how she used to come into my office and talk to me about the various animal encounters she had while living in the woods. We often talked about things that weren’t related to poverty and addiction like music (David Bowie especially!) and poignant symbols in dreams.

Sam passed away just a kilometre or so from this very place. I’m not going to say much about her death except that it occurred in late Fall and her body wasn’t discovered until the following Spring. I was also involved in the search for her but, unfortunately, we were looking in the wrong place.

As I have mentioned in previous essays and podcasts, we are in the midst of an overdose catastrophe. Here in British Columbia, 211 people died from overdose during January, 2023. That translates to about 7 per day. On the more personal scale, six close clients of mine had fatal ODs since I returned to work from a stress leave back in November

Death underscores every aspect of this outreach work. I don’t always know what to do with it. At times I’m angry about it; other times I dissociate; and then sometimes, like today, I just stand at an abandoned camp site, starring at a teddy bear on the ground, thinking about the importance of ephemeral moments of connection, and how life can just suddenly change irreversibly without explanation.

Image and Design : Stephanie Kellett