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'Crazy Norway'
By Emily Stack
Collegian Reporter
Smoking his fourth cigarette in a well-worn
brown cardigan with a white yoke, Arild Overvik's return to
the campus snack bar seemed long in coming.
Instead of returning to school this semester,
former Hillsdale student Arild Overvik dropped out and traveled
through the Baja Peninsula in Mexico. The trip was not only
a vacation spent admiring cave paintings, gray whales and cacti.
It was also a journey to self-certainty and a man wrestling
with himself.
"The root of my problems is because I've
always been searching for myself," Overvik said. "It's
essential for me to find out before I can know what to do."
The opportunity to travel presented itself
in a strange encounter. During Christmas break this year, Overvik
was looking for used books when he met John and Janine Alward,
local antiques dealers. After learning of his Norwegian nationality,
Alward invited Overvik into her shop to translate the runes
inscription on a powderhorn. Though Overvik could not translate
the Scottish runes, a friendship began between him and the Alward
family.
He worked for them, clearing the undergrowth
in their woods in exchange for a sailboat.
For the rest of the holiday, Overvik spent
his time at the Alwards'. At the beginning of January, the family
began their annual migration down to their winter residence
in San Felipe. Though he had planned on returning to school,
at the last minute Overvik decided his journey lay elsewhere.
"I knew I had to go to a completely different
place on earth, somewhere neutral from the Hillsdale experience,"
Overvik said. "All of my pressures are relieved from traveling."
Traveling through Chicago and San Diego, Overvik
finally arrived in San Felipe on the northeast coast of Baja,
a peninsula branching off Southern California.
Here, surrounded by desert canyons and mountains,
Overvik collected fossil shells from sediment layers left in
the mountains. He tried to climb "Diablo," a 10,000
foot mountain, but it was too early in the season, and blizzards
were still possible. He learned "jumping cactus" can
sting through jeans. He went hunting for big-horned sheep in
the mountains and collected butter and chocolate clams along
the shore. Overvik finished building a granite rock wall for
the Alwards.
But Overvik was not ready to settle in one
place too soon. Roving around small Mexican towns was the one
constant in Overvik's Mexican excursion.
With a casserole dish, a sleeping bag and
eating utensils in his backpack, Overvik hitchhiked into less-frequented
parts of the Baja Peninsula.
"I had no plans of where I was going
or where I'd end up," Overvik said. "I just wanted
to be by myself for a bit."
After three days of hitchhiking, Overvik came
to "Coco's Corners," a mountain pass in the middle
of the desert. An old man lived there in a mobile home with
his cat, enjoying the solitude. The old man, who claimed to
have once died and came back to life, painted pictures of the
people who passed through.
The old man had strung beer cans all around
the property. Why?
"Oh, it's art," Overvik explained.
"He's an artist."
Overvik traveled on to Guerrero Negro. This
West Coast village is known not only for exporting salt to Japan
but also for its bay which shelters the greatest number of gray
whales in the Pacific Ocean.
On the beach, Overvik slept next to surfers
and gray whales. During the night, the whales came to the water
line, scrubbing themselves on the sandy shore, sheltered from
the stronger waves.
The next day, Overvik put out to sea, navigating
around the hundreds of surfacing whales in the bay, one rolling
alongside his boat.
"It's amazing to see the big, black eye
sizing you up," he said.
He spent two more days in Guerrero Negro,
patiently trying to catch a wave, but mostly watching the gray
backs surface and then plunge.
The next days he spent inland in San Ignacio.
There he admired the tropical paradise, its elephant trees,
cacti and date palms, imported by Jesuit missionaries.
He deliberately visited a prehistoric museum
for its cave paintings. The red and black forms reminded him
of the duality of man and his connection to the other world,
he said.
In Mulegé he met a group of travelers
from America, Canada and England. While driving together to
La Paltz, their car broke down in the high desert land, as luck
would have it, near a mechanic's shop. Waiting for repairs,
Overvik wandered into a canyon and in the layers of clay, found
six fossilized shark's teeth. He took these for making necklaces
to sell or trade.
On the road again, the group arrived at the
Bay of Conception. While walking the shore, Overvik came across
a dead dolphin's carcass. He ripped out the teeth from its head
to use on the necklaces.
"By taking his teeth, I made him alive
again. I take him with me," Overvik said.
His companions were horrified. Added to the
stress of their car breaking down, Overvik said his companions
changed, so he left them.
"They became very Mexico-ed out. They
were very scared of everyone, especially the American girls,"
Overvik said. "There was no trust there, and they were
afraid of leaving their comfort zone."
Setting off on his own again, he traveled southwest to the Pacific
coast. In Todos Santos, with the help of an Italian named Carlos,
Overvik sold the necklaces he made. There, he celebrated his
birthday on Feb. 24 drunk, with $150 and two girls from San
Francisco.
Soon, however, Overvik came down with a fever,
and his inner demons finally surfaced.
"Being ill without money or anywhere
to go, or any people around for you, the solution became recognizing
the problem and what had driven me to this point," Overvik
said.
Overvik's path took a tangible prerogative
when his travels came to an end. After his recovery, he went
to Cabos San Lucas, also known as "Land's End."
He had to decide which path to take home to
Norway. Going West through Asia was "a seemingly straight
path that led nowhere," he said.
But going east was symbolic, as though Overvik
were returning to confront his past. This eastern journey would
require Overvik to become honest with himself, as he described
it, confronting his real identity.
"I had to take responsibility for myself,
to see what I had become, I had to see what I had done,"
Overvik said.
Ultimately, Overvik decided to go east to
confront himself, his certainty and his past. He has decided
to confront his parents and begin anew.
"The root of my problems is because
I've always been searching for myself," he said. "But
the path of self-perception leads to honesty."
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