UK Edition
I thought depression was going to take my life – but six weeks in the Canadian wilderness saved me
Suffering from depression and suicidal thoughts, chef and former Great British Bake Off winner John Whaite enrolled to volunteer on a far-flung working farm. His hope? That he could learn how to feel again
Even the plastic plant, forgotten in the corner of the room, had wilted. A paint-splattered radio blasted out the current hits of urban yodelling. Posters, blue-tacked to the walls, told me "today is a gift, that’s why it’s called the present". Eight weeks before I had told my doctor I wanted to kill myself and finally I was plonked in this waiting room plastered with pixelated platitudes. The strain on the NHS was palpable. Even more so when the nurse conducted the meeting in the waiting room, rushed through her checklist, and then sent me on my way.
In my family, depression is spoken of in hushed tones. As farmers we have always ploughed through our feelings. But these feelings were going to end my life and they arose with such worrying mundanity: make the bed, wash the dishes, hang yourself in the loft. I told my mum and she cried. "The world needs you", she said. Her words made me want to fight, to rediscover the exuberance of life. But I was running on empty.
Whenever I’m going through a serious bout of darkness, I cocoon myself indoors, slip under the duvet and watch Christmas films. Something about the bleakness of winter soothes me. But this time around films weren’t enough; I had to escape my reality and get lost in the wilderness. I’d heard of the WWOOF programme from friends. 'Worldwide opportunities on organic farms’ is a system where farmers from all over the globe seek volunteers. In return for the work the helpers receive bed and board. I impulsively signed up, found a farm in Canada and applied. Within days I was on a plane to Vancouver.
My partner of 10 years was a godsend. As I sat with him and told him what I needed to do, it was as though he had seen it coming. "You just need to feel, don’t you?" he asked. That was exactly it – I hadn’t ‘felt’ for so long. Nothing moved me anymore, so I’d drink myself into a stupor at a given opportunity, just to feel alive.
From Vancouver I took a bus over the treacherous Coquihalla Highway to Kamloops, an industrial town carved into the desert. Dan the farmer met me and drove me another hour to Barriere, a strip of a town in British Columbia, famous for its Fall Fair Rodeo and a 2003 wildfire.
As we hurtled along, the burnt, blackened skeletons of trees poked through the snow like an L. S. Lowry piece. It would have been the perfect setting for a sensationalist headline: Former Bake-Off Winner Slaughtered in Canada. But Dan was a gentleman.
He was 75 but looked much younger, his eyes as blue as the frozen lakes which dotted this otherworldly landscape. You could tell he had a healthy life.
Above the hum of the engine and passing trucks, he told me about life on the farm. Chores would be from seven in the morning until 11am when we would break for coffee, then we’d continue until lunch at 1pm. Every ‘Wwoofer’ was expected to make at least one meal during their stay and to fully integrate into the family: evening films, games of crib, housework and conversation were compulsory.
We arrived at the farm, which over the course of ten years Dan and his wife Angela had carved into the sloping landscape of a 100-acre forest. Deep in snow, it was a glittering postcard scene. The air was filled with the smell of woodfire from the huge outdoor stove, with could heat the entire house and garage using just a few logs a day. Bleak it was not.
When Angela, a part-time nurse and full-time farmer, arrived home from work, we sat down to eat. Over dinner she and Dan explained that they were pretty much self-sufficient on the farm. All of the meat and vegetables consumed were home reared and grown. I would come to learn over the next six weeks that nothing was wasted. Daily soups were repurposed: sometimes into more soup, other times mixed into the bread dough.
Angela made bread almost every other day. The house was constantly filled with its homely scent. Anyone who has made their own loaf will know the intense gratitude they feel as they slather a warm slice with salty butter. Its basic majesty laughs in the face of even the world’s greatest riches.
Eggs, too, became precious orbs. At my cookery school I would thoughtlessly shatter thousands of shells a year, as though I were entitled to the eggs. But when you have to calm a violently pecking hen before you slip your hand beneath her warm broody body to steal her eggs, you learn to say thank you.
Caring for animals is immensely grounding. Who you are and what you may have means nothing to them. The only way to their hearts is through responsibility, routine and love. Every morning Cain, the practically spherical cat, would leap onto my shoulder and rub against my beard with sincere adoration. And the little black calf, Kash, would lick my face as I hammered away the two inches of ice from her water trough. It felt like the first meaningful exchange I'd had in a long time.
Affection from the animals was something I earned over my weeks on the farm, and I grew to love them with equal measure. Love isn’t brash or boastful. Love is carrying buckets of water up icy slopes. Love is scraping s*** from infected hooves. Love is adhering to a routine and refusing to waiver.
As a depressive, routine is sand slipping through my fingers. Being self-employed doesn’t help. But on the farm routine is survival. Day in, day out, we sang the same song, yet not once did I find myself bored. And this wasn’t a new experience – I grew up on a farm – but being forced by parents to wake at 5:30am to feed the calves was different. That was an obligation, thrust upon me as an unruly and disrespectful teenager. Here, in this deep wilderness, my perspective shifted, and no longer did I see my role as an obligation, but rather as a duty.
I learned, too, that it is my everlasting duty to care for myself with equal discipline. Sometimes that requires a shock to the system. As a child my life was shrouded by fear. Every night I would crawl into the alcove outside my sisters’ bedrooms and sleep on the floor, just to feel as though I wasn’t alone.
My therapist once told me to nurture that little boy lying on the cold floor. I wanted to tell her to cut the crap, to stop inciting narcissism. But here on these mountains, as I looked east to the ruins I’d left behind, and as I forced myself to trek alone around a frozen lake as distant melodies of howling wolves and coyotes reminded me of my mortality, my precious life, I learned that caring for myself is not narcissism, it is necessary. It is survival.
I’m not a religious man, but Angela and Dan are angels walking the earth. Their responsibility, routine and love saved my life.
John’s books include the BBC Radio 4 Food Programme’s Book of the Year Comfort: Food to soothe the soul (Kyle Books) and the forthcoming A Flash in the Pan: simple speedy stovetop recipes (Kyle Books, August 2019)