Canadian explorer, writer and photographer Jeff Fuchs has been exploring and documenting ancient Himalayan trade routes for nearly 10 years. While delving into the unknown and negotiating one of the world’s most treacherous areas, Fuchs has become enamoured with the narrative cultures of its indigenous people.
There’s something we call the ‘thousand-yard stare’ after an expedition – you have this glazed look of disinterest when you arrive back into civilisation
Fuchs has gone from embarking on expeditions along tea, salt and wool trade routes to leading his own tours, writing a book, lecturing students and co-founding his own tea company, Jalam Teas. He spoke to Business Destinations about what fascinates him about the region, and what lies in store for one of the world’s greatest Himalayan adventurers.
Your most recent adventure was a 36-day expedition along the Route of Wind and Wool. What inspired you to undertake the journey?
The whole basis of the journey was to get into the oral narratives and trace the source of what’s been the best pashmina wool for centuries. The journey was a bit of an exploration, in that we often didn’t know if we were on the right track. Every few days we’d meet with elders – the last remaining ancients – and they’d either corroborate that we were on the right route or tell us we were on a different strand.
One of the aspects of all of these Himalayan trade routes is the physically daunting aspect at first, and then you realise that there are all these corridors – linguistics, traditions – passing through, and that this was going on for centuries. Large-scale Himalayan trade on the backs of yak and sheep was going on until the 1950s and 1960s, and it’s still going on in smaller portions now.
What was the highlight of the journey for you?
One of the highlights was to meet with this clan of nomads called the Carnac people at the end point of our journey – it’s something quite marvellous when you meet people living in complete harmony with their surroundings and watching their own traditions. Pashmina is still selling, they’re still producing, and their methods of production and living are virtually unchanged from 300 years ago.
And when I showed them pictures on my computer of nomads living 1,500km away, one of the elders said – this was extraordinary, I got a ball in my throat – “We’re not alone.”
That was, for me, one of those ‘eureka’ moments.
What is it that fascinates you about indigenous cultures?
I look at them as bastions of civilisation. They haven’t yet been drawn out to modern amenities, and they have a need to communicate in order to pass along their traditions. I think in an age where we can’t really converse for more than an hour, there’s something beautiful about that. I also love the way they eat, the way they live. They’re intuitively sustainable.
You were the first documented Westerner to travel the Ancient Tea Horse Road. What was the most challenging part?
One of the most challenging things about leading an expedition like that is making decisions you have to be content you made. You might risk people’s lives – people that you’re living with 24/7. And I guess there was a point two months into the Tea Horse Road, where you wonder, “Okay, not sure this is entirely possible – where do we go, and will we ever see human beings again?” So I would say the Tea Horse Road was an odyssey, mentally as well as physically.
What inspired you to undertake these expeditions?
I was a mountaineer when I was young – the mountains have always held me. And I’ve got this insatiable hunger and curiosity. With this whole Himalayan obsession I have, one of the big motivations is to use some of what I’ve seen to create a different way of looking at the mountains. Hopefully by knowing a little more, we’ll be more interested in trying to preserve them and what’s in them – so that the Himalayas of 50 years from now aren’t just a dry, tortured place of a few snow peaks.
What’s it like returning to the busy modern world after several months of isolation?
I need a week or two to decompress and recompress. I feel like I’m sort of slowly being taught how to function in a civil society, to not worry about people plunging down a ledge.
There’s something we call the ‘thousand-yard stare’ after an expedition – you have this glazed look of disinterest when you arrive back into civilisation. You’re never really looking at anything; you’re kind of looking at a horizon. That happens every time. What’s amazing is when you finally realise you’re back, and you’re able to mentally and physically function again.
Where did your passion for tea first spring from?
I went to Taiwan about 15 years ago and got thoroughly ripped on really good tea and watched the sun come up with a bunch of Taiwanese, and I thought, “I’ve got to understand more about this.” The same things that bind me to mountains and oral narratives bound me to tea – it’s got this incredible history, it’s an incredible cause for the good.
What was the idea behind Jalam Teas, the business you co-founded?
The idea was to make an offering to the public; to hand-source and curate rare teas that used to travel along the trade routes into Tibet. We wanted to tell a story with each tea – what the altitude is in the areas they’re sourced from, what the indigenous people use it for, and so on.
We wanted to do something really small – we thought it would be North America, maybe pockets of England and France, but we’ve ended up offering subscriptions in 13 countries. Each client will write what they like and don’t like about the teas, so we have this dialogue going on as we’re doing business. It’s that wonderful old way of, somebody likes your teas and they talk to somebody else, and it gradually spreads into these little nooks of tea-drinkers.
Can you tell us a bit about the tours you offer with Wild China?
It’s a small, brief grazing of the surface of the Tea Horse Road. The origins of all teas on the planet are in southern Yunnan, but it’s not just about tea and horses. Clients can literally drink barley whiskey with the local headsmen – to some degree it’s a bit of an exploration and a delving into the minority cultures’ relationship with tea and to each other.
It’s a bit of a niche stretch to get people to want to come on a trade route [tour], so it’s sometimes hit and miss – you’ve got to add some wonderful little snippets and essences onto the trip and see how it goes. It’s worked, but it’s still something that only tea junkies or genuinely Yunnan-minority obsessed people come on.
What are your goals for the future?
I will continue to do the expeditions for as long as the joints and kneecaps and ligaments don’t decay. I’m going to be working with the Explorers’ Club, which is exciting because there’s a climate change element to it. I’ll be leading expeditions into Ladakh and Zanskar to look at glaciers, water sources and the sustainability of practices and cultural aspects in the Himalayas, with the potential of setting up a kind of mountain preservation society.
We’re also going to try and set up a tea farm in Hawaii to promote tea culture in this part of the world. And that’s probably it. Those two things are kind of on my reel of expectation and hope for the next years.
And finally, where do you feel most at home?
I need snippets of both. I can’t imagine not having my silences in the mountains, but it’s also a nice feeling coming back and being able to relate what you’ve seen to people, and having a home. That idea of home – of one fixed physical place – is becoming a much more important concept in my life.
