By Gaby Dufresne-Cyr, CBT-FLE

I often tell people I grew up wild, not because I lacked rules or supervision, but because my childhood unfolded in places where nature wasn't something you visited on weekends. Wilderness was part of everyday life.

I spent my early years in Goose Bay, Labrador, living on military bases surrounded by forests, rivers, the ocean, long winters, and people who understood that community wasn't an abstract idea; it was how life worked.

The Bubble Effect 

Military bases are curious places to grow up. They are small villages enclosed within physical, social, and environmental boundaries.

Inside the base, there is an unspoken understanding that everyone belongs to the same community. Neighbours look after one another, and as children, we roamed freely because every adult knew who our parents were. 

As a child, I assumed this was normal.

Later, I realized that moving from one place to another meant more than changing landscapes. Each move dismantled and rebuilt my entire social world. Making friends and losing them became a repeated pattern during childhood. For a highly emotional, neurodivergent child, those transitions were both an adventure and a heartbreak. 

Outside the Base, the Rules Were Different

Leaving the military and Labrador to rejoin civilian life made me realize how much different the environment and rules were. 

In the big city, no one knew my name or helped me when I lost my way home on the busy streets. On the base, an unfamiliar adult was usually someone who knew my family. In the city, an unfamiliar adult was simply a stranger.

Looking back, I understand that my education began long before I ever entered a classroom. The land taught patience, winter prepared us for endurance, and animals nourished my observational skills, while communities imparted the importance of responsibility.

Nobody sat me down to explain these lessons. They emerged naturally from living in an environment where paying attention mattered. Nature humbles humanity, reminding us that our wellbeing has always depended on connection.

When you spend enough time outdoors, you notice that nature rarely forces anything. Seasons unfold in their own time. Animals learn through experience, curiosity, and relationships, and survival depends less on control than on understanding.

Nature’s Learning Curve

I didn't have the words for it then, but I think those prior experiences quietly shaped everything I would later become interested in: psychology, animal behaviour, learning, and relationships.

For many years, I thought I had chosen my profession; now I wonder if my childhood chose it for me.

The older I become, the more I appreciate how we are all shaped by invisible landscapes. Some are physical, like forests, farms, or cities. Others are social, like families, schools, military communities, or cultures. We carry those landscapes with us long after we've left them.

Perhaps that is why two people can witness the same event and understand it so differently. We are each interpreting the world through environments that helped shape us long before we knew they were shaping us.

Growing up wild didn't make me who I am by itself; it gave me a way of seeing. Sometimes I wonder if that way of interpreting life has been walking beside me all along, quietly leading me down every trail I've chosen since.