KATE Huntington’s tragic death in 2000 shook the theatre community in Bermuda. The former Mount Saint Agnes pupil had been actively involved in the Bermuda Musical and Dramatic Society (BMDS) and in the year following her death the BMDS Charitable Trust was established in her memory to promote theatre among the island’s youth.Her father Terrence Huntington embarked on a journey two years later to retrace his youngest daughter’s footsteps through the Himalayan Mountains and recently published an account of his experience, including extracts from her journal, in Nubra Valley Odyssey.

In an exclusive telephone interview with the Mid-Ocean News from his home in Victoria, British Columbia, Mr. Huntington spoke of the grief he still felt and how he discovered who Kate really was on a journey that helped to heal him.

His voice was filled with emotion as he recalled the days following news of Kate’s death.

She had been dead two days when police officers came to his door with the news.

The family had not seen Kate since April that year and had not spoken to her in a month. Before she left for India, she was living and working in Bermuda saving up for the trip.

Mr. Huntington later wrote:>“There was no comforting her in her dying moments, no holding her hand, no whispered ‘I love you’. Just a little wooden box of ashes from India a week later.”<$>

He said the family had a hard time coming to terms with her death and there were times when he simply wanted to “run away” from it all.

When asked where the idea for the book came from, he explained that her journal arrived a few days later from the Canadian High Commission in Delhi.

Wanting to respect her privacy, he set it aside, but six months later and still dealing with the grief of her death found himself reading it and learning things about Kate he never knew: “It taught me that we’re all individuals and we have our own lives and don’t always share things. At the age of 28 she had grown up and was a women in her own right.

“I was torn between wanting to respect her privacy and the need to share some of her beautiful and brilliant thoughts and observations with other people... I thought the most I could do was organise them into some fashion and distribute it to some of her friends,” he said.

However, the idea for the book only came later when he found himself drawn to the places Kate described in her journal and decided to go to India and retrace some of her footsteps.

“It was therapeutic, but I didn’t go for that reason. I wanted to share a part of Kate’s life with her,” he explained. “People said I should tell my story, in the first person, and include extracts from her journal, that’s why what started out as a collection of her thoughts and tributes, which I was just going to give her friends, turned into a book.”

With only a month in India, he was only able to retrace part of Kate’s journey with the ultimate goal of reaching the Nubra Valley, described by Kate in letters home: “I found a place called Nubra Valley that no one should die without seeing.”

However as he stood in the exact spot his daughter had stood two years earlier, he realised he had reached the end of his trip.

“I wasn’t going to get any closer to her and it was time to go home,” he said with obvious emotion.

With a soft laugh he said Kate came by her wanderlust naturally as the family spent a lot of time travelling.

However when it came to retracing her footsteps, he found he simply couldn’t “rough” it the way Kate had - on the back of a motorcycle and with a laugh blamed it on his age.

“She was young and backpacking and I had a guide and a jeep, so it was pretty cushy for me compared to the way she did it,” he said. “But I was pleased with myself because I had quite an attack of the shingles and was in my 60s and in those high mountains... there are no four-star hotels so it’s rugged!”

His only regret was not spending time in the village of Kash Dam where Kate lived for a short time.

“I had take one of two routes through the mountains and the route I chose didn’t take me through that village,” he explained.

As for the success of the book, Mr. Huntington said it was never his intention to go commercial which is why the book is only available from the Bermuda Book Store and the book store at Bishop’s University, Quebec where Kate studied.

“Half a dozen close friends have commented on the book, but not in any detail. I conclude from this that either it’s flawed and people don’t like it, or it was just too personal and they don’t want to talk about it,” he added.

When asked about the BMDS Charitable Trust, Mr. Huntington said since the first contribution was made by family, the trust has increased tenfold and helped many youngsters pursue a career in theatre - something he said which would have made Kate very proud.

Pondering over her journal, he said he wonders what she would have done with it had she come home: “We just don’t know... maybe she would have created a work of fiction, or a travelogue but there was never any doubt she was going to write something.”

Kate described her experience best in this extract: ̶I>And then I had the supreme sublime life experience. I sat on the back of the bike facing backwards. Through the desert. And because I couldn’t even really see the bike, it was like I was just sitting there comfortably with my legs up on the luggage rack, watching the world’s most beautiful landscape unfold behind me. That, and me riding the bike through the desert. I am by far the coolest person alive. And if I die soon that’s okay. I’ve lived 100 lives.”