I wanted to walk across Canada since I was a boy.
I didn’t know it then, but walking across Canada
was not a new idea. The first person we know of who
completed a coast-to-coast walk was John Hugh Gillis,
a Cape Bretoner known as the “Western Giant”, who walked
from North Sydney, Nova Scotia to Vancouver in 1906.
He was a humble Maritimer, and we wouldn’t even
have known much about his accomplishment if not for
the journal kept by Charles Jackman, a stranger who
caught up to Gillis on the railroad west of Ottawa and
walked the remainder of the route with him to Vancouver.
Gillis’s story is chronicled in the book, Transcontinental Pedestrians.
It’s a fascinating read.
Later, in 1921, four men and a woman raced on foot
from Halifax to Vancouver. In the event, Jennie Dill became
the first woman to walk across Canada. She averaged
43 kilometres per day walking on railroad ties,
an unbelievable feat really. She had to kill a wolf with a pistol
in self-defence while crossing the Prairies. There’s a book out
about this race, but I prefer Pierre Berton’s shorter version
in his classic, My Country: The Remarkable Past.
We don’t know exactly how many people have crossed Canada
by foot over the years. Most recently, it seems that
two or three people try it annually. Kyle Pickering hiked
from Vancouver Island to Newfoundland, a distance of 7,953 kilometres,
between January 4, 2005 and June 7, 2006. Dave Chamberlain,
in 2013, ran from Cape Spear in Newfoundland to Tofino
on Vancouver Island in five months,
pushing a stroller the whole way.
In 2014, the Walking Monk, Bhaktimarga Swami
of the Hare Krishna order, finished his fourth walk across Canada,
which might be a record.
While I am on my own walk, Sarah Jackson is somewhere
on The Great Trail (also known as the Trans Canada Trail),
attempting to become the first woman to hike the trail
from coast to coast.
Over time, the idea to walk across Canada has stuck with me.
I’ve even had opportunities to do it; twice I had the time and resources.
But I inevitably talked myself out of it.
To do it in the time I am willing to allot to the project
means I have to walk along the highway instead
of through the woods. A couple of times when the urge
to attempt the walk overwhelmed me, I hiked for a day or two
along the highway near my home. The sound and danger
of the traffic calmed the urge.
And then one day, I simply decided to do it,
bought a plane ticket to Halifax,
a cab drive to Point Pleasant Park,
and just started walking.
