Trails are the lifeblood of Canada, pure and simple, vital to our well-being and our country’s future.
Rich offerings of heritage, nature and the meaning of life spill from trails. Trails bring Canada to us, delivering the essence and substance of what it means to live here, to be a part of this country, to be Canadian.
The meaning of this became even more clear to me as Dana Meise, having completed 16,000 kilometres on the world’s longest trail recently, stayed with us for a night on our farm.
Ask Dana what Canada is, and he’ll tell you about the kindness of strangers, the beauty and diversity of countryside and mountain, the awe and glory of a trail that stretches across time and landscapes joining peoples and places in a wondrous tale of history in the making.
It’s the communities, the vision and the vistas, the determination of a few, and the many that have transformed this land and left much of it yet to be discovered.
Take a walk along a path, breathe deep, feel muscles stretch and thoughts relax, open yourself to the journey. Sights, smells and sounds sharpen, time slows as mind and soul blend with the old and familiar, memories drift with thoughts unbidden, inviting, enticing. Alive in the moment, the future shines bright on the horizon.
This is Canada at its best, strong and resilient, in touch with life, back to the basics, connected.
Ask Dana about determination and commitment, the people he meets, the side-trips and places of historical and cultural significance that we Canadians often forget, the exploration and wonder that lie along each step of a walk across this vast and majestic land.
A faraway look takes him. The trail beckons, a longing, a heartache, tempting and teasing, just so. What beauty, test of skill and valour, lies around the next bend?
Basking in the sunlight of Pancake Bay where first settlers made breakfast, listening to farmers in Saskatchewan as they plant canola, taking direction and getting lost in changing urban landscapes that twist and turn.
Dana loves it all, deeply, without judgment.
Out there is a thread that leads from a shore the Vikings once roamed, through woods filled with wildlife, past First Nations lands and towering skyscrapers, mining shafts and logging camps, across years of prairie flats then over the Great Divide, to a rocky coast of bays navigated not so very long ago by the British Empire, Russian imperialists and Spanish conquistadors.
There’s a Canada he knows from a stroll through a park, a meander along a well-worn path, glimpsed down a trail untaken, a place unknown, that hints of mystery, romance and tales untold.
A trail is not just a way to get from one place to another. A trail’s a ramble, a wander and roaming between communities of humanity and nature. It’s a ribbon of beauty and life and friendships, of finding forgotten passions that renew the soul and awaken joy.
The trail is Canada, and to say that Dana’s cross-country journey is the living embodiment of our shared values, heritage and spirit wouldn’t be far off.
And curiously, those niches, neighbourhoods and grand landscapes and nurturing beauty are just the kind of places that Dana Meise has come all this way to Vancouver Island to see, to hike through on his Trans Canada Trail walk.
Just one more sea to go for Dana after this. Just about the equivalent of what we Islanders have in the way of challenges before us, as we hike toward our common future. A wonderful and truly remarkable walk, it’s well worth the effort.
Laurie Gourlay is president of the Vancouver Island and Coast Conservation Society, and a contributor to Our Common Future, the UN report on sustainable development.
