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Showing posts from 2021

Lessons from 10,000 km on the Trans Canada Trail

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Backpacking 10,000 km (of 27,000 km) on the Great Trail Are you looking to go from desk to quest?  Spending the winter and Covid months planning that venture across Canada? Perhaps looking to drive and explore cross country?  Or maybe you are in the process of dusting off those plans to be a pilgrim on the Camino de Santiago? Perhaps you are setting out to trek the Appalachian Trail, PCT, Bruce Trail or East Coast Trail ?  Or you are simply preparing to set the modern world aside and strike out on your own and explore the world?  If so this is for you! After hiking 10,000 km across Canada on the Trans Canada Trail in the past few years as a Fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society and as members on an RCGS Expedition we have learned a few things along the way about backpacking, exploring, getting out there and changing adventure dreams into reality. Much of what we have learned is not meant to show you how we fulfilled our goals (especially since we still have 17,000 km mor

Reading 10,000km on the Trans Canada Trail

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Hiking 10,000 km from Cape Spear Newfoundland to Alberta on the Great Trail Have you ever wondered what it would be like to trek across Canada or the world's longest recreational footpath - the 27,000 km long Trans Canada Trail / Great Trail ?  Curious to know what it is like to drop everything, sell your house, donate everything you own, and quit your job to go from desk to quest?   As of 2021 we have now ventured 10,000 km on the TCT from Cape Spear Newfoundland to the Saskatchewan-Alberta Border with just a little more than 3500 km left to go before we get to the Pacific Coast and another 4,000+ km to venture before we get to the Arctic Ocean!  So if you are curious what a particular section of the TCT looks like?  Is like to trek or cycle along, or what it would be like to walk from coast to coast to coast then these blogs are for you! We have received a number of emails from people who have just started to follow along or who have been asking where to find our blogs from 2018,

“Spur” Decision : Exploring Montreal’s Canal-de-Lachine

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I went to bed last night, in a thick duvet in a near soundproof room in downtown Montreal believing that the trekking year had come to an end.   Despite the delays brought on by the second and third waves of Covid in 19 leading to 3 rounds of quarantine, we had successfully trekked more than 3000km across the provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and the majority of Quebec!   Arriving into Montreal we reached another milestone – having now also completed 10,000 km of trekking in Canada over more than 365 days on the Trans Canada Trail while also giving over 100 presentations to groups across the nation!   It was time to rest… or so I had hoped.   Sean however is not one to rest, not one who was looking forward to stopping for the season, and definitely one who lives with the frustrations rather than the celebrations of the moment – and so was awake at 6 am…ready to hike.   His lone concession was a willingness to have a breakfast of chocolate crepes before heading out.   He had been