Come Walk With Us on the Trans Canada Trail (TCT)

It is easy to think that it is Covid that has been the main scourge of the past 15 months, or that the lock downs have crippled our spirit and economy…but, it seems more likely that the chief disruptor over the last two years has been the uncertainty, anxieties, and frustrations that have arisen that have hindered and hurt us the most.   As we sit here in quarantine (our third quarantine this year) preparing to head back out on the Trans Canada Trail , I cannot deny that I am excited to get back onto the national pathway, to camp in nature again, and be free of the daily pressures that we have all experienced for so long now.   However, I also cannot deny that it is unnerving to step out the door, not knowing what is coming, what the trail will be like, what reception we will receive and what people’s reactions will be.     Like everyone else we have spent far too long watching too much news, listening to too many Covid updates, and being given too many warnings about impending dang

Having now spent more than 45 days in Quarantine in 2021. April in Quebec City May in Toronto Ontario after returning from Quebec June in Winnipeg Manitoba That Totals more than $10,000 dollars in forced hotel bills and a month and a half of hiking lost.  We have come to realize a number of things and thought to share our experiences.   N ot those endless moments of reading and re-reading the few books we were stuck with, or those days filled with Netflix, or evenings filled with planning and re-planning our future treks.   Instead we sought to share those lessons we learned.    Lesson 1 : You can NEVER have too many of BBC / PBS Mysteries.   I know now that I could survive watching Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple, Poirot, Midsomer Murders or Miss Scarlet and the Duke series. Additionally I could very happily live watching Laurence Fox as the ‘dishy’ DS Hathaway in Inspector Lewis, Shaun Evans as the young DC Morse in Endeavour, or James Norton in the Grantchester Mysteries.   Nature i

This morning we awoke feeling our age.  We used to travel between Vancouver and Halifax all the time in our university days, sleeping curled up in our economy class seats for up to four nights in a row, and emerging on the other end of the journey ready for adventure.  As last night progressed, the clear skies turned to rain in Hornepayne, we woke at the stops in the many small towns and Indigenous communities in northern Ontario, and we quickly realized our legs and necks are no longer willing to remain curled up all night without lodging persistent complaints.  We figured one night wasn't worth the price difference, but if we're ever fortunate enough to make the amazing journey across the entire country again by train, a sleeper berth will definitely be worthwhile.      Nonetheless, we enjoyed waking up and seeing the Boreal forest slipping quietly past the windows in the early morning light.  Many small lakes and rivers, their surfaces ruffled by a slight breeze and their sh

For months we've been longing to venture beyond the now overly familiar trails and green spaces of our own neighbourhood.  We've yearned to escape the mechanical sounds of city life, to once again smell the tangy scent of sun soaked forests and freshwater lakes on the breeze, to exchange the feel of concrete beneath our feet for the crunch of gravel or the springy softness of a wilderness footpath, and to feel the thrill of exploration and movement once again.  Now that the moment has finally, finally arrived, it feels like we're emerging from the protective cocoon of an insulated, climate controlled, slightly too comfortable shell, where all sensations were slightly dimmed, and all news of the outside world was carefully mediated by screens.   As we take our first tentative steps back out into the world again, blinking in the blinding light of the midsummer sunshine, it feels almost audacious to hope that the lock downs and travel restrictions are truly behind us now, and