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

With time off during quarantine and social isolation many people have begun to reflect on their lives, lifestyles, and choices.   This can be both a challenging process and a wonderful time. In the past two months we have had the opportunity to catch up with pilgrims we met on our Caminos and people who helped us last year on The Great Trail.   We have had old friends reconnect to talk, high school acquaintances email to relive old times, university colleagues reach out to gloat about their career successes, and old loves email about missed opportunities and the choices they wish we had all made differently.   With the time we have on our hands at the moment it has left a great deal of opportunity to think about all of these connections, the choices we have made, and the path our life is on.   Some of it has led to reliving beautiful memories and hearing amazing stories of new experiences and new families - while others have been very hard to deal with.  ...

  Today the premier of Quebec has announced a staged opening of the province with much of the region to be opened on May 4th and the city of Montreal to begin opening on May 11!  Unfortunately however the region of Charlevoix (Riviere du Loup to Quebec City) is still closed. This of course does not mean that everything has returned to normal and we will be taking more precautions both for ourselves and for others.  This year - in the short term - we are going to shift to mailing out supply packages so as not to take away resources from rural communities and we will likely come into much less contact with people as we venture.  It also means that if conditions worsen in a region, such as Montreal, be may be forced to navigate around it to respect ongoing situations.   This means that we can tentatively say (without trying to jinx it) that around May 15th we can resume trekking along The Great Trail​ from Quebec City westward! It is exciting to begin to s...

We are excited to announce that on Sunday May 3 rd , 2020 from 1-2pm we will be giving a free online presentation of our trek for the 2Rivers Festival: Nature in the City - Feathers & Beaks !   This free event is being hosted by Nature Guelph and the 2River Festival.  Nature Guelph is an amazing club in the Guelph Ontario region dedicated to connected people with nature.  They are particularly keen on getting youth involved in the outdoors and interested in nature through their EcoLeaders program .  Our presentation is part of the 2River Festival which, since 2012, has offered free events throughout the Guelph region dedicated to celebrating and protecting the rivers and landscapes of the area. Given the current situation in person gatherings are obviously restricted, and so this event has been restructured to an online format!  This means that there are more possibilities for people from around Canada and the world to listen in and par...

  In 2019 we hiked on the Great Trail through snow storms, blizzards, and even a hurricane - never did we imagine that we would have to confront the realities of a global pandemic as well.  Perhaps John Lennon said it best when he noted that "Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans."  In the last few weeks - watching our 2020 trekking plans crumble in the age of Covid 19, ending up in isolation in a motel, and loosing so much support - no sentiment seems more apt.  As many of you know, our initial plans to return to the Great Trail in Southwestern Ontario in April of 2020 have understandably been post-posted – trail organizations have closed pathways, municipalities have shuttered campgrounds and lodgings, and Quebec has sealed its borders to non-essential travellers.  In this past month we have been contacted by regional tourist organizations from across Quebec and Ontario asking us to stay away.   City councillors ...