There Was Never going to be a Cathedral…

One of the lessons we learned from walking to Santiago de Compostela, Spain is that pilgrimage is not about the cathedral at the end.  This piece of wisdom has been freely shared by other pilgrims, in online forums, and even in many of the Camino guidebooks.  Simply put, the cathedral is not the end of the journey.  

We soon realized that while the cathedral in Santiago has its own sense of grandeur, and it is exciting to receive our Compostela, which is an official certificate of completion, ultimately we did not undertake the journey to arrive at a building or to receive a piece of paper.  The trek was undertaken for our own reasons and for goals beyond the trail.

“In every walk with nature, one receives far more than he seeks.”

John Muir

While ostensibly any hike or pilgrimage is a physical undertaking, it is also a mental and spiritual journey. In an uncertain world, hikes are one of those things that give us direction, a clear goal, and a sense of accomplishment.  They are physically refreshing and mentally relaxing.  Long distance treks push this further, allowing us to pursue grand goals, meet the challenges en route, learn endurance, and attempt to deal with those deeper burdens that each of us carry throughout life. 

As we spend hours walking, or weeks and months hiking between communities, over changing landscapes, and alongside rivers and roads we begin to sort through things.  Some of these burdens we come to terms with, other matters get resolved, while others we learn to accept or set aside.  Yet not everything is worked out en route, and much like a pilgrimage – the process is ongoing and continues beyond our time on the trail. 

 “Get lost in nature and you will find yourself.”

As a result, the reflecting and thinking continues after the physical adventure comes to an end.  In the weeks and months that follow the completion of a trek we invariably keep asking a lot of questions.  We search for the meaning in our hikes, strive to find words to explain our venture, and many of us hope that the time and effort spent on it was justified.   This is, of course, a natural process. 

However, it also takes place because even though it is hard to explain the need to go on pilgrimage or hike across a nation, it is nonetheless somehow important to be able to put it into words and rationally frame it in some way.   We feel that we are expected to articulate the meaning of our hike and detail how our lives were changed so that others can make sense of it.  Yet the truth is, so much of what we undergo in nature cannot be easily explained.  Some of it is an indescribable feeling, some of it is too personal, and some of it (to be honest) would just sound silly to those who have not had the same experience. 

You can get a sense of this after walking a Camino, wherein pilgrims often smile when they see a yellow arrow or shell in their daily lives.   Regardless of the fact that such symbols might simply be construction markers, random shapes, or company logos in their neighborhoods, they have taken on a deeper and inexpressible meaning.  This relationship and feeling serves as a reflection that the individual has gone on a quest and is not the same person as they were before.  It also shows that while you might not be able to explain or justify your choice to go out into the world to others, it was and is the right thing to have done, for you.

 “Returning home is the most difficult part of long-distance hiking;

   You have grown outside the puzzle and your piece no longer fits.”

Cindy Ross

And so it is with our #Hike4Birds across Canada on the Trans Canada Trail.  The numbers we regularly share such as 556 days, 4 years, 14,000 km, 10 provinces, 810 blogs, etc. are all statistical descriptors that truly fail to convey the depth of this epic adventure.   In every way, our hike on the Trans Canada Trail was and is much more, and we are still struggling to put this into words in a way that would make sense. 

Over the past few months, since arriving into Victoria, BC, each moment on the TCT has come to have renewed meaning for us.  When writing articles for various magazines and editing our Photo Book – Canada: A View from the Trail – we have recalled and recounted hundreds of stories.  We remember the feel of each region, the conversations with people, and the glorious fall colours of the Great Trail.  With many of the pictures we've taken along the way we can happily recall those moments when the Pacific seemed impossibly far away and we doubted our ability to get there.  

This year, while visiting family in British Columbia, we felt excited every time we saw the Trans Canada Trail signs or realized we were near the route we lived on for 4 years.   Equally, while working and hiking in Ontario we have both found ourselves at the cross roads of a trail and longed to head back out across the province, and then keep going, into the wilds of Canada.  The TCT holds great meaning for us these days, and it has been hard not hiking on it this year.  

While these signs and symbols across Canada bring back wonderful memories, and have sustained us while waiting to return to the Trans Canada Trail amid a year of floods, historic forest fires, and trail closures, it has nonetheless been tough to bring our trek into focus. 

Part of me wonders if this is because Canada is just too large and diverse to capture in a few short sentences. Part of me wonders if it is because a huge portion of the trek is done, having already traversed from the Atlantic to the Pacific, but at the same time there is still so much further to go to get to the Arctic. 

And another part of me wonders if it is because there was no “cathedral”.  Ultimately, the end points of the Trans Canada Trail are the coastlines of the nation.  In 2019, we began at the lighthouse in Cape Spear, Newfoundland.  Although it was on the Atlantic Ocean, there was nothing to mark this as a terminus of the Trans Canada Trail, and indeed, it was located in the middle of the East Coast Trail, which we had previously hiked.  In 2022, we first reached the shores of the Pacific Ocean more than 200 km before arriving at the western terminus of the Trans Canada Trail, which was indicated only by a small metal sign at Clover Point.  While these coasts are themselves amazing, and in some ways there is nothing grander than walking from ocean to ocean, I think we all hope to have definitive starting and finishing locations that are recognized.  Our beginning and ending felt somehow arbitrary.  After spending so many months on the world’s longest recreational trail, it still seems hard to believe that two of its three end points are relatively inconspicuous to most people. 

I suppose this malaise about the lack of a substantive trailhead is our own difficulty as we knew there was never going to be a “cathedral” at the end of this trek.  We have also come to feel that seeing a hike merely in terms of its starting and finishing points is to reduce it, and to miss the greater gifts and moments along the way.  If we are focused only on the destination, walking only so we can arrive somewhere else in the future where we expect to find something of value, we miss being present in the moment.  The simple fact is that the Trans Canada Trail cannot be reduced to being the mile zero signs in St. John’s, Newfoundland or Clover Point, Victoria BC.  It is not merely the number of provinces completed or the number of bird species seen en route.  In the end, the Trans Canada Trail is about realizing that the journey is far more important than the destination. 

 “It's the not the Destination, It's the journey.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Lots to think about these days.

See you (hopefully) on the Trail – More details to come soon!