How Much Does a Kilometre Really Mean?

Distance, Geography, and the Unequal Experience of Walking Canada's Trans Canada Trail
 
Not all Kilometres are Equal

 
A kilometre is a kilometre. Whether measured along a paved pathway, through a coastal forest, across an open prairie, or over a mountain pass, the distance remains exactly the same. One thousand metres. On a map, it occupies a measurable portion of a line. On a hiking itinerary, it repeatedly becomes part of a hiker’s target – 25 km stages, 35 km days, 50 km slogs. At the end of a journey, it contributes to the impressive numbers that people use to describe what they have accomplished.
 
Yet, after spending six years and 759 days walking across Canada on the Trans Canada Trail, we have come to appreciate just how little that measurement tells us about the experience of actually travelling on foot.

 
When we began planning our #Hike4Birds, we anticipated and built an itinerary in 2018-2019 around the notion that crossing Canada would take approximately three years. That estimate was based on the information available at the time, our previous long-distance hiking experiences, and the assumption that we could maintain a daily average of approximately 30–35 kilometres. With the Trans Canada Trail network extending some 24,000 kilometres at the time, the calculations already involved considerable uncertainty about which routes we would follow and how long the journey might take.  Nevertheless, it was possible to sit at a desk, examine maps, divide distances by anticipated daily averages, account for rest days, and produce something resembling a reasonable schedule.  The difficulty, of course, was that the calculation assumed a certain consistency in the effort required to cover each kilometre. 
 
Our bodies and Canada's geography had other ideas.
 

The Distance Between Two Kilometres

 
Let’s begin the comparison by considering urban pathways.  Stretches of the TCT such as Toronto’s Pan Am Trail, Regina’s Wascana Trail, or Edmonton’s wonderful city trail network each host countless regular visitors.  Each of these city trails are made to be accessible, pass by areas with regular amenities, give way to exploring green spaces within each community.  The result is that – if you choose to ignore the offerings of each city – that one can trek and make great time without giving too much thought or expending too much effort.

 
By comparison, consider walking ten kilometres along PEI’s Confederation Trail or Quebec's P'tit Train du Nord, where an established rail trail provides relatively gentle gradients and a generally predictable walking surface. Under favourable conditions.  Here we could easily settle into a comfortable stride, enjoy the surrounding forests and communities, and cover considerable distance without giving much thought to where our next step would fall.

     

Now consider travelling the same ten kilometres along Newfoundland's East Coast Trail, New Brunswick’s Fundy Footpath, or Ontario’s Casque Isles Trail - where rocky coastal pathways, exposed roots, steep descents, and repeated climbs demand almost constant attention. In each case the scenery might be extraordinary, with seabirds offshore and the nearby waters crashing against the coast, but the effort required to travel those ten kilometres is invariably substantially greater.

 
Our legs, knees, and backs would certainly disagree that the kilometres on urban pathways, rail trails and coastal footpaths were equivalent.
 
Nor does the distinction end with difficult hiking trails and relatively easy rail corridors.  Walking across Manitoba and Saskatchewan's rural roads during the height of summer presented an entirely different challenge. The terrain could be and often was almost perfectly level, and the road might stretch toward the horizon without a single significant obstacle. Yet exposure to high temperatures, the absence of shade, limited water availability, and long distances between communities often made those seemingly straightforward kilometres exhausting.

 
In Alberta's Kananaskis Country, climbing toward Cox Hill demanded a different combination of effort, with elevation gain, mountain terrain, changing weather, and the physical demands of carrying loaded backpacks affecting our progress.
 
In each landscape, the distance remained unchanged. What changed was nearly everything involved in travelling it.
 

When the Trail Becomes a Road

 
The northern portion of our journey introduced still more variations.  Along the Alaska Highway, walking often meant travelling beside fast-moving vehicles on paved shoulders on busy highways, requiring us to constantly remain attentive to traffic. The physical act of walking might be relatively straightforward, but the concentration required could be tiring in ways that had little to do with elevation or trail surface.  At the same time, the topography of much of northern Canada presented its own challenges.  Giving way to hours of climbing to cover often only short distances day in and day out. 
 
Amid these road conditions, exposure to the elements, and the enormous distances between services shaped what was possible as well as what our daily decisions would be.

 
All of which is a long way of saying that a kilometre could be relatively easy under one set of conditions and considerably harder under another.  Each of the experiences on the Trans Canada Trail – urban pathways, rail trails, wilderness trails, and highway routes- is different – not just in terms of the terrain but also the experience.
 
Yet all contributed to the same total distance walked on the same trail network.
 
This is one of the peculiarities of attempting to follow a national pathway that crosses such an enormous country. As we have noted before, the Trans Canada Trail is not a single, uniform hiking footpath. It is a connected network of trails, roads, rail corridors, recreational pathways, and other routes, each with its own characteristics and demands.  Consequently, the daily distances recorded by someone walking across Canada cannot always be compared meaningfully without understanding where and under what conditions those kilometres were travelled.
 

The Limitations of an Average

 
Our original three-year plan eventually became a six-year journey covering almost 18,000 kilometres, with 759 days spent walking.  There were lots of reasons for this, of course. COVID-19 restrictions and provincial lockdowns interrupted our progress. Severe weather, including hurricanes, tropical storms, hail, and extreme temperatures, each altered our plans. We also deliberately made time for presentations to classrooms, community organizations, and nature groups, because sharing our experiences and encouraging an interest in Canada's landscapes and wildlife were important parts of our #Hike4Birds.

 
Beyond that – winter work contracts, travel arrangements on and off the TCT, seasonal conditions, and the practical realities of returning to the trail also influenced when and where we could continue from year to year.  However, even setting aside those interruptions, our initial calculations could never fully account for the extraordinary variability of walking across Canada.  An average of 30 kilometres per day sounds straightforward until the terrain, weather, trail conditions, or circumstances make that distance unrealistic. Equally, there were occasions when favourable conditions allowed us to cover considerably more ground than anticipated – altering our itinerary in other ways.
 
Physical condition mattered as well. A distance that seemed manageable after several weeks of walking could be exhausting when returning to the trail after a winter spent working. Illness, growing fatigue, minor injuries, equipment problems, and even the availability of food and water could influence how far we travelled day by day and month by month.

 
Perhaps most importantly, our progress was not always determined by how far we were physically capable of walking.  Sometimes we stopped because we encountered wildlife. Sometimes an unexpected conversation drew us into a community. At other times, we spent hours exploring a landscape, learning something about local history, or watching birds that we might never have another opportunity to observe. Those kilometres were not necessarily difficult. We simply chose to experience them differently.
 

What the Numbers Cannot Tell Us

 
Long-distance journeys are frequently reduced to distances, itineraries, and estimated completion times. These measurements are useful, particularly when planning supplies, estimating the time required to reach the next community, or assessing the practical demands of a route.  Certainly we depended on them while preparing as well as throughout our journey.
 
But after walking from coast to coast to coast, we have come to see that the numbers for a trail – just as how many kilometres it includes - fundamentally give way to an incomplete understanding of what the walking actually entails.

 
More specifically, thirty kilometres across a smooth, shaded rail trail is not necessarily equivalent to thirty kilometres over rocky coastal terrain. Similarly, a level highway in extreme heat may be more demanding than a mountain pathway under favourable conditions. Ten kilometres travelled while exhausted, hungry, or carrying insufficient water can feel very different from the same distance covered after a good night's sleep. Even the same section of trail can change dramatically with weather, season, and the condition of the person walking it.  Perhaps this is why we have become increasingly cautious about comparing long-distance journeys solely through their numerical achievements. Knowing that someone walked 25, 35, or 50 kilometres in a day tells us something about the distance they travelled, but relatively little about the conditions they encountered, the effort required, or what they experienced along the way.
 
It certainly does not tell us whether they had a good day or an exciting day or a day that was a complete slog to get through.

 
After almost 18,000 kilometres, we can look back on days when relatively short distances left us exhausted and others when we travelled much farther almost effortlessly. Some of our most memorable experiences occurred on days when we made very little forward progress at all.
The Trans Canada Trail reminded us time and again that while distances are essential for navigating a country, they are a remarkably limited way of understanding it or the experience of hiking it.
 
A kilometre will always be one thousand metres. That part never changes.  What it takes to walk one, and what we might discover along the way, is another matter entirely.
 
See you on the trail!