Did We Ever Regret Starting the Trans Canada Trail?

Looking Back on Six Years of Walking Across Canada

 
After spending 759 days walking across Canada, from the Atlantic to the Pacific and north to the Arctic Ocean, we have occasionally been asked whether we ever regretted our decision to undertake the Trans Canada Trail. Given the difficulties we encountered, the changes to our original plans, and the enormous amount of time involved, it is perhaps a reasonable question.  In previous reflections, we have written about the occasions when we seriously considered quitting the TCT and how we managed to remain motivated throughout such a lengthy expedition. More recently, we have also considered whether we would ever hike the entire Trans Canada Trail again and what we sacrificed to spend six years exploring Canada on foot. Yet regretting the decision to begin is a somewhat different question.
 

There were certainly occasions when we regretted particular decisions en route. We sometimes followed routes or hiked further than we should have – which meant the trek at times proved considerably more difficult than anticipated.  Or we continued walking when conditions suggested that stopping might have been more sensible, or underestimated the time required to navigate an unfamiliar region. There were days when our plans simply did not work, when we made mistakes, or when circumstances left us wondering whether a different decision might have produced a better outcome.
 
Indeed, looking back, there are plenty of things we would approach differently. Experience inevitably changes how we assess situations, and having walked across the country, we now know considerably more about the practical realities of the Trans Canada Trail than we did when we began planning our expedition. Some of that knowledge would undoubtedly have influenced our preparations and decisions had it been available to us in 2019.

Of course, hindsight is always clearer than the circumstances in which a decision was originally made. Looking back, for example, we can now see that continuing from the Saskatchewan–Alberta border to Edmonton during our third year might have made our logistics the next year, when we returned to the TCT considerably easier. Edmonton's transportation connections would have provided more options for leaving the trail and returning the following year, potentially saving us considerable time and effort. At the time, however, we made a different decision, and one of the consequences was that we returned to Quebec's Charlevoix region, where we had the opportunity to experience the extraordinary autumn colours around Baie-Saint-Paul and along the Sentier des Caps.

 
Would continuing to Edmonton have been more practical? Quite possibly. But we were ready for a change from the prairies at the time, and I am not sure we would willingly have given up those days exploring Charlevoix in the autumn. The alternative might have simplified one part of our expedition while eliminating an experience that we remain delighted to have had. Looking back, we can recognize that a different choice might have offered certain advantages without concluding that the decision we actually made was wrong.

 
But we could only make decisions using the information, experience, and circumstances available to us at the time. As we have said before, you only know once you know through lived experience. As such, there seems little value in judging every choice against knowledge we acquired years later. We could acknowledge that something had gone wrong, reconsider our approach, and try to make a more informed decision the following day without concluding that the entire undertaking had been a mistake.  This is partially why we have published our itineraries, guiding guides, cycling assessments, and insights into the Trans Canada Trail region by region – to help others through our experiences.

 
Certainly, we did not expect to enjoy every moment of the journey. Spending months walking through unfamiliar areas, negotiating changing conditions, and managing the ordinary practicalities of long-distance hiking was never going to be uniformly pleasant. There were frustrating days, uncomfortable experiences, and occasions when we would undoubtedly have preferred to be doing something else. Yet temporary dissatisfaction was not necessarily evidence that we had chosen the wrong undertaking.
 
I think this acknowledgement is particularly important when considering a journey that lasted six years.  It would be rather extraordinary to devote that much time to any activity without occasionally questioning particular decisions or wishing that circumstances were different. We certainly experienced those feelings, but they rarely extended to wishing that we had never begun walking across Canada.  The Trans Canada Trail was something we had chosen to undertake because we were genuinely interested in exploring our country. We wanted to observe its wildlife, photograph unfamiliar landscapes, learn about the communities along the way, and experience places that we might otherwise never have visited. Those interests existed long before we set off from Cape Spear years ago, and the difficulties we encountered did not make them disappear.

 
So, did we ever regret individual days, decisions, or experiences along the Trans Canada Trail? Certainly. There are sections we would approach differently, choices we might reconsider, and situations we would prefer not to repeat.  But did we regret deciding to begin?  No. We made a choice to pursue something that interested us, knowing that we could not anticipate everything the journey might involve. It was not always easy, and it certainly did not go as planned, but those realities did not make the original decision one we wished to undo.
 
Hiking the Trans Canada Trail is the journey of a lifetime.
 
See you on the Trail!