What Did We Sacrifice to Walk Across Canada?

What did we give up to Hike the Trans Canada Trail?

One of the questions we are occasionally asked about our six-year journey along the Trans Canada Trail is what we sacrificed to undertake it. After all, spending 759 days walking almost 18,000 kilometres across Canada meant committing an enormous amount of time, money, and energy to something that offered no guarantee of success, gave way to no financial reward, and zero professional advancement.  It is a reasonable question, although I have always found the word sacrifice a little curious.

 
Throughout our lives, we make decisions about how to spend our time, what we want to pursue, and which opportunities interest us. Choosing to devote several years to a university education, developing a career, raising children, purchasing a home, or building a business invariably means setting other possibilities aside. Yet we do not necessarily describe those decisions as sacrifices. More often, we regard them as investments in the lives we hope to lead.

 
Why, then, should choosing to spend several years walking across Canada automatically be understood differently?
 
This does not mean that our expedition came without costs. We certainly gave up opportunities, income, familiar things we enjoy, and the ability to participate in some of the ordinary events taking place among our family and friends. There were practical and financial consequences to being away for such an extended period, particularly when our original three-year plan gradually stretched into six.

But we made those choices because exploring Canada slowly and with intention was something we genuinely wanted to do. I had spent years studying the natural world, and we had spent years together travelling, hiking, and photographing birds and wildlife. The Trans Canada Trail offered an opportunity to bring many of those interests together in a single undertaking, allowing us to explore places we knew little about and experience the country at a pace that suited our curiosity.
 

Costs and Consequences of Hiking the Trans Canada Trail

 
Of course, none of this means that spending six years walking across Canada came without costs.  We sold our house to pay for the trek after all.  In addition to financial considerations, there were professional opportunities we could not pursue, and the ongoing challenge of balancing our expedition with the responsibilities and commitments that continued elsewhere. Our schedules were rarely predictable, particularly when provincial restrictions, severe weather, trail closures, and other circumstances interrupted our plans. Even when we were able to continue working remotely, arranging our lives around the needs of a long-distance journey was not always straightforward.

 
There were also personal consequences. Birthdays, family gatherings, celebrations, and ordinary occasions came and went while we were somewhere else. Friendships and relationships continued to evolve in our absence, and there were times when we would have liked to be present for people or events that mattered to us. Maintaining connections while travelling was possible, but it was not always easy, particularly when our location, access to communication, or plans for the following weeks remained uncertain. These were not insignificant considerations, and we would never suggest that pursuing an extended expedition somehow removed the importance of the people and responsibilities in our lives.
 
Yet these were also considerations that we had thought about long before setting out from Cape Spear years ago. We did not begin walking across Canada because we had suddenly discovered that travelling, exploring the natural world, or encountering unfamiliar places interested us. Both of us had spent years hiking, travelling, photographing wildlife, and pursuing opportunities to learn about the landscapes and communities around us. Our interests were already well established, and undertaking the Trans Canada Trail was another way of pursuing them, albeit on a considerably larger scale than anything we had attempted before.

 
Similarly, our attitudes toward work, financial security, and material possessions did not change simply because we began carrying everything we needed in backpacks. We had always understood that earning a living was necessary and that financial stability was important in terms of what opportunities and choices were open to us.  However, we regarded employment and income as ways of supporting the lives we wanted to lead, rather than necessarily as ends in themselves. Having a successful career, an important-sounding title, earning more money, or accumulating possessions can be deeply satisfying for people who value those things, but they were never our measure of what made an experience or an undertaking worthwhile.
 
Indeed, one of the curious things about being asked what we sacrificed to walk across Canada is that the question assumes we would otherwise have been doing something more conventional with those six years. Perhaps we would have continued working, advanced professionally, earned additional income, purchased more belongings, or enjoyed greater financial security. Those are certainly possibilities, although we cannot know exactly how our lives would have turned out had we made a different decision.

 
But choosing those alternatives would also have involved giving something up. Had we remained at home, we would not have spent those years exploring Canada's coastlines, forests, wetlands, prairies, mountains, and northern landscapes on foot. We would not have encountered many of the birds and other wildlife we observed, met countless people along the way, or visited communities and regions that we might otherwise never have had reason to explore. In that sense, every possible decision involved opportunities gained as well as other potential opportunities set aside.
 
This is not to suggest that walking across Canada was somehow a better choice than pursuing a career, raising a family, purchasing a home, or devoting those same years to another interest. People have different priorities, responsibilities, circumstances, and opportunities, and what brings satisfaction to one person may hold very little appeal for another. Someone who spends six years building a business or building wealth may be entirely happy with that decision, just as someone who devotes those years to raising children, studying, volunteering, or travelling may find equal satisfaction in their choices.

 
Nor does everyone have the same freedom to choose. Financial obligations, family responsibilities, health, employment, and countless other circumstances influence what is possible at different stages of our lives. We were fortunate to have an opportunity to attempt something that interested us, and we recognize that being able to make such a decision is itself an advantage. 

 
Perhaps this is why we have always found the question of sacrifice a little difficult to answer. We certainly gave up some opportunities by choosing to walk across Canada, and there were times when the costs of that decision were more apparent than others. But we also gained experiences that were important to us, and we made the choice knowing that our time, resources, and opportunities were not unlimited.  Ultimately, we do not regard those six years as time taken away from our lives in pursuit of something else. They were six years of our lives, spent doing something that we had wanted to experience. We cannot know whether the alternatives would have been easier, more profitable, or more satisfying, and there seems little reason to pretend that we can.  What we do know is that we had an opportunity to explore Canada on foot, that doing so was consistent with the interests and priorities we had developed over many years, and that, despite the difficulties we encountered, we remain glad that we chose to undertake the journey.

 
So, what did we sacrifice to walk across Canada? Time, income, opportunities, familiar routines, and occasions we would otherwise have shared with people we care about. Those were real costs, and for anyone considering such a journey, these costs should be acknowledged.
 
But there is another question worth considering: what would we have missed had we decided not to go?  In the end, these six years weren't time taken away from your lives. They were six years of our lives.
 
See you on the trail!