Would We Hike the Trans Canada Trail Again?

Looking Back on Six Years and Almost 18,000 Kilometres of Walking Across Canada

 
Having spent six years and 759 days walking almost 18,000 kilometres across the country from the Atlantic to the Pacific to the Arctic Ocean, one question we are occasionally asked is whether we would ever consider hiking the Trans Canada Trail again. After all, having now experienced the landscapes, communities, challenges, and extraordinary diversity of the country on foot, would we be interested in returning to Cape Spear and setting off westward once more?
 
Well, never say never, but in all honesty, probably not.

 
The most obvious consideration is time. Our original plans for a three-year expedition eventually stretched into six years, interrupted by provincial lockdowns, extreme weather, trail closures, and countless other complications that we could never have anticipated when we first set out in 2019. Finding another four to six years in which to undertake such an enormous journey would be difficult, particularly given our other commitments to now caring for aging family members and the realities of ourselves getting older.
 
More importantly, there are simply too many other places in the world that we would still like to explore. There are trails we have never walked, landscapes we have yet to experience, birds and wildlife we would love to encounter, and communities whose histories and cultures we know very little about. Having spent so much of our time exploring Canada, the prospect of setting out somewhere entirely unfamiliar is understandably appealing.

 
Of course, this does not mean that we would never return to walk individual sections of the Trans Canada Trail. There are places along the route that we would happily revisit, perhaps during a different season or simply without the pressures associated with continuing a journey across an entire continent.  There are also several spurs and sections that were not part of our coast to coast to coast hike that we would gladly explore if we had the opportunity.   

We certainly do not regret the time we devoted to completing the national pathway. Quite the opposite.  In fact, I think the real question should be : Knowing what we know now, including all the difficulties, frustrations, delays, and unexpected complications that accompanied our expedition, would we still have chosen to walk across Canada in the first place?
 
And to that question, our answer is an unequivocal yes.

 
We would set out knowing that some trails would be impassable, that sections of the route would place us on uncomfortable roadways, and that weather, wildfire, flooding, and circumstances beyond our control would occasionally overturn our carefully considered plans. We would know that some days would be exhausting, that not every community would welcome us, and that there would be moments when we questioned what on earth we were doing.  But we would also know that those experiences represented only a small part of a much larger journey. We would remember the people who helped us along the way, the remarkable wildlife encounters, the landscapes we had never expected to discover, and the enormous variety of places that we had the opportunity to explore. More than anything, we would remember the simple pleasure of waking each morning without knowing exactly what we might encounter before the day was over.

Walking across Canada gave us an opportunity to experience our own country in a way that would have been difficult to replicate through any other form of travel. It did not mean that we came to know everything about Canada (not even close), or even about the places we passed through. Indeed, in many cases, the journey left us with more questions and more places that we want to return to explore.

 
So, would we hike the entire Trans Canada Trail again? Probably not. There are other journeys waiting, and we hope to have the opportunity to undertake at least a few of them.  But if we could return to June 1, 2019, standing at Cape Spear with our backpacks, cameras, and the extraordinary uncertainty of the years ahead of us, would we still take those first steps?
 
Without hesitation – it’s the journey of a lifetime.
 
See you on the Trail!