They say that a journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step. The same is true for a journey of 14,900 miles. When Dianne Whelan started hiking the Trans Canada Trail, she had little experience. She’s the first person to finish it. She is an award-winning documentarian and has made a new film about her experience called 500 Days in the Wild. The film’s name comes from the fact that she initially thought the hike would take 500 days; it actually took six years.
In 2015, after the death of her beloved 16-year-old dog and the end of her 13-year marriage, Ms. Whelan was sad but also free of any commitments tying her to one spot. Her mother told her no one had completed the Trans Canada Trail, and she thought it sounded fun. As a teen, she had done Outward Bound programs and learned survival skills, but she was not a long-distance hiker.
To prepare for her trip, Ms. Whelan sold her home and car. However, she did not physically train. She says she got “on-the-job training,” saying there isn’t a way to prepare to be active for nine hours a day every day.
Ms. Whelan was not trying to overcome an obstacle or win a challenge, so speed wasn’t an issue. She could enjoy her trip and take her time. “It’s really not about conquering anything. It is about connecting to something. Connecting to myself. Connecting to this physical and cultural world around me, so I think it is really different that way,” she said.
Ms. Whelan originally planned to hike nonstop and complete the trip sooner. But the paths froze around her.
When she posted about her problems, a native person replied, “Winter is not a time for traveling, it’s a time for sewing buttons. Be like the bear — it’s time to hibernate.”
Getting out can help you see amazing things, learn more about yourself and reframe how you see the world. When you are hiking, there are many times you might need a hand on the trails. It could be equipment problems, directions that are difficult to follow or a trail being impassable. That means helping and being helped by strangers if you go out alone. For Ms. Whelan, it gave her a kinder view of our world. “Over the course of my journey, I was helped by hundreds of strangers. When I left home, I thought the world was run by psychopaths, but it turns out it’s full of kind people.”
