Noah Kochanowicz

I’ve spent a lot of my training energy with our dog on tricks that are pretty useless but make for good party tricks. One recent one is “secret”. I hold my hand up to my ear and have her put her snout in my hand, with her nose pretty much touching my ear. 

It’s a pretty easy one to do, you just start by putting a treat in the hand and eventually you take the treat out of the hand and give it to her after the “secret is told”. 

As such, I’ve become very accustomed to the sound of sniffing directly in my ear.

On Tuesday night, I found myself in Brockville, at St. Lawrence Park. A really lovely municipal park that offers camping and a great view of the St Lawrence river. 

The tent I have is very small, which means I have to leave a fair bit of stuff in the vestibule

A few hours into my sleep that night I heard an intense sniffing sound. I first thought I was dreaming of Mabou. But it was far too real, far too loud. I turned my head and spotted a raccoon within petting distance, just on the other side of the mesh of my tent. It took every fibre of my being to not pet the raccoon. 

For reasons that probably relate to exhaustion, I left a closed ziploc bag of dried mangoes in the vestibule. 

I tried shooing it away with my voice (and again, I want to underscore, despite desperately wanting to, I did not pet the raccoon) but it didn’t move away. Finally I turned on my flashlight on it and it reached its paw to grab the mangoes and scurried away. 

Later in the night I would get up to find that the ziploc proved too much for the trash panda. 

I went back to sleep, finding comfort in  the rest of my food being tucked away elsewhere. A few hours later there were two raccoons intensely sniffing on either side of the vestibule. 

There was nothing for them this time. But still I see my old friend popping its head in the vestibule. I shine the flash light on him and this little shit takes my sunglasses. 

I scrambled to bring my Tilley hat into the tent, afraid now that the raccoon was going to try to complete the look. 

I found the sunglasses in the morning, covered in slugs. I was able to shake them off but it was covered in some kind of residue and didn’t have time to clean it off. 

The next morning I popped by a Circle K to grab some aviators. Was able to wash off my other sunglasses thoroughly in my hotel on Wednesday night. 

When people are surprised to learn that I don’t like camping, might I remind them I’ve never had mangoes stolen from me at a hotel. 

I aim to walk at least 5 kilometres a day without my earbuds in to allow myself to be alone with my thoughts and just listen to nature. 

But being alone with my thoughts is a terrifying experience so here’s what I’ve enjoyed listening to save myself from that. It’s mostly podcasts, I can really lock in with a good podcast going. 

”The Chosen One” - Search Engine

Goes into detail about whose genitals are selected to be the lead image on their corresponding Wikipedia page. Lots of other great episodes from Search Engine. 

A CBC call in podcast where the hosts and guest compete to figure out the “big five” things of a given category selected by a random person who called in. Pick any episode, they’re all great easy listens. 

“NSL” - Darknet Diaries

Good true crime (for nerds) show. This episode was about National Security Letters which the FBI uses to silence people/stomp on constitutional rights using a vague excuse of terrorism. 

also

Featured on NPR’s All Songs Considered podcast. Some good bops. 

On Thursday, I had one of my longest planned walks between Belleville and Napanee going through Mohawk territory

The last 5km, after leaving Deseronto were real rough. I had four blisters on my toes and I was pushing through it. Starting and stopping is usually the worst part. Once I get moving I generally don’t notice it and can get back to a good pace after about five minutes. 

Friday I woke up and it was just too much. I had another 30kms planned to get to Kingston. I tried to push through but just couldn’t feel confident that I’d be able to do that for six hours. Walking through the middle of nowhere. No options to bail halfway through. 

There’s a bus that runs direct from Napanee to Kingston. I pulled open the page, went to book and then closed it. No this is fine, I have to keep moving. I’m walking to Montreal not bussing. 

I kept moving on a trail about a kilometre from my Airbnb and came to the same pain conclusion. I sat on a big rock and wanted to cry. This felt like giving up. I haven’t done a challenging thing since I immigrated to Canada. To see a challenging thing through to the end is just something I don’t do anymore. 

I booked the ticket and walked a bit further to get breakfast near the bus stop. I lost the battle but I can still win the war, so to speak. I’m determined to not make this another hobby or interest that succumbs to my ADHD induced disinterest. 

At that Tim’s, I had my coffee and took whatever paper material I could find to start reworking my plan. 

I know my limits better now than when I started. I put together a new plan which allows me to walk a bit less each day, aided by a few local bus routes to give my feet a break. 

My rest day is over now in Kingston. Getting to spend that with my wife meant so much. We happened to be here for the 10th anniversary of the last Tragically Hip concert. It was an amazing break. Quality time well spent. 

I’m getting to Montreal the hardest way possible. But now I’m doing it with a new plan, renewed energy and a new pair of boots. 

I’m lying here in this little world I’ve built. Everything around me carried on my back for over 100km now. I’d love for some more room to spread out, but it’s all the space I actually need. 

It keeps me free of the bugs, gives me privacy from the other campers. Later tonight I hope it will keep me sheltered from the rain. 

I’ve long felt a certain safeness in small spaces. Opposite of claustrophobia, though I wouldn’t describe all small spaces as safe. How you can feel like you have just enough in just enough space. Nothing more and nothing less. Like an astronaut packing their necessities. No rockets required. 

I feel that now. This part of camping I don’t mind. 

Look at how beautiful this is!

Still not a fan of camping. Back hurts and a bad sleep. Thankfully only 20km of walking today. That will put me a stone’s throw from Belleville!

I need to get a new pillow and sleeping mat. The cheap ones I picked up a few years ago really aren’t cutting it. 

The blisters are also getting to me today. Just spent a good hour in a nice park in Brighton trying to get those fixed. That park had public washrooms, picnic benches, lots of shade AND a water bottle refill station. 

Honestly, today hasn’t been great. It’s felt the loneliest, hottest and the biggest struggle, despite it being such a short walk today. 

Yesterday was a really great day. I had briefly befriended a garbage man. Two different cyclists who were bikepacking and a pair of runners cheered me on. I had miss calculated my route and originally thought I’d be passing through a town in the middle to get water. Unfortunately, I wasn’t. Thankfully I found a public beach on Lake Ontario and got to use my water filter for the first time and take a dip while I waited for the Aqua Tabs to do their thing. 

Had a nice break at a nature reserve too

Shout out to “The Royal Crown” pub I stopped at in Colborne. Excellent food and cold Steam Whistle on tap. The bartender, upon hearing about my trek, offered to fill up my water bottles. 

When I get to longer breaks on this walk I’ve been reading. I have a bunch of books downloaded. 

I should probably be reading something very profound on this long walk. Like Thoreau or stuff written by a monk. But I’m reading Carley Fortune’s “Meet me by the lake”

and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. 

Day 2 of Getting To Montreal The Hard Way kicks off with my new morning routine of taping up my feet  has been great for blister protection  

My water filter kit still sits in its bag unused. I have a feeling this kit won’t stay with me past Kingston. I brought this based on thruhiking recommendations. It gets added to the list because thruhikers on the PCT, AT, etc. don’t have water taps available at the end of the night. 

No issues refilling for me! But we’ll see. I want to use it at least once so I can feel like a real backpacker! Even on a day like today where I won’t encounter any water taps (or maybe even water sources) until I get to my destination, I can still carry enough water to get me through the day. 

Off to Port Hope. Here’s a video from a pit stop yesterday. 

First leg kicked off with a walk from the CN Tower through Biidaasige Park with Mer. Took a pit stop to have a coffee with my friend Adam. Now I’m en route to Bowmanville to walk my second leg of the day to Newcastle. 

Yesterday I discovered this heat map feature on Strava which shows all of your recorded activities on a single map. So it very neatly shows the complete route I pre-walked going in. 

I’m feeling good. Today is an easier day, around 15km of total walking. I’m nervous but ready to get going and feel as ready as I’ll ever be.

Coming to Main Street/Danforth station today felt like a real trip. This station has been the starting point for a bulk of my walks these past two weeks. The goal of walking to Montreal always on my mind but now it’s really happening. Once I get off this train I’m going east and not heading back home till I set my feet in La Belle Province. 

Allons-y. 

I wrote about my sabbatical plan here 4 months ago: https://nowuh.com/landing-on-a-sabbatical-plan

Since then I've been busy preparing and getting married. This Saturday, 6 days away as of me typing this, I will set off on my walk to Montreal. I've gone through different gear (hello new backpack and boots) including things I bought for this trip that I now realize I won't use and learned a lot about how to keep my feet mostly free of blisters.

If all goes according to plan, I should be walking into Montreal on September 1st.

In planning this I've gone through a ton of refinement. I did many practice walks with and without my backpack. I learned that I am able to go on a hike right after camping. I learned that 55km is my absolute max I can walk in one day but I'll sacrifice the next day. I also learned that the route from Toronto to Montreal really isn't made for people to walk it. 

One concession I've made is that busses are okay to use. When possible, I'll take a city bus to cross a town. This will come up in Port Hope to Coburg and crossing Kingston. Because the lodging options are a bit difficult, I did have to prebook everything to make sure I'm not leaving myself stranded. There may come a day I need to skip a hiking day just for my physical safety and for the Toronto-Kingston leg, I can mostly rely on the Maple Bus to do that. I'd like to avoid that bailout option if possible. 

In total, I should be walking around 513km with around 40km being aided by bus. This is both to provide myself a bit of a break and because hotel/camping options aren't always available in the cadence I need. Another way I could have avoided this is to add a couple days to my trip, but I know I'll need time to recover within my sabbatical before returning to work. 

Another weird thing I'm doing with this is I'm not technically starting in Toronto. I'll actually be walking from the town of Bowmanville to Montreal. To condition myself from this trip, I've been walking the portion of Toronto to Bowmanville in several chunks. 

When hiking a long journey like this it's important to ramp yourself up. So those 5-10km hikes should help with the conditioning. On August 15th, the only thing that should be left is CN Tower to Danforth GO. So I plan to walk that segment, jump on the GO train, then GO bus and then continue walking until I hit Newcastle to end day 1.

This coming week, I'll wrap the last two middle segments I have left (Guildwood to Rouge and Rouge to Pickering) and then start doing more 15-20km walks to continue ramping things up.

I found it remarkably true what people say about this being the happiest day of your life. I'm filled with so much love and happiness towards Mer and the life we've built so far, and for the life we're going to continue to build together. I'm still replaying memories of that day in my head.

What I didn't find was that it went by in a flash. In some ways it went by at the speed of any other day. But this had moments that were excruciatingly slow (like waiting for our first look around 3pm) and other moments that you could blink and miss. The legal signing ceremony was one of those moments. I think we both just looked at that time as a formality when we were planning it out. But it was really magical. My mom, who has trouble speaking, gave some moving words before we signed. All of our immediate family was in the room with us, sharing in this moment before the festivities. The champagne at the end was a nice touch to deal with the nerves that had been building up throughout the morning.

I spent that morning with my brother Adam and one of my groomsmen, Cody, sampling a flight of ridiculously fancy coffee. It was a nice distraction from my nerves about messing up my vows. A great way to caffeinate after a very sleepless night.

Mer and I headed out on a mini moon right after. A perfect length of time in a tranquil spot filled with good food, highland cows, a neat train and the love of my life. It's an amazing place that everyone should visit, but I'll go ahead and gatekeep it for now.