So you want to walk to Montreal

I'm writing this to be a guide I wish I had when I was setting off on this journey to walk from Toronto to Montreal. It's hard, but not for the reasons I had anticipated and it's not impossible.

Walking a long distance is not such a novel thing. I learned a lot on resources from thru hikers who had walked the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT), Continental Divide Trail (CDT) or Appalachian Trail (AT) in the US. There's a lot of good information out there on how to pack your bag, find good shoes and understand and train your body. But there's also a lot of differences.

On the aforementioned trails, you're able to walk until you're tired and then find a place to sleep for the night. ToMo (a name I'm stealing from a Redditor in Montreal) does not lend itself well to that kind of routing, especially on foot. Tree coverage is enough to discretely answer nature's call, but often not enough to pitch a tent.

Advice

Preparing your body

You should be physically prepared to walk 35km in one day with weight on your back. The longest stretches of walking will come in the first half, with one or two sprinkled in the second half, though the route planning is more flexible in the second half.

Additionally, this is not a cheap trip. Between gear, food and lodging, be prepared to spend at least $2,500. Most campsites I booked were around $65/night, hotels will run you ~$150/night on average. You can save a lot of money by bringing your own food but it will add a lot of weight. You will hit a major, well-stocked grocery store at least once every three days, you can also send yourself resupply boxes at different waypoints on the route.

Start by walking every single day, walking 10kms is not hard for the average person. Honestly, walking 35kms is not hard for the average person. The difficult thing is doing it with weight and back-to-back. I was aiming to walk 60kms/week most of the summer.

In the two weeks leading up to the trip, I started ramping up. I did this by actually starting to walk to Montreal.

My official starting point was the CN Tower on Day 1. But I had walked from Biidaasige Park to Bowmanville over a period of two weeks. So my route on Day 1 looked like CN Tower -> Biidaasige Park -> Transit to Bowmanville -> Continue walking to Newcastle.

So here's what my preconditioning looked like

As you can see, I was doing 10kms a day. However, where I failed at this is ramping up. I had one massive day but then everything else was 5-10kms. I paid for this dearly. Ideally before setting off I would have had a few days hitting 20kms. Days 1, 2 and 3 of my actual walk were 20k, 30k and 37k, respectively. My body was not prepared for that!

Here's a good training guide to follow, it's for the Camino de Santiago but applies well to the ToMo

Keep in mind, the ToMo involves a lot of hard surfaces to walk on, much more than the Camino. This is harder on your knees, you will get some relief with gravel shoulders, but still harder on you than a dirt path.

Summary:

  • Start walking a lot

  • Walk with weight

  • Slowly ramp up before you set out

  • Be physically prepared to walk 35kms in one day with weight

Preparing your bag

This is one where you can generally follow existing advice from thru hikers. If you're not already a thru hiker, here are a few things that really helped me out.

Get a cheap bag to start

This could be something you already have, it could be something cheap off of Marketplace. You will wind up replacing this (most likely) so don't overthink this one. Aim for something in the 40-50L range. Less will probably be too small, more will encourage you to overpack. You can start to gather gear and put it in your bag and walk around with that. You'll figure out what needs to be improved as you go.

Start figuring out what you need

You will probably hate that bag and jump to get a new bag. You'll see ultralight (UL) stuff on YouTube and Reddit. But don't rush to buy anything yet! My tent was light but not UL. My sleeping bag was UL and I added a liner to help improve the warmth. Both I got off of Marketplace. Personally I chose to spend my money on getting a great bag and great boots and then I cheaped out everywhere else. The cheapest thing you can do here is to just decide to not bring something. Lots of great "what not to bring" videos on YouTube for this.

Learn how to pack a bag

There's lots of guides online for this. Broadly, limit the things outside of the bag. Heavy things should be in the middle of the bag, close to your back. Light things should be on the bottom, ideally forming a nice base so it can stand on its own.

Go to a store to buy a bag

Get properly fitted for a bag and bring your gear that you're bringing with you. Go to an actual outdoors store like MEC in Canada, REI in the US or some equivalent local outfitter that knows what they're doing. Again, you don't necessarily need ultralight. My bag is a whopping 4.2lbs. It's so well designed to carry the weight I brought with me that I didn't really feel the 25lbs I was carrying on my back every day.

Get a sit pad

This seems like a dumb purchase, I wound up using it at least twice a day. It's great for having a clean surface to do first aid. I used it to dry my feet during rest periods and not have to worry about getting dirt on my sweaty feet. It was also good for, well, sitting. If you have an old foam pad you can also just cut that up, it doesn't need to be purpose built to be a sit pad.

Use trekking poles

These made a bigger difference than I would have expected. You don't necessarily feel the benefit as you use them. But if you walk for 5kms with them and then try to walk 5kms without, I personally noticed a difference in how my back felt (because of posture) and how much harder it was to do inclines.

Gaiters will save your feet

There is a ton of gravel on this trail. Your boots will have gravel in them within 30 minutes, likely immediately if you're using trailrunners.

Gear differences between ToMo and PCT/AT/CDT

  • You don't need a complex water filtration system, you'll rarely use it and you probably will only need it to get an extra litre or two

  • If you plan to eat at restaurants you don't need to bring a cooking system. I ate Clif bars to hold me over between big meals.

  • Broadly, this route is closer to the Camino since it goes directly through small towns and cities. Most PCT/AT guides will assume you're not going to see civilization for a while and you need to deliberately go off course. So keep that in mind for your gear.

  • You don't need to worry about bears, but there are other critters (see post here)

  • You probably don't need a satellite system. I don't recall ever being out of service. Service was bad enough that I couldn't load Google Maps every now and then, but never bad enough that I couldn't make a call. Rogers also now offers a service for $15/mo with no contract, called Rogers Satellite. It works via e-sim, so if your phone supports it, then you're good to go. Other networks in Canada are launching similar services but that was the only thing that was available to me.

At the end of this, I've added a section that outlines everything I brought with me. Do what is right for you. You might find it necessary to bring something that I didn't, and vice-versa.

Preparing your route

I put together a spreadsheet (which I've attached in this post) that had my starting and ending point set every single day. Before I left Toronto, I knew exactly where I was staying every single night.

I'd highly recommend doing the same. Some places you'll stop you won't find another lodging location for 10kms in either direction. If you show up somewhere and they're fully booked you'll be in a world of hurt.

Use the Waterfront Trail and La Route Verte's interactive maps, use Google Maps and Google Street View to figure out where you're going to go. Be sure your route factors in where you can get water, food and rest in general. When you're simulating the trip, you may find a good starting and stopping point and then you realize you don't know where you'll get food. The detour to get food now adds 10k so you actually can't get as far as you wanted to.

It took me several iterations of my route before I landed on something that worked well for me. Even then, I wound up re-working my second half route once I hit Kingston. So strong recommendation to book a refundable reservation where possible, especially for the latter portions of the trip.

However much you plan to walk in a day you will certainly wind up walking more. Days where I expected to walk 15k wound up being 20k. 30k days wound up being nearly 40k. Factor that in when planning your route, don't push yourself too much, especially in the beginning.

As you've probably figured by now, this is not the spontaneous kind of trip that you can just do on a whim. Planning is very important.

Water

The long distance trails have lots of water access points, despite ToMo running along the Waterfront Trail, the water access points are few and far between. Streams that you do come across are often below a bridge that makes it hard to access or completely surrounded by fenced in private land. You do come across public beaches or parks along a creek but they're inconsistent enough that you'll want to bring a lot of water with you. Many public parks, libraries or town halls in towns will have water refill locations.

Between Toronto and Kingston I would suggest carrying four litres of water when you set out, especially once you pass Cobourg. Between Kingston and Montreal, you could drop to three litres of water, some days allow you to just carry two. I would suggest always having at least two litres on you. I'll go over this more in the "My Gear" section, but I brought a water filter and purifier tabs with me. I only used the filter once and the purifier tabs twice, they're lightweight enough that I don't regret bringing them.

For water bottles I used 1l Smartwater bottles. These are the go to for thru hikers because they're lightweight, durable and extremely easy to replace. I do not recommend getting one with the sport cap, they break incredibly easily and may cause you to lose water.

I would also recommend bringing a smaller water bottle, around 500ml, it's more important that it's short. This can come in handy if your only water refill is a small washroom or kitchen sink. You can use that to transfer water from the sink into your bigger bottles.

Food

I would have 1-2 large meals per day at a restaurant. In my bag I kept trail mix (peanuts, raisins and M&Ms), dried pepperoni sticks (the ones that don't require refrigeration), freeze dried mangoes and Clif bars. This was enough variety for me that I didn't really get tired of it. I found myself really craving salads and fruit at the end. So much so, that for the first time in a decade, I took a trip to Montreal without eating any poutine. The last few days of the trip, I ate some watermelon chunks from a grocery store nearly every night.

Doing your business

First, #1, you'll be peeing in the trees a lot. The tree coverage comes and goes. So if you see a private-ish spot and you feel like you have to go, just go. You might not have another chance for an hour. There are a decent amount of port-a-potties and public washrooms along the way but they're not spread out evenly, so don't count on them. Depending on your anatomy, something like a Shewee might be a good idea, you can pick one up at MEC.

Second, #2, I did bring a trowel with me for going in the woods. However, I never wound up using it. The tree coverage is usually good enough that you can discretely pee, but it'd be much harder to squat. I'd recommend understanding your body on this one. Personally I have to go every morning after I eat and have coffee. So every single morning, before I left, I would go to Tim's, eat a hearty breakfast and not leave until I went to the washroom. If I had another big meal in the middle of the day, I similarly would not hit the trail again until I used the washroom. That worked for me, do what works for you.

La Route Verte has a lot more public washrooms along the route. During work hours (Mon-Fri, 9-5) you can also check the map for municipal/town/city halls and libraries. Libraries usually have better hours. Many will also be good for refilling a water bottle.

Importantly, bring toilet paper and hand sanitizer. I frequently encountered port-a-potties that did not have either.

On The Trail

The Waterfront Trail covers most of the Great Lakes in Ontario. The eastern end of the trail is right at the Quebec border where the trail becomes La Route Verte (route 5). Both organizations have interactive maps that are helpful for figuring out your route. They're both just okay at finding services along the way.

Navigation

Both trails are well marked. The Waterfront Trail will have signs indicating when to turn and sporadically puts signs in rural areas. Urban areas have more frequent signage. Studying your route before you leave each day is crucial. The Waterfront Trail is sometimes mere metres away from Lake Ontario or the St. Lawrence. At other times you can't see water at all. Understanding what to expect for the day will help you with navigation.

You'll likely wind up using your mapping software of choice along the way. I was using Google Maps. The walking directions on Google Maps are pretty garbage, especially over longer distances. It will never tell you to do something illegal (like walk on the 401) but it may give you weird detour instructions. There's one bit before you go into Brockville where, instead of just continuing on the highway, it sends you about 5km north, then east for a bit, then back south. So use your intuition, don't blindly follow Google Maps. Sometimes switching to driving instructions with "Avoid Highways" enabled will help you test whether something is a real detour.

Depending on how you planned your route, you may have to go off of the Waterfront Trail. I skipped past Prince Edward County and the Long Sault Parkway because they were too big of detours. I instead just continued walking along Highway 2 which is not officially part of the trail. I also found some neighbourhoods I could walk through that paralleled Highway 2 without adding too much of a detour but making the walking experience better.

What it's like

Walking along a highway sounds like it would be dangerous. In my experience, I felt safer walking along Highway 2 (on the shoulder, opposite traffic) than I do crossing some intersections in Toronto, Kingston or really any of the outskirts of the medium sized cities I visited.

The shoulders are pretty wide, people are already used to seeing cyclists and in my experience 99% of people attempt to give you extra space if there's no oncoming traffic. You will have people staring at you but at least they see you!

I listened to podcasts or music for about 80% of the day. It does get monotonous and the scenery isn't always nice.

Don't expect a lot of shade while walking, if it's a hot and sunny day, it'll be amplified by the road.

My Gear

With this and the next section, use this as reference for what I did and what worked for me. I am a 5'8", 180lb man in decent shape. How you go about this will be different from mine, this is just what worked for me.

This is an incomplete list, just listing the main things/what I remember off the top of my head.

Gear

  • Gregory Zulu 55 Backpack

  • Keen Targhee Apex trail runners

    • Originally used Salomon X Ultra 360 GTX boots but the toe box was too small and causing me blisters. Bought the Keens in Kingston.

  • Salomon Gaiters

    • These were fine, the only thing the outfitters (Trailhead) in Kingston sold, would recommend buying something better online though. Trailhead is a magical place otherwise!

  • Woods Trekking Poles

    • The cheapest ones at Canadian Tire

  • Quechua (Decathlon) Down Sleeping Bag

    • Rated for 10°C, I'm not sure about the specific model, bought used on Marketplace

  • MEC Vector Inflatable sleeping pad

    • Originally using a really cheap Ozark Trail egg shell pad and inflatable sleeping mat. They were horrible. Ordered new gear and my wife brought it to me when she came to visit me in Kingston.

  • Sea to Summit inflatable pillow

  • Sea to Summit sleeping bag liner

  • Patagonia rain jacket

  • Rain cover from Decathlon

  • Large quick-dry towel

  • Small quick-dry towel (for sweat)

  • Tilley Hat

  • 2x Long Sleeve hooded sunshirt

  • 1x regular athletic shirt to change into when in town

  • 1x MEC GORP shorts

  • 2x pairs of Saxx Quick Dry underwear

    • Washed clothes every night and hung to dry on the back of my bag

  • Goodr Sunglasses

  • Black Diamond USB-C Rechargeable headlamp

  • AirPods Pro

  • iPhone

  • Garmin Vivoactive 5

  • This battery bank and an extra USB-C cable

  • Dry bags from Decathlon

  • Dopp Kit

    • Deodorant

      • Don't listen to PCT people, bring this

    • Dr. Bronner's All-in-One soap bar

    • Toothpaste

    • Toothbrush

    • Nail clippers

  • First Aid Kit

    • Assembled myself including:

      • Neosporin

      • Moleskin tape

      • Band-aids

      • Blister bandages

      • Rubbing alcohol

      • Safety pins (for popping blisters)

      • Gauze

      • KT Tape

        • Put this on every single morning to help with blister protection and muscle soreness

      • Scissors

      • Hand sanitizer

Consumables

  • Nuun and Krono electrolyte tablets

  • Freeze Dried Mangoes

  • Pepperoni Sticks

  • Clif Bars

  • Trail Mix

  • Bug Spray (I went through a whole bottle of this!)

  • Sunscreen

My Route

Generally following The Waterfront Trail in Ontario, La Route Verte in Quebec. I modified it to walk along Highway 2 instead of dipping down into Prince Edward County or taking the Long Sault Parkway.

See the "Final Route" tab here in the spreadsheet (See "Pre-Conditioning Walk" tab for GTA section I walked, non-sequentially but still with my bag).

The Elephant Bus in The Room

There are a few times I wound up taking a bus:

  • Port Hope to Cobourg

  • Within Trenton

  • Within Belleville

  • Napanee to Kingston

  • Brockville to Cardinal

There were a few reasons I wound up taking buses:

  1. Transit is my first love (after my wife and my dog) and I wanted to check out some of these rural routes

  2. Napanee to Kingston was the result of me being too injured to walk, I wrote a whole other post about this

  3. Scheduling & Safety

As I mentioned before, I found walking in the medium sized towns to be more dangerous than the highway. Some of these towns have busy urban traffic, no sidewalks and lots of turning. People aren't expecting pedestrians there. Taking a bus from the edge of town into downtown helped me feel a bit safer. This also provided some rest as I had a pretty tight schedule.

For the schedule aspect, I had to be back in Toronto on a specific date. I also wanted to be able to rest in Montreal before heading home for at least two days. Brockville to Cardinal was the longest bus I took for scheduling reasons. This was a result of me re-working my plan in Kingston after needing to take a bus from Napanee. I didn't want a repeat of that so taking that bus allowed me to have slightly shorter days of walking in the back half.

Despite all of the buses, I still managed to walk nearly 600k. If you look up Google Maps walking directions from the CN Tower to the Mount Royal Cross, it will say 554km.

Conclusion

Please comment on this post if you feel like I missed something or you're planning to embark on your own journey! Would love to see more people do this walk. It was an experience of a lifetime for me :) I'm working on one final reflection post that I'll post in the coming days.

Rose coloured glasses: a first time experience

This is the raw stream of consciousness I experienced. Every time listed is the real time that I started typing the sentences that followed. Only some formatting changes and light proofreading were made after the fact.

I'm procrastinating. Ironically on taking my first pill. In a previous post, I alluded to me having ADHD. I didn't officially have it when I wrote it but I knew it was coming. I had been seeing a therapist specifically for this diagnosis, over about three sessions for nearly two months. I went on my walk to Montreal and somewhere east of Kingston I got the email with a preview of my test results.

It's now 10:45am, I was supposed to take the pill first thing this morning but I wanted to write about it. I got a new computer last night and for whatever reason, every other system I had in place to write about something wasn't good enough this morning. I ate my breakfast, had a coffee and then messed around with my computer for about two hours.

Last night wasn't a great sleep, I was thinking about taking this pill for the first time. I've read about other people's experiences on this for several months now. I'm equal parts nervous (mostly that it won't work) as I am excited (that it will work). People have described it as putting on glasses that let you see the world as other people experience it. I'm excited at the prospect of sitting down and writing not requiring me to have hours of build up to get going. That a five minute chore won't require me to spend two hours refining my todo list to be the most optimal. But I'm nervous that it will do none of that.

It's now 10:47am and I'm writing this because of a story I was told about during a high school literature class. I tried looking this up, I thought it was some beat poet like Ginsberg but it might have been Hugh MacDiarmid's *A drunk man looks at a thistle*. I'm not sure that's what it was, high school was a long time ago and I also didn't pay attention very well; overall I'm a pretty unreliable narrator here. Either way, I'm still writing because I wanted to document the experience.

It's now 10:52am, I've taken the Concerta out of the bottle and it's sitting next to me now. The pharmacist said it could take up to 30 minutes to kick in. It's late enough now that I'll probably have trouble getting to sleep before midnight.

It's now 10:57am, I still haven't taken it. At this point I'm having an ill-advised second coffee and will take the pill with it. While the water is boiling I took a moment to pet my dog. She's being very cute right now. She's always cute. But she's also cute right now.

It's 11:01am, my coffee is almost finished. I have a todo list with 14 things on it. I'm still on my sabbatical so I could just do none of them. But two of them are writing this post and taking the pill. My baseline would be that maybe four of those items get completed. My baseline is that the twenty odd unread messages on my phone would stay that way until guilt has built up enough to reply. I'm nervous that the baseline will continue to be my everyday. The pill being next to me but not being taken is a sort of Schrodinger's cat. If I don't take it, there's hope that it *will* work. If I don't take it, I haven't killed the dream that it will work. But if I do take it and it doesn't work, then what?

The time is 11:05. My coffee is done and I'm ready to see what happens.

It's 11:06am. After a long pause holding the pill in my hand, I've taken it with some water. A timer is going for 25 minutes next to me and now I wait.

Waiting

I'm imagining one of those Sci-Fi movies. Where the camera zooms in on the main character's face and it looks like they've been sucked into a black hole. Maybe it will be like that. My wife and I were reading about what happens when you take it yesterday. Impulse control is improved apparently. I joked that we should go to my favourite stores and see what happens. Would I be able to go to IKEA and *not* get a hot dog? Could I just *walk by a Best Buy*? I'm sure there's efficacy to these drugs, but surely they don't make you super human.

It's been almost 4 minutes now. It's 11:10am. I look over to my dog's food bowl and see that it's empty. She usually doesn't eat until the evening when she starts to get hungry, maybe grazing a bit through the day. I could easily fill up her dish but instinctively I added it to my todo list. Will I be cured of that idiotic process of putting off such a simple task. The mere act of adding something to my todo list takes the same amount of time as actually filling up her dish. But the *effort* feels so incredibly different.

It's now 11:13am. If I hadn't done so much procrastinating I would have probably been feeling the effects by now. Or maybe I am feeling the effects now? How will I know? Do you know? Does that worm hole effect really happen? I have that thought often. Not the worm hole thought. But if I had just procrastinated a little less, not no procrastination, just less, then I could have been casually walking to my meeting with someone instead of sweating because I'm trying to catch a streetcar I definitely won't make.

It's 11:16am, I'm gonna go pet my dog.

It's 11:18am, my dog had been pet, I also filled her dish. I'm not feeling any effects, that was more just me wanting to do something instead of think while I wait. What if I do feel different but it's not a good different? Like something that's sociably better and more productive but less creative? This is a brain that invented the renowned *Balls of America* where you boil macaroni in Coca Cola instead of water and then deep fry that with hot dogs, cheddar cheese and wrap it in bacon. Imagine if the world didn't have that?

It's 11:25am, I go on to Reddit to check what should be happening. Most people are saying it can take up to an hour for it to kick in. But the only way to tell is not from an altered state of consciousness but a shift from "I should do this" to "I should do this" and then going an doing that thing. I'll try that when my timer goes off in five minutes. How do I know it's not just placebo, though? My first test will be to cook. I have three meals to make, it should take less than 4 hours from start to finish.

It's 11:30am, I do feel different. It's subtle. I feel like I do after I get a really good night of sleep. I think the best way I can describe what I feel is like when you've been struggling with a stuffy nose and and then all of the sudden you're finally able to blow your nose and it's cleared up. It's like that but with my brain. Something feels like it has smoothed out.

After

It's 11:33am, I'm going to start tackling the cooking.

It's 12:02pm, I just did a lot of the prep work I needed to complete for cooking. I diced up 4 onions which normally would have taken me over an hour. Every half an onion I probably would have stopped and gone to work on something else like scrolling Reddit or doing some cleaning. Even coming back here to start typing something. I would say I pushed through, but it wasn't even pushing. The thought of not wanting to be chopping the onions went through my head multiple times but I kept going.

I'm noting my internal dialog being a lot less noisy. Random thoughts were coming but not sticking. Really the thought that was going through my head was just strictly related to that task and nothing else. Not even thinking about the next thing I need to do. The thought to go on Reddit just popped into my head, but it wasn't strong enough for me to actually open up Reddit.

It's 12:06pm, there's a lot of cooking left, going back to that.

It's 1:32pm, I'm getting to the point in cooking where there's 3-5 minute periods of waiting. My brain wants to do something else, but it's relatively easy for me to not do that thing. I'm aware that if I start doing something else, like checking my email or event returning to this writing that it would be enough of a distraction to derail me for more than 5 minutes. It still take the conscious decision to not get derailed. I consciously decided to return to this writing because it's been a while and I have to wait for a few things to finish anyways. But the effort required to keep moving is substantially less.

There's a red dot on my email app, I know there's a new email to look at but it isn't driving me insane to just leave it there. It's been there for at least 30 minutes (I have to return to my laptop to check the meal instructions) and I've been able to leave it there without it consuming me.

It's 2:42pm, I noticed it starting to wear off about 30 minutes ago. I didn't realise how much it was doing to calm me down. Every now and then I have a thought about something in the past that happen that makes me upset or angry. I had those thoughts pop up a few hours ago, but they just went away. Now I'm starting to see it impact me again.

The last bit of food is in the oven and will come out in three minutes, I just need to wait for everything to cool now so I can put it away and clean up. I'll eat in the meantime. The unread email notification is starting to bother me now but I'm still able to resist the urge to check it though it takes more effort.

It's 2:49pm, I've plated myself some lunch while I wait for the rest of the food to cool down. I emptied the dishwasher while I was waiting for my meal to be done. It took me around three minutes, normally I would have only done a portion of it and left the rest for later.

It's 3:56pm, I sent a couple of emails I've been procrastinating on, but the effort to send them was noticeable. I now need to put away the food but it is hard to get up. One thing I noticed when making the food is I didn't put on any music or a YouTube video. I wanted to, but I didn't do it, I was able to resist the urge.

It's 4:08pm, I'm feeling slightly shaky, like I've had too much caffeine. I think the focus part of this is getting close to wearing off. Starting to feel closer to my baseline again.

It's 4:36pm, the dishwasher is running, there's still more cleaning to do, all the food is put away. I'm still overall above baseline.

It is 5:44pm. I decided less than an hour ago to do a marketplace deal in Scarborough. This put a deadline on me getting the kitchen cleaned up which motivated me to get off my computer. I believe the effects of the drug have completely worn off now. I am on the train now to Scarborough, leaving at the last possible minute.

Next

Starting to cook always took some effort, this definitely helped getting me to finish cooking and clean up without a real deadline. But I have bigger challenges that I'd like to test next.

  • Going to the gym, non-class
  • Sitting and reading for more than 20 minutes and not in transit
  • Watching a movie, by myself, at home without picking up my phone or laptop
  • Can I use a smartphone without getting lost in it
  
It's 11:57pm, Finally posting this. It's 12:04am, landed on a title -- good enough.

Next

I’m going to do a post when I get home as a recap of my trip/how-to guide for walking from Toronto to Montreal. 

It’s honestly bittersweet to have achieved this goal. I’m proud but I’ve been running walking towards this goal since April and it’s been in the back of my mind for much longer. I need to find a new challenge. 

For now, I picked up a Rubik’s cube in Montreal and am learning how to solve that. So far, after a full day I’ve gotten it solved once. 

By far, the most unsatisfying thing about this is you have no idea, by that picture, whether I even scrambled it first. 

Amateur Anthropologist: Deux

This is a shorter one, here on my last day of walking. I like to wave to people in the country. 

Mer and I went PEI a bit ago and we had a Jeep rental car. Jeeps have the “Jeep Wave” where you give a small wave to other people who are also driving Jeep Wranglers. What a thrill!

As I’ve been walking on the side of the highway, I’ve made it a point to wave to people, especially those who give me plenty of room. 

Here’s who were most likely wave or nod back:
  • Jeep drivers, no surprise
  • Motorcyclists
  • People in there 30-40s in outdoorsy cars (like Subarus)
  • Big rig drivers
  • Bike packers, note regular cyclists were hit or miss

Least likely to wave back:
  • People over 60, men in this age range were also the least likely to say hi back to me on trails. There was about a 10% chance of people with silver hair (and I don’t mean this as a euphemism for old people old people, I literally mean people with silver hair) just staring at me as their car slowly started drifting towards me. 
  • Raised or modified trucks. This group loved to hug the white line and never slow down near me. 
  • Cyclists and runners in the afternoon

All other demographics had about a 20% likelihood of waving back. 

Alright, off to Montreal!

Comments Enabled

I’ve received unconfirmed reports that people are actually reading my blog now. Given I was the only reader of my blog, never felt the need to turn on comments (nor did I look into it) but they’re on now!

To make this worthy of being a full post, here’s a picture of the chicken McNuggets I’ve been noshing on at the beach.

Amateur Anthropologist

I’ve eaten at Tim’s a lot these past two weeks for breakfast. It’s not my first choice, unfortunately it often winds up being my only option in a lot of the places I find myself in. Smaller, local places either don’t open early enough or there literally isn’t one on my route around breakfast time. It also allows me a consistent (but very mid) breakfast, a spot to charge my phone and a pre-walk washroom break. 

Thankfully I’ve been able to have a lot of great, non-chain lunches and dinners. 

With that out of the way (oh, also, fuck JK Rowling) I’ve been able to make some observations. 

Every Tim’s has a gaggle of older men who just kind grunt at each other when one makes a quip about a current event (often political). They gather really early. I’m usually at Tim’s by 6am, the gaggle is fully formed by this point. I’ve witnessed the formation of the gaggle precisely once and it was majestic. 

It starts with two people sitting at separate tables. Then one person joins one of the two tables. These two people are close to each other (neighbours, cousins, old friends etc.)

The odd man out will join the group by making a comment on something they’re talking about and eventually join to form the gaggle. Most gaggles are 4-6 men. This gaggle is usually in its final form before 6, which is why it was such a rare occurrence for me to witness it. 

Regulars at Tim’s also follow a pretty common pattern. You won’t see all of these types at every Tim’s, but you can pretty easily collect them all. 
  • The gruff man who orders a coffee “just a black coffee”, when asked what he wants in it “milk” or “cream” if they’re fancier. This person always pays in coins, always precise. 
  • The person (in the gaggle) who complains about being tracked (or something to this effect) but collects Tim’s Rewards points
  • The loveable regular who is known by name and people leave their stations to personally greet
  • The couple (or gaggle member) who will talk about how good the coffee is at this specific Tim’s location or compare it to McDonald’s
  • The regular and employee who some kind of daily, sexually charged (but harmless) banter
This is a non-exhaustive list. A similar thing could be written about local pubs, but it’d be less interesting. 

Bandits in the night

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. 

My campsite for the evening

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

Photo from a different night but you get the idea

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. 

Passing the kilometres

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. 

Podcasts
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. 

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. 

Music
Just a lot of Jack Johnson

also

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

The blisters were too much

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. 

From the tent

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.