THE EXPEDITION Chapter 3: Beginning (Section 3)

In which the Tilley hat goes to Tilley 

Date: April 24 2019

From Bassano to Brooks, Alberta 51 km

The night cashier gave me permission to camp behind the building, but I awoke to grumpy morning staff who weren’t impressed with finding an uninvited tent by their doorstep for the umpteenth time. They were stingingly descriptive about their opinions of people who do such things (and who then, it seems, often expect free breakfast) and I admit I cried inside my nylon hiding spot and wished it were invisible, or that the parking lot would suddenly develop a sinkhole right there and then. Mr Myrtle calmed me down, as he always does… he talked me into getting up and going inside, so I took a deep breath and went straight to the counter to mend fences first (but not too close, because toothbrushing would have to be second). They all ended up signing the petition, and were so sweet to us, and we had a lovely breakfast followed by a pretty constructive talk with a table full of local men and regular truck driver customers. Someone with open ears and mind and heart paid for our breakfast, and the restaurant ladies sent us off with hugs and good wishes and extra eggs for Mr Myrtle.

A lovely good tailwind that day blew us about 50 kilometres, down – and up! – the sloping hills. We rolled into Brooks right about when most folks have dinner. Before we could do that, though, we discovered that, much as they’d like to let us stay, the truck stop had nowhere to put a tent. The small campground was only open for RV’s and was overly full anyways. The ladies at a nearby motel made an executive decision to let me pitch the tent at the back of the property, but as they watched from inside, the wind that had pushed us there kept trying to take the tent away – they finally ran out, half laughing and half worried, and tucked us into a nice warm room for the night, with warm tea and hugs, and with two more signatures on the petition.

Date: April 25 2019

From Brooks to Tilley 25 km

As I packed the trailer before heading to the diner for breakfast, a couple came across the parking lot. A stocky, red-faced man probably in his 70’s had to find out what this ridiculous contraption was. He wheezed and coughed as he bit my head off about my scooter, which clearly was no good, because it didn’t use any gas and wasn’t even powered by just-barely-acceptable electricity instead. Then he wanted to know why I was doing such a stupid thing, so I told him. Then he got really mad.

He didn’t believe in the climate crisis, it’s all a pile of crap, and he’s going to “****ing well burn all the ****ing carbon (he) ****ing can, and **** everyone,” especially me.

Finally he ran out of steam. As he stomped away, his quiet, tired, squashed-looking wife said quite clearly, “I don’t care what you believe – what about our children?!”

I was still standing there stunned when another older couple came over to ask if I was alright, and say hello to my puppy, and kindly wonder what I was up to. By the time we went in for breakfast, paid for by this very nice – and nicely timed – couple, it was already a good day.

Some of my scraps of notes and names survived all the repacking and rain and everything else that happened. Hopefully some day I can get in touch with everyone who made so much difference, to say hello and send a hug. Meanwhile, as I walk the road again in my mind and my fingers retrace my steps on the keyboard, one story leads to another and I meander through them, awed by everything that happened and by how very small the world is. In Winnipeg, we stayed with an activist there whom, it turned out, was dating the second couple’s son.

I opened the mapbook between the breakfast dishes while Mr Myrtle snorffled down a lovely runny fried egg. Again, people wanted to talk… not all agreed, but most did, and many went online and signed the petition, or found the facebook page, or both.

There were two decisions to make.

First, would I go 8 kilometers off the highway to stay in Tilley, or rely on happening to find something closer? Second, if going to Tilley, would I keep wearing what had so far been my regular hat, a ‘stone’ coloured Frogg Toggs boonie hat made of recycled shopping bags (it’s waterproof but never gets sweaty) and leave my Tillley safely packed? Or would I switch, because even though the town is not related to the hat, it’d be a once in a lifetime opportunity to wear my Tilley hat in Tilley and have a picture by the Tilley town sign?

We went to Tilley, not entirely because it was the best option for finding a good place to camp.

A few locals wondered about the odd ducks wandering towards their town as they drove down the narrow road, and one mother stopped with her daughter, quite interested in the whole mission. It was a skinny road though, and someone needed to pass, so they went home to look things up.

I had a great long talk with more locals in the general store, where it turned out most folks around knew things were no longer right, and that the changes were growing… but they didn’t know anyone else wanted to talk about it. It’s Alberta. Rural Alberta. It’s a cliché, and a negative one, but “nobody wants to talk about that stuff here”. So they hadn’t been talking at all, really. By the time we went across the road for dinner at the yummy little ubiquitous small-town Alberta Chinese restaurant, they were all talking together about the potential future or lack thereof, in really constructive ways.

I had veggie chop suey (and Mr Myrtle had the carrots) while talking to my future sailboat crew of one on the phone – the same friend whose tent we were using. We met three and a half years earlier, in a mercado in a small town in the Sacred Valley of Peru. I’d been trying to keep living in places where I can be healthier, first Jamaica with an e-job (and several business ideas that never got off the ground, but that’s all another story) then working for a former neighbour who’d moved to Peru and built what turned out to be a somewhat questionable and not entirely legal retreat centre (another tale too long to fit here, but written elsewhere). Both our phones hate us and we don’t talk enough, because now he lives in Iowa and I’m traipsing around in Canada. He studies renewable energy and sustainable farming and transcendental meditation these days, and is really quite brilliant, but his feet will get itchy again.

Mr Myrtle and I had been told to feel free to camp at the baseball diamond just back towards the highway a little bit. They often did themselves, just for fun, especially the teenagers. After much debate about the clouds and wind, the locals in the shop decided we’d better pitch the tent under the large roofed area there so we’d stay dry , and Mr Myrtle could have dry space to run around in the morning. We’d be almost halfway back out to the highway there, so I said we wouldn’t come back into town for breakfast, but a few folks sent us off with just-in-case things for morning.

Date: April 26 2019 AM

It barely rained, and I took down the tent as the sun came up. The grey hawk who’d been intermittently following us since Calgary soared overhead. And as we came towards the highway, a family came along and broke my heart.

The mother I’d spoken with the afternoon before had been up all night long with her husband, doing serious research about the climate crisis. They’d known things weren’t right, but the extent of that truth had them in tears, and nearly in shock. We talked and talked and I tried to point them in helpful directions, to find support, and things they could do. The best part was when I told them about chatting in the general store with others about the climate crisis – “Thank you for giving us the opportunity to talk with our neighbours… thank you for what you’re doing… please, don’t stop, don’t give up.”

Three beautiful little girls who looked and were named as if they’d fallen out of fairytales sat in the back seat of the minivan. I told them that yes, as their parents had said while explaining to them they’d be late for school due to looking for a stray activist on the highway to talk, I really was going to walk to Ottawa and try to help make the government care about saving the world, and that I’d be doing it for them now, too. We all hugged and cried and they wished us well, and I still wish them well too.

I feel awful for having scared them so deeply… but they already knew so much that maybe it was better to dig deeper, down to where pieces of hope lie buried. And we’re nothing alone. Stories like this one make me so thankful that people are becoming able to connect with each other about this, to talk, to support each other, to try to do something.

Now, even when I do lose hope, those storybook girls and their parents remind me not to give up.

That day the walking became meditation. I walked as if my feet were kissing the earth, feeling every step and feeling the earth through my soles. Even when they hurt, steps melt into a flow, a meditation. Each step is a little closer to what can still be.

#WalktoWakentheNationexpeditionbook