ZOOM | SUMMER 2023

the sunshine coast magazine
When I left everything behind at age 50
—8 years ago—the world had stopped
making sense to me. Whales with bellies
full of car parts found dead on shores,
fish contaminated by plastics and
mercury. Climate change threatening not just us, but future
generations. I was disillusioned with the state of the world
and had lost faith in the resilience of the human spirit.
I needed to check out, in order to check in.
I’m no stranger to remote and challenging locations—I’ve
filmed in the high arctic and at Everest base camp, and
written books and made films about those experiences.
So tackling and filming the world’s longest trail didn’t seem
that far-fetched.
500 Days in the Wild is the story of my 6-year journey hiking,
biking, paddling, snowshoeing, and back country skiing the
26,000km Trans Canada Trail which runs from the Atlantic
to Arctic to Pacific Ocean. Interwoven with the adventure
are the stories of the communities, inspiring individuals and
wildlife that crossed my path along the way.
A story that calls us back to a place of respect for the earth.
Indigenous history and spirituality are inseparable from the
story of the trail—and on a trail built to celebrate Canada’s
150 years, that story began 12,000 years ago or more. My
own story is that of a woman whose Acadian ancestry goes
back only 400 years.
So from this perspective of a settler seeking understanding
I engaged in cross cultural conversations, listening, and
learning in the indigenous communities that I spent time in
on this journey: Mi’kmaq, Maliseet, Cree, Standing Buffalo,
Ojibwe, Lakota Dakota, Dene, Metis, Inuit, Haida and the
Coast Salish. All of these encounters occurred while I was
paddling the water routes. They are the most ancient trails
on this land.
Fur trader trails, mule cart trails, old rail line trails—each forms
another layer of the story. The three-billion-year-old rock of
the Canadian Shield on the shores of the Lake Superior is the
story of the creation of the earth. The story of the impact
crater in the Charlevoix mountains in Quebec is the story
of one of the earth’s six extinctions. The land and the water
have their own stories to tell. But in contrast to these stories
of longevity are themes of climate change which emerge
throughout the film, as weather is the backdrop to every
scene, with heat domes, raging forest fires, thick smoky
skies, and floods all part of the experience on the trail.
summer 2023 15