Page 80 - 2022-08-01 Paddling Magazine

CANOEING

Coast
PROFILE

To Coast

To Coast

Dianne Whelan completes six-year, 27,000-kilometer continent-crossing odyssey
by alison karlene hodgins
“GOOD STORIES HAVE MANY BEGINNINGS,” paddled on, and watching the northern lights along
Dianne Whelan loves to say. Her six-year cross- the Mackenzie River. But reality checks came often:
continent journey on the Trans Canada Trail (TCT) paddling past forest fires, breaking ice with a hatchet,
officially began in St. John’s, Newfoundland, in 2015 and learning of a fellow paddler drowning and an-
when she was 50 years old as a search for hope. other being attacked by a grizzly bear.
Her journey also began many years prior in rural “To survive out there, you have to learn from mis-
New Brunswick when her mother lit a fire in the takes,” Whelan says. “Adaptation, connection and
snow using birchbark. And it started in the early timing are key. I didn’t survive because I’m special or
1990s when she first heard about the TCT after her smart or better. And there’s always an element of luck.”
family donated to its creation. “Every woman who goes off into the woods by her-
It’s these beginnings that led Whelan to hike, bike, self is going to face fear, but in the six years I was out
paddle, ski and snowshoe a 27,000-kilometer con- there, I never met anyone who posed a threat to me,”
tinuous line across Canada, traveling from Atlantic to she adds. “Every fear I had, I packed out there—they
Arctic to Pacific oceans. The TCT is the world’s longest weren’t in the landscapes, they were in me.”
multi-use recreational trail, and tracing it seemed an Much of her journey was solo, but many hands
ideal project, following Whelan’s previous documen- helped along the way, including filmmaker Ann
tary films covering Mount Everest and the Arctic. Verrall, who filmed portions for the upcoming
Whelan initially planned for the route to take her documentary about the journey, titled 500 Days in
roughly two years—or approximately 500 days. On the Wild. During the final 200 kilometers, Whelan
her tenth day, she acknowledged she hadn’t gone paddled sections of the British Columbia coast with
as far as she’d hoped to make it on the first. So, she two Indigenous women, with her partner, and also
burned her schedule. Continuing at a slow and steady by herself on the Salish Sea.
pace, on August 1, 2021, she became the first person “Those last 20 minutes, I was bawling my eyes
to complete both the land and water trails of the out,” Whelan says.
TCT—six years after she started. Upon arrival at the end of the trail in Victoria,
Eight-thousand kilometers of the TCT’s route spans British Columbia, she followed traditional Coast
lakes and rivers. Whelan paddled them in a 15-foot Salish protocol. Cecelia Dick and LaVatta Frank,
Nova Craft Canoe Prospector, using a kayak paddle daughters of the late Pally Dick, Hereditary Chief of
to evenly distribute the effort on her body. Her ca- the Songhees, came to greet her. “I said who I was,
noe was named Kwimu (loon) by members of the the journey I had been on, and asked permission to
Mi’kmaq community. come ashore. I gifted them tobacco wrapped with
“The [paddling routes] were my favorite part of the birchbark and cedar,” Whelan says.
journey,” she says. “They brought me into traditional “They welcomed me to shore. We walked to Mile 0
Indigenous communities. In some cases, I spent weeks of the trail, held hands, and they sang the warrior
to facilitate the reconciliation part of the journey, song. Then they said, ‘We are one.’ These are people
which was to listen, learn and witness.” She describes who are digging up graves in the back of residential
her journey not as an athletic achievement, but an schools right now. And they are there to honor this
ecological pilgrimage to honor the land and water, journey, and then to say that: ‘We are one.’ The Earth
and to pay respect to Indigenous people. is our country. We are one.”
On the shore of Lake Superior, she joined a week-long At the end of her journey, Whelan says she dis-
Ojibwe ceremony with a four-day fast. “I feel immense covered what she was looking for: “I found hope.”
gratitude to have had those experiences. They made the
journey profound,” she says. Find more about Dianne Whelan’s upcoming film and
Some aspects of her journey sound idyllic: a moose book at 500daysinthewild.com.
in the river near her tent, drinking the water she

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