Sunday South End Walk

In less than a month, we’ll be walking some 300 kilometres through southwestern Saskatchewan, from Swift Current to Battleford, following the route of a trail used by settlers, Métis traders and buffalo hunters, and First Nations. (You can learn more about that walk here.) The days will be relatively short–just 20 or 25 kilometres–but it’s going to be hot and there will be little shade, and I need to get ready for both the heat and the distance. So does Christine, my walking partner. But we’re at different stages in our training. I’ve been walking 25 kilometres when I go for a walking, but Christine has been covering 12 or 14 kilometres. (I started walking before she did this year, almost as soon as the snow melted in April.) We wanted to walk together today, but how were we to do that, given our different needs and goals and distances?

Obviously, we needed to compromise. Christine is very methodical and concerned about getting injured. Injuries happen–a good friend of mine had to abandon a walk in France a while back because he ended up with a stress fracture. So Christine is right to be concerned. We talked about where we could go. I suggested we try walking around the lake and then through the neighbourhoods in the south end of the city. That should add up to 15 or 16 kilometres, I said. Christine thought that would be okay. And off we went.

We got to the only hill in the city–the Goose Island Overlook–and climbed it. You have to take your interval training where you find it, and unless you want to climb stairs in an office building, you need to make use of the Goose Island Overlook. Halfway to the top, a young fellow stopped us. He was in his twenties, from somewhere in south Asia. “Excuse me,” he said. “Can I ask you a question? You see, I’m new in this city, and I have to ask you: what motivates you to get up every morning and walk around the lake?” We explained that we were training for a longer walk in August, and that I’d walked 1,000 kilometres in Spain four years ago. “I could never do that,” he said. “It’s all I can do to drive here and then go home and have a cigarette.” “You’d be surprised,” I said. “When I was in my twenties, I couldn’t have imagined walking across Spain. But when I turned 50, I did it.” He wished us well and we finished climbing the hill.

We finished walking around the lake. We went through the university campus, past a stand of fireweed on the shore of the lake, and headed back into the city. By the time we got to Albert Street, some 12 kilometres into our walk, we were thinking about lunch.

“We could have salad at the Lancaster Taphouse, on the patio.”

“They have salad?”

“Every place has salad.”

“I don’t feel like sitting in a bar. What about the Japanese place in the mall?”

“That’ll be too much food. What about the falafel place in Harbour Landing?”

“Okay. Let’s go there.”

And that’s what we did. We walked along Gordon Road to Harbour Landing, a new commercial and residential development on the southwest corner of the city, right under the airport’s flightpath. We ate falafel. And then we turned north, towards home.

It was getting hot. And the walk had turned out to be longer than I’d anticipated–some 21 kilometres. But we made it home without any symptoms of heat exhaustion, without any injuries. All is well. And now it’s time for a cool drink in the shade.