June 5, 2025: Fifty-four years old
Edmonton is home to one of the most extensive pathway systems in North America. In fact, it is the largest, comprising over one hundred and sixty kilometres of urban trails. Look it up online, and you’ll read time and again that it’s more than twenty-two times the size of Central Park. I’m going to have to take their word for it, but check out a map, and you’ll find the trails stretching east to west and north to south, from end to end of the city in every direction.
Many of the pathways follow the North Saskatchewan River, while others follow the numerous creeks that feed into it. The trails slink beside ravines and sanctuaries, rising and falling across ridges and valleys. Massive bridges cross over the river, flanked by wide paths for bikers and walkers.
There are beautiful lookout points, footbridges that crisscross over the connecting ravines and creeks, and more than thirty parks that line the pathways. Some paths run on gravel and dirt, climbing up and down hills and staircases, right through the urban forest, while others wind through majestic city neighbourhoods with lush green spaces and vibrant architecture. You can walk for hundreds of hours and never see the same place twice.
My journey through Edmonton this summer will last between forty and fifty days and cover over eight hundred kilometres, similar to the Camino Frances pilgrimage in Spain, one of the many routes forming part of the greater Camino Santiago (CS). Metaphorically, I will start my journey in Pamplona, Spain, and finish near the western coast, at the famous Cathedral in Santiago de Compostela.
Many pilgrims choose to continue their walk past Santiago de Compostela and trek all the way to the ocean, symbolizing the completion of their journey. The act of walking until there is no more land to walk upon can be powerful and meaningful. Personally, I have a strong connection to the ocean, having spent many years living in Baja California, so I plan to continue my pilgrimage until there are no more steps for me to take. The name of the town at the edge of Spain is Finisterre, which means “end of the world,” and jumping into the ocean after well over a month of walking is often seen as a final act of purification.
Each day, my path will be approximately the same distance as the typical stage would be on the CS in Spain. Of course, there are no rules on the Camino, and pilgrims can start and stop at any point along the way, taking as long or as short as they like to complete the trek. For myself, I plan to walk anywhere between eighteen and twenty-five kilometres per day, with a few longer days when necessary.
I will be sleeping each night in a room I’ve rented at an Airbnb right near the center point of the Edmonton River Valley pathway system, literally spending my last cent to make My Camino happen. Instead of the infamous albergues (hostels) that line the various routes of the CS in Spain, I’ll be returning home to the same bed each night, which seems a touch cushy, but I also won’t be sipping vino rojo or munching Spanish tapas while lounging on outdoor patios in majestic, medieval Spanish towns—so there will be give and take on both sides.
Assuming I had the money for a flight, the food, and the accommodations, which I clearly don’t, the reality is that summer in Spain is when nearly everyone walks the CS. The albergues, pensiones, and cafés are full, and the trails are anything but a solitary experience.
Between 400,000 and 500,000 pilgrims walk one of the various routes of the Camino each year, most of them choosing the Camino Frances, which itself attracts nearly 200,000 pilgrims. Joining hundreds of thousands of pilgrims in Spain would be an incredible experience, and I still hope to do so one day. However, recreating a Camino experience in my own backyard is a possibility for self-transformation that wouldn’t be available to me otherwise.
People walk the pilgrimage for a variety of reasons, but often at least part of their motivation is related to some form of self-discovery, healing, or transformation. Walking for forty days in a row, up to seven or eight hours at a time, does something to the body, mind, and spirit; it changes us. The time on the trail allows us time and space to see things within ourselves that weren’t possible amidst the chaos and busyness of everyday life.
The process of exhausting the body to such an extreme limit can alter how we perceive life and our place in the world around us. Placing one foot in front of another for over one million steps can teach us lessons we would never have learned otherwise.
My Canadian Camino will start on July 24th and finish in early September, depending on how my body copes with the daily mileage. Until then, I have forty days to prepare for the journey, with steady rations of increasingly longer walks to strengthen my legs, light weightlifting to build my muscles, and a diet rich in fruits and vegetables to help prepare my body. All together, I’ve got eighty days, just one lone summer, to transform myself and my life into something that I can recognize and, perhaps, even be proud of.
I’ve done everything I can to scratch and claw my way out of this life that I’ve created, but now, I have to let go. The harder I try, the further behind I fall. I have no money, no home, no permanent job, no possessions, and to be honest with myself, no life. This summer, I’m giving it all to the Camino, and then, what will be will be. I have no more last-minute aha moments, no more final-ditch efforts, or creative, strategic planning to buy me just a little more time.
My time is out.
I literally have nothing left to lose.