What if Here is All We Have?

Publication: New Trail

If you can’t travel widely, travel deeply.

What if this place is all there is? Amiskwaciy-wâskahikan, this place where Edmonton grew, was for some 8,000 years a human gathering place, but its written history dates back less than 200 years. Northern, subject to harsh winters and unpredictable summers — how do we fully inhabit this place?

Sheila Thompson, ’74 BEd, and Graham Hicks, both long‑distance walkers, decided in 2018 to walk our river valley. Read their experiences as they inaugurated the Camino Edmonton, named for Spain’s famous pilgrim’s trail, Camino de Santiago. Again this year, our goal is to celebrate what civic, corporate and volunteer collaborations have built — trails, paths, stairways and walking bridges — by making a secular 100‑kilometre pilgrimage from Devon to Fort Saskatchewan over five days.

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Posted in: Alberta Unbound: Stories for Change