Around the Province in 88 Days: One Woman, Two Pairs of Sneakers and 3000 Kilometers of Nova Scotia Coastline

By Emily Taylor Smith

A Nova Scotia woman shares her experience of walking the province’s coastline for charity and what she learned along the way.

Early on a May morning, a young Nova Scotia woman straps on a small backpack and leaves the Halifax Common to start her journey along the coastal roads of Nova Scotia. Planning to cover almost a marathon a day, she will walk the perimeter of the entire province in just under three months to raise awareness for the Heart and Stroke Foundation and the Brigadoon Children’s Camp Society. She billets with locals each night and meets countless Nova Scotians who come out to walk with her, support her project, and tell their stories.

Along the way, fellow walkers share family folklore, tales of buried gold, lost fingers, and detailed instructions on how to catch a beaver by the tail. “We don’t wear make-up and we don’t dust,” explains one of the women Emily meets near Sable River, when asked how she found the time to rebuild the trails in her area and win the Community Spirit Award. Struggling with blisters, fatigue, and an encounter with a bear cub, Emily walks on, overwhelmed by the generosity of her hosts in each community and by the stunning coastal views at every turn. Around the Province in 88 Days details Emily’s beautiful and quirky experiences on the road as she develops an intimate connection with the province and its people, unsuspecting of the vast changes the trip will eventually set in motion in her own life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Sep 1, 2019
• ISBN: 9781988286693

Book preview

Around the Province in 88 Days

One Woman, Two Pairs of Sneakers and

3000 Kilometres of Nova Scotia Coastline

Emily Taylor Smith

Pottersfield Press, Lawrencetown Beach, Nova Scotia, Canada

Copyright © Emily Taylor Smith 2019

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or used or stored in any form or by any means – graphic, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying – or by any information storage or retrieval system without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any requests for photocopying, recording, taping or information storage and retrieval systems shall be directed in writing to the publisher or to Access Copyright, The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (www.AccessCopyright.ca). This also applies to classroom use.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Title: Around the province in 88 days : one woman, two pairs of sneakers and 3,000 kilometres of Nova Scotia coastline / Emily Taylor Smith.

Names: Taylor Smith, Emily, author.

Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20190049995 | Canadiana (ebook) 20190049901 |

ISBN 9781988286686 (softcover) | ISBN 9781988286693 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Taylor Smith, Emily—Travel—Nova Scotia. | LCSH: Nova Scotia—Description and travel. | LCSH: Nova Scotia—Social life and customs.

Classification: LCC FC2317.6 .T39 2019 | DDC 971.6/05—dc23

Cover photo: Emily Taylor Smith

Cover design: Gail LeBlanc

Pottersfield Press gratefully acknowledges the financial support of the Government of Canada for our publishing activities. We also acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Province of Nova Scotia which has assisted us to develop and promote our creative industries for the benefit of all Nova Scotians.

Pottersfield Press

248 Leslie Road

East Lawrencetown, Nova Scotia, Canada, B2Z 1T4

Website: www.PottersfieldPress.com

To order, phone 1-800-NIMBUS9 (1-800-646-2879) www.nimbus.ns.ca

Printed in Canada

Pottersfield Press is committed to protecting our natural environment. As part of our efforts, this book is made of material from well-managed FSC®-certified forests and other controlled sources.

Dedicated to my father George, a true outdoorsman

Author’s Note

Throughout Around the Province in 88 Days I have for the most part used only first names and occasionally changed names. My apologies for any errors or inaccurate details in family histories or personal stories. When individuals are quoted, please be aware that I am paraphrasing and have tried my best to capture remembered conversations.

Introduction

It feels like Christmas Eve. I’m packed. I try to think of things I might be missing. I take my time, turn on CBC radio, and make myself a huge plate of pasta with lots of chunky sauce, and even throw in a package of spinach. Sitting on the living room rug, watching my backpack like a television set, I’m so excited that I hum and tap my feet a little with each giant mouthful. I go to bed early, knowing that when I get up at six a.m. the next morning, my backpack will be ready and waiting for me, and all I will have to do is pick it up, step out the door, and start walking Nova Scotia. 

I’ve been saying for so long, If I could, I would leave tomorrow.

Now I can.

* * *

In the summer of 2010, I embarked on an ambitious journey. From May to August, I walked the 3,000-kilometre perimeter of Nova Scotia, raising money for the Heart and Stroke Foundation and the Brigadoon Children’s Camp Society.

It has taken me nine years to compile these memories. When I finished my walk, I immediately wanted to write a fascinating book about my journey which would eventually become a bestseller and, of course, a Hollywood movie.

I found it hard to get started.

I wrote a bit about my trip that fall, but then life got in the way. I started my own tour business and experienced a number of major life changes in the years immediately following my journey, changes that I now see were connected to the epic trip. I picked up this writing again in the early part of 2016 while preparing for another long hike, one that would follow the coast of New Brunswick and the Gaspé Peninsula. Planning for the next journey seemed to fire up my desire to once more set down in words everything I had experienced that incredible summer of 2010 that changed my life.

On my journey around Nova Scotia, I had a chance to see the province more intimately than ever before. I walked through small historic towns and along barren, rocky shores. I encountered wildlife, enjoyed cool highland breezes, and endured hours of heavy downpour. Spending each day outside so close to the ocean truly strengthened my connection to nature and my sense of well-being.

But what made the whole trip so special for me was the people. During that life-changing journey, I met hundreds of generous, kind, and frequently funny Nova Scotians. They put me up in their homes and shared meals with me and told me stories about their lives and communities. And the more of them I met, the more I discovered about the resilience and determination of the people of this province. Many have returned from other parts of Canada, where they went for work. Some have located here from other countries. What they all have in common is their willingness to work hard to carve out a life – a good life – for themselves and their families.

Sometimes I wondered, as I left small, often isolated towns, if the people there found it difficult to live in such rugged or far-flung locations, where jobs are not plentiful and hospitals and even gas stations are many miles away.

It seems to me these Nova Scotians stay, or return, or set up here because they feel tied to this land that has become a part of who they are, land that offers them a way of life for their families which they value. There is a richness in their day-to-day experience that those who are only passing through cannot fully appreciate. And this land – wild, beautiful Nova Scotia – shapes them into strong and caring men and women, with deep ties to their community and its well-being. And it hones their sense of humour and their hospitality to strangers.

On my walkabout, I couldn’t get over the number of strong, confident women I met along the way: women who had built businesses on their own, who followed their dreams no matter what, who kept family history alive, and who looked after ailing spouses or family members. They inspired me with their energy and sheer determination. They welcomed me, walked with me, and talked to me about their lives.

This book is not so much about myself as it is about the incredibly generous Nova Scotians who shared their lives with me that wonderful summer.

Theirs is the real story.

Why I Walk

I don’t think of myself as an athlete. I just love walking more than any other exercise. I love the rhythm of it, how it lets my mind wander, and how it can leave any stress behind. I particularly love the sense of accomplishment I get after a long-distance walk when I look at the map of my route and what I’ve covered. On the road, I feel completely myself, as if I am just exactly where I’m supposed to be in the world at that moment. 

Walking hasn’t always been important to me. I was much more interested in theatre and the arts than in any sports at school.

I have one clear memory of a day I chose to walk the half-hour home from school by myself rather than take the bus. I was maybe ten or eleven. As I walked, I developed an idea to create a newspaper for our family and designed the layout in my head, amazed at how the ideas seemed to drop in effortlessly as I moved along. It was probably the first time I experienced that germination of creative ideas which I find comes with solitary walks, and this is a big part of my love of long-distance walking today.

I began to struggle with my weight and compulsive eating in high school and university and would often implement walking routines for periods of time in an attempt to regulate my weight. Walking was the easiest way for me to stay motivated about exercise and it worked when I kept at it. In my twenties I began to go for long walks for something to do when I was between acting jobs. I lived in Halifax, Toronto, Edmonton, and Ottawa for just a few months each and realized how much I enjoyed exploring new neighbourhoods on foot. 

I discovered that I really enjoyed mapping my walks. One day in the fall of 1997, I took out a city map of Edmonton, scanned the distance between my hotel and the West Edmonton Mall, pondered how long it would take me to walk there, and set out. It took me about three and a half hours. I felt slightly fatigued when I was finished, but despite a few blisters, I felt great. I had a giddy sense of accomplishment and wanted to tell everyone what I’d done. Looking at my route on the map afterwards gave me a huge boost. I hadn’t been bored once, but perfectly content with my own thoughts and with checking out the streets and sights and referring to my map. 

Just around this time I was reading Colony of Unrequited Dreams by Wayne Johnston. In the fictionalized account of Joey Smallwood’s life, a substantial section is devoted to his journey on foot collecting union memberships in the outposts between St. John’s and Port Aux Basques, Newfoundland. The idea fascinated me. I began to think that someday I wanted walk the entire coastline of Prince Edward Island. (I think I chose P.E.I. because it’s very small and familiar to me. I grew up in Salisbury, New Brunswick, and our family vacationed on the Island nearly every summer when I was growing up. My love of being near the ocean was cemented there and also at my grandmother’s cottage in Shediac, New Brunswick.) I knew that a number of secondary tourist highways in P.E.I. ran very close to the water and I thought they would be ideal for all-day walks with their impressive ocean views. On top of that, the idea of walking and only walking, all day, every day with no other worries or responsibilities, seemed perfection to me. And I longed to be able to look at a map of the province and say to myself: I walked from HERE to HERE.

For a number of years, I think I was mentally auditioning friends and family for the role of walk-mate on my P.E.I. dream adventure. I would start a new relationship or catch up with an old friend and think, I wonder if we would get along for the time it would take to walk the whole Island together. When I met Jason and we decided to get married in 2004, it was his enthusiasm and drive to take part in the P.E.I. walk which really set it in motion. (We divorced in 2012, and Jason has always been supportive of my walking projects.) We were both working full-time in the service industry and had to consider the possibility that our jobs wouldn’t be held for us if we took the time off to do the trek, but he was insistent that we make it happen. We spent the winter researching routes, bed and breakfasts, motels, rest stops, and estimated walk times. Google Maps didn’t exist yet, or at least we didn’t know how to use it.

We mapped the walk to cover approximately 1,000 kilometres over five weeks, averaging just under thirty kilometres a day. We didn’t know what we were doing. We didn’t train before we left – we just guessed on what to take for equipment and we had no idea how many blisters we were going to get. Walking several hours a day for five weeks is an interesting way to spend an extended honeymoon, especially when the couple hasn’t lived together yet. We had a number of challenges, including extreme drops in blood sugar, terrible blisters, foot and leg pain, exhaustion, some accommodation mix-ups, and pre-GPS route difficulties. We learned the hard way that eating a large plate of fried clams in the middle of the day with five more hours of walking to go is not a good idea. And we learned a lot about each other and a lot about how to get along.

Each day we got physically stronger and more hike-savvy, and each day we encountered some new quirky experience to talk over (two dogs materialized and walked over thirty kilometres with us one day). We drank in the scenery and discussed the possibility of moving there once we retired. There was a brief story on us in the Charlottetown paper and people stopped their cars to wish us luck or offer us help. Once we were passing a large hay field, and the man on the tractor stood up and shouted out, Hey! It’s the honeymooners! The journey gave us an incredible sense of accomplishment.

My Nova Scotia Walkabout – Getting the Idea

Soon after settling back into life in downtown Halifax I started to think about walking the coast of Nova Scotia. I realized the journey had to be a lot longer than P.E.I. I spent my free time poring over maps, trying to judge how much distance we could physically cover each day if we were to attempt it. The greatest hurdle was figuring out how to make it work financially. Jason wasn’t as keen on it as I was.

I would occasionally go for long walks on my own when I had the day off from waitressing: three-hour walks to Bedford, Eastern Passage, or Herring Cove, and once I made it all the way to Peggy’s Cove.

Then I walked the fifty-five kilometres to Shubenacadie on Easter weekend, 2009. I hadn’t planned to walk that far. It was a beautiful day that Good Friday, and I had the day off work. I left at six in the morning and I just kept going. Walking along the lakes out towards Waverley, I was having the time of my life. I suddenly had a thought: I like walking on my own. I’m not bored or lonely and I really love this. Maybe I could do Nova Scotia all by myself. The idea really excited me.

A few months later I saw an advertisement for the Heart and Stroke Walkabout on the side of a bus. The website was printed in big letters: WALKABOUTNS.CA. I thought, Well, that’s exactly what I want to do: I want to walk about NS! The Heart and Stroke Foundation of Nova Scotia had created the program to provide resources for people to connect and walk together more in their communities. They handed out pedometers and created an online platform that allowed people to share favourite walking routes. I had the thought that if I walked into all those small coastal communities, there was a good chance people would ask me what I was doing and I could be a spokesperson of sorts for the program.

I remember the first time I told a friend that I had a dream to walk the whole coastline of the province and wanted to invite people to walk with me. I told her I thought I could spread the word by putting up signs in some of the communities, like: Meet Emily at 4 p.m. Tuesday at the Irving station and walk with her into town! She almost died laughing. I knew it sounded funny but I felt it might work. I just had to find the right way to get people interested. 

When I made my appointment to talk to the people at the Heart and Stroke Foundation I was nervous. I found the whole idea of going into the executive offices on the top floor of the Royal Bank building in downtown Halifax intimidating (I got very worried about what I was supposed to wear). I knew I could answer most of their questions and speak passionately about my Nova Scotia walk idea, but I didn’t know how to be professional or do a real pitch.

The two women who met with me were very polite, but after a few moments they stopped talking and looked at me expectantly. My ideas came tumbling out with every last detail and how I wanted to promote their Walkabout program. They loved it.

It certainly wasn’t all smooth sailing from there. I was hoping for some sponsorship to help cover expenses while I took time off work to do the walk, but didn’t have much success with my proposals. I didn’t have any administration or business experience and had to figure out how to do so many things for the first time: writing a press release, doing radio interviews, creating a Facebook page, setting up a Twitter account, writing proposals to school boards and potential sponsors and government departments. 

Sometimes, when I was overwhelmed with all the planning, I just sat in front of my computer and (dramatically, as I do) put my hands in my hair and screeched, I HATE THIS!  I DON’T KNOW WHAT I’M DOING! But I kept asking people for help. I asked friends who had written theatre grant proposals to let me see what they looked like. I had another friend over for tea and grilled her on how to write a budget. Someone spent her lunch hour explaining Twitter to me. I set up meetings with the Heart and Stroke people to update them on my progress and ask for ideas. I vented to my husband and my sister. If I hadn’t had this support, I would have lost faith in the project altogether.

I did find a wonderful sponsor for my equipment. Joachim Stroink at The Trail Shop in Halifax sponsored a lot of my gear. He suggested that I look into raising money for Brigadoon Village, a summer camp for kids living with chronic illness. I thought it was a worthy cause.

Next came the fun part: mapping out my route and planning how far to walk each day, and where to stop each night. As I started planning, I considered what I knew so far:

– I had successfully walked an average of thirty kilometres per day on P.E.I.

– My stamina on the road was quite good and I had already walked up to fifty-five kilometres in one day.

– I had some time to train and build muscle.

– We didn’t have enough money to pay for accommodations every night.

In the end, I decided to walk an average of forty kilometres a day and to stop in a community each night. Ideally, I hoped to stay with friends or supporters who could offer me a bed for the night and a meal for free. The journey was finally mapped out at approximately 3,000 kilometres over eighty-eight days, with a total of six days of rest (one every two weeks). Looking back, I really should have planned more days off for recuperation, but I was worried about how much time I was taking off from work. I was working part-time at the Nova Scotia Liquor Corporation, and it was a miracle they held my job for me for three months. I spent the entire fall and winter planning the trip and looking for billets. The number of people who came forward to help was astounding.

I called my project Forrest Walkabout because Forrest was then my married name and for the Heart and Stroke Foundation’s Walkabout project title. As well, the three-month solo hike brought to mind the traditional soul-searching Indigenous Australian walkabout. I made a schedule to post on my Forrest Walkabout Facebook page each day so people could find me on the road. My daily posts looked something like this:

Hey everyone! Today I’m going to be walking to Lunenburg. (Google Map link) Come walk with me when I’m in your area! Here’s my schedule for the day:

10 a.m.: St. Mark’s Church at Oak Island

1 p.m.: Tim Hortons Main Street Mahone Bay

4 p.m.: Corner of Hwy 3 and Second Peninsula Road

I mapped out my route again on the Heart and Stroke website, using their walking route maps. Later on, I realized having a set schedule helped me keep moving when I was down or tired. I didn’t want to miss anyone who had come out to walk with me.

To get ready for the trip, I planned two eight-hour walks per week for six weeks before I left. I followed a timed schedule and got some practice posting my updates and photos on Facebook and Twitter as I went. I decided to make a bright pink sign for my backpack which said Google Forrest Walkabout in big black letters so people could look my project up online if they were interested. A friend told me she drove by me in the rain one night at dinnertime and thought, Who on earth is that crazy person out walking in the rain, trying to save the forests?

The training went really well and felt great. It reminded me again how much I loved my extra-long walks, taking pictures, being outside, and meeting new people. Walking does something to my brain. I always felt mentally clearer after one of my long training walks. I was still working at this time, and there were a few days when I got up and walked from seven a.m. until 3:30, came home, got cleaned up, walked the half-hour to work at the NSLC, and then did a five-to-ten o’clock shift on the floor. 

Word started getting out about what I was going to do. Some people thought I was going to make my way along the cliffs and rocks and beaches on the actual coastline of the province, which, besides being too dangerous, would have been more than twice the distance. My actual route followed mostly the secondary coastal roads. Some people asked why I didn’t do exactly a marathon a day like Terry Fox did. Others thought I was going to cover the route in stages over several years. Some thought I was going to do it virtually, online, and just walk the streets of Halifax until they added up to 3,000 kilometres. A number of people were concerned about whether I could pull it off physically. Many worried about my safety – they thought I could be accosted by a coyote, or a man, or a bear. Some people just found the whole thing inspiring. One woman said the only reason she came out to meet me was to see if I actually looked like a crazy lady, because I sure sounded like one.

To be honest, I wasn’t worried about whether or not I could do it. I’m goal-driven and my goal was to cover the entire coastline, not just part of it. I’d dealt with the fatigue of long days on P.E.I. and survived. Ditto for blisters. If one of my billets fell through, I could go knock on a church door for help or scrounge up the money for one or two motels. I had rain gear and good footwear. I had researched how to deal with a possible wildlife encounter and I had bear spray and an avalanche whistle (I assumed I could use the same equipment on a rude man). I would walk against traffic and never wear earphones, and I could dive into the ditch if it looked like a car was going to veer off the road and hit me. The only thing I worried about was breaking an ankle or getting sick and disrupting my schedule.

I felt so confident because I wasn’t following anyone else’s plan, just my own. I had planned it out and dreamed it up my way: walking the roads I wanted to walk, at my own pace. It was my invention. I wasn’t trying to beat anyone else’s record.

In my past, I had a history of pressuring myself with thoughts like: If I’m going to go to acting school then I’d better be the best in my class and most successful or I’m a failure … or If I’m going to try to write it had better be the next Great Canadian Novel or I’m a failure … that kind of crazy pressure. But when it comes to walking, I’m the best walker I know, at my type of walking. I haven’t climbed Mount Everest, but that’s not my kind of walking. When it comes to my kind of Maritime Long-Haul Coastal Walking, I’m the best I know.

The Equipment

As I prepared to pack, I remembered that Joachim at the Trail Shop told me the best way to waterproof your gear is from the inside. Everything I packed was in plastic. The Osprey pack had a removable waterproof shell on the outside, but I wanted to be extra careful. I had a very raw memory of one especially long, rainy day on Prince Edward Island when it felt like every step I took was deep into sneaker-shaped puddles. When we finally unzipped our packs at the end of the day in search of dry clothes, we found every single item inside cold and wet. 

I was worried that my backpack was too small for three months on the road, but I had to consider the added weight of the water reservoir. This was a long, flat, heavy plastic bladder which fit into a compartment in the pack and had a drinking tube secured near my shoulder. My main concerns with the water bag were: 1) Three litres of water is very heavy. 2) It was difficult to tell when I was getting low on water. 3) I was scared that my backpack would be so full of equipment that the pressure on the water bag would cause it to suddenly burst like a balloon without warning.

After lining the pack with plastic, I carefully layered in the clothes: one pair of shorts, one pair of light capri pants, one tank top, one short-sleeved shirt, one long-sleeved shirt, one bathing suit, and one dress. 

The dress. I had wondered what I could wear at night with my hosts besides my sweaty clothes I had walked in all day. My friend Penny agreed with me; she said what I wanted was a nice, light, pretty summer dress that I could just slip on after I got cleaned up. The fact that I would look dressy was a bonus. I finally settled on a jersey dress which looked very nice on the computerized headless website model but on me was a disaster. Shapeless and desperately thin, it made me feel positively naked. The only colour available was purple, and I detest purple. I packed the dress anyway, thinking I was being silly and wouldn’t care what I had on after a full day of walking. (I was wrong. One of my billets laughed out loud and said I never stopped tugging at the dress for one minute all night.)

Next I packed my underwear and socks. My strategy involved bringing only three pairs of each: I planned to wash one set each night in the sink, hoping they would only take two days to dry completely. The Trail Shop donated some SmartWool socks that were a total game changer for me. Not only did they wick the perspiration away from my skin, but they immediately cleared up a skin condition on my feet which I had been struggling with for years. I also packed Sealskin waterproof Gore-Tex socks to avoid the sneaker puddle scenario if at all possible. 

The remaining clothing was what I planned to wear on Day One:

– A robin’s egg blue breathable waterproof rain jacket sponsored by Lolë with zippers under the arms for warm days 

– Expensive breathable rain pants (because the cheap ones I had before trapped sweat against my legs, leaving me wet and stinky at the end of the day)

– A thin, long-sleeved shirt and a thin fleece sweater (donated by Brigadoon Village)

– Grey yoga pants (which were comfortable but a little too long and snuck under my heels while walking)

– A bright neon orange and yellow traffic vest

Then, of course, there were the sneakers. There was a bike helmet pouch on my pack which fit one pair of sneakers perfectly. I had two pairs sponsored by New Balance through the Trail Shop. My plan was to wear the two down evenly by walking in them on alternate days. I had my feet officially measured at the Trail Shop and realized I was a size ten and a half men’s. Realization: My feet are enormous. (Maybe the reason I want to walk so much is simply because my feet are so huge they have the desire to get out and roam around.)

Next I packed some food. The Trail Shop gave me a whole box of organic, nutrient-dense energy bars which boasted 350 calories each; I fit about ten of these into side compartments. As well, I packed a good-sized bag of trail mix and six granola bars. This food was just to keep my energy up during the day. I was so lucky to have my main meals donated by my billets.

I packed about a hundred business cards with donation and contact information on them in four separate plastic baggies, one of which went into my jacket pocket. The Heart and Stroke Foundation thought it was too dangerous for me to collect and carry cash on the road, so I planned to hand the cards out to people who wanted information on how to donate to the cause.

Toiletries. My billet hosts would provide towels and soap so I didn’t need to carry those. I found a special compact roll of toilet paper at Mountain Equipment Co-op. I took plenty of Band-Aids and 30 SPF sunscreen which I would have to apply twice daily. Also ibuprofen and vitamins.

I finished the packing with a roll of duct tape, a small radio, a pair of plastic flip-flops, a book of maps, a thin journal, small digital recorder, a BlackBerry (my first smartphone which we found on sale and allowed me to email, post on Facebook, and use Google Maps on the road; my sister covered the phone bills for the summer), and another baggie containing I.D., debit and credit cards. I hung the whistle around my neck and attached the canister of bear spray onto the fanny pack at my waist.

Day 1: May 13

Halifax to Peggy’s Cove

A friend of Jason’s who worked for CBC came out to shoot some of my send-off at the Halifax Commons. It was blindingly sunny at seven a.m. and I squinted as he asked me a few questions. I was nervous giving my speech to the small group of friends and supporters who came out to wish me well. The Minister of Health, Maureen MacDonald, MP Ramona Jennex, and city councillor Jennifer Watts all showed up for the event in athletic gear.

I had challenged several councillors and provincial