Dianne Whelan is the first to admit she is not an ‘extreme’ or endurance athlete. She describes herself as “just an artist from Vancouver”.
But there is no doubt the project she’s currently undertaking is pretty extreme.
In 2015, she set out to travel the length of the Great Trail (or the Trans Canada Trail) which stretches from one side of Canada to the other and is the longest trail in the world.
It’s a 24,000km / 15,000mi journey across Canada - including 7,000km of water - that she is travelling by foot, bike, canoe and snowshoe.
Dianne initially thought it would take her about 500 days and so she named the project, and the documentary film she is simultaneously making in the process, ‘500 Days in the Wild’.
5 years later, she is about 3,000km from finishing her epic journey.
And when she does so, she’ll become the first person to complete this epic traverse of Canada.
What makes Dianne’s perspective unique (at least to this podcast) is that this journey is not about the challenge or the athletic achievement.
Instead, she describes as an ecological pilgrimage to honour both the land and to pay respects to the First Nations people of Canada, to learn their stories and share their lessons.
Get the full show notes for the episode here.
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