Even as someone who spends a lot of time talking about self-care and making time for self, I find it easy to push my own priorities to the wayside in favour of taking care of the household. There is always something else, someone else, in need of attention. And even though I make special “me” time almost each day, sometimes that is barely enough.
Since my 20s I have wanted to do a multi-day walk. I wanted it for the alone time, and I wanted it for the opportunity to connect spiritually, and I wanted it just to know I could do it. But one thing led to another and 16 years went by and it had never happened. Then, four years ago, my husband sent me an article about the newly developed Island Walk in PEI and I thought, yes, this would be a good place to start–a good walk to do as a first-timer.
And then I got pregnant, which was amazing, and also, my idea was once again back burnered.
Finally, in January, I decided that it was time. It was time to take a serious time out for me. It was time to reconnect with myself. The time had come.
I decided to stick with the PEI idea because, in truth, it was much less about where I went and much more about the fact that I was going. I planned out a 200km circle of the 700km total path, and carved 10 days out of my life that would be just for me.
In the beginning stages of planning, I was really focused on the physical nature of the journey. How far would I walk each day? What would I eat? Where would I sleep? What equipment did I need? How much physical training was needed?
I will say this about the Island Walk, it is a bit challenging to organize logistically. Campsites are few and far between, as are accommodations. I chose to walk the eastern edge of the island because it was an area our family had visited six years earlier and I wanted to explore it further. However, this is possibly the most remote section of the Walk making general travel and accommodations somewhat challenging.
As it got closer to my departure, I realized that this was much less about the physical journey and much more about my time. I made the decision ahead of time to be gentle with myself. I didn’t owe anything to anybody but myself when it came to how this trip turned out. I set my intention before heading out: This trip was about connection to self, full stop. If I walked less than intended, if I walked more than intended, if I didn’t walk at all, it didn’t matter. This was about me.
I don’t know if I’ve ever been so excited to leave home as I was when it was finally time to go. The mere thought of having 10 days to myself, 10 days with no expectations of me other than any I had for myself. Do you know how liberating that feels? No bosses, no whining, no one to feed or clothe, no poop to clean, no guilt over balls that were dropped because I didn’t have the time to do it all. With many thanks to my husband–bless him!–I was free.
The First Third, The First Task:
I didn’t really set out with any particular theme or emotional agenda in mind but, as it turns out, my trip was naturally divided into thirds. The first third became about filling myself up with rest.
I walked from the airport into Charlottetown to give my backpack and hiking shoes a test run. My inn for the night set me up in a room that was my favourite number, my favourite colour, and themed after my favourite impressionist artist. I felt like I was being given signs to let me know, This really is for you.
I spent the day reading in the Adirondak chairs stationed near the waterfront. Despite the weight of my pack, I couldn’t not bring a book with me. A few months earlier I’d had the sudden inspiration to purchase Diana, Herself by Martha Beck just for this trip. This is an allegorical fantasy story about one woman’s awakening (or, bewildering–following a journey of Seven Tasks). I am a huge Martha Beck fan and have read much of her non-fiction so this was a natural choice for me. The First Task, as outlined in the story, is about finding your inner calm, and this also represents the beginning of my own journey. I used the first few days to find my calm.
The next morning I was shuttled to New Zealand (Waypoint 21) where I began my first official day of walking. This was also my biggest walk day (and the day where my pack was its heaviest). I walked the trail for 21km to Elmira, and another 5km to the nearest accommodation up in the East Point. The first day of walking is definitely the day where I had the most energy, the day where my feet were at their best, but also the day where everything felt stiff and new, like a new pair of jeans that needs to be worked in. I hadn’t found my walking groove yet. I was pretty proud of myself for completing those 21km with relative ease and very few pauses. I was even more proud of myself for completing the final 5km to the hotel where I was staying. By the time I reached Elmira both my brain and body made the very sudden decision that I was done for the day, but my desire for a quick shower and a place to put my feet up was stronger.
I developed a blister on my heel about the size of a brazil nut on steroids that day, so the next morning when it was raining out, it was very easy to make the decision to stay close by. This is a check in the pro column when considering a walk like this one in PEI, especially if you are travelling solo and accountable to no one but yourself. You get to choose. Due to the logistical nature of this Walk you are often booking a two-night stay at each accommodation, then figuring your way to and from the trail waypoints each day (this is where a car is handy), so I had my hotel room for the whole day and another night and man, as a mom of three kids and three dogs, did that feel like heaven.
I thoroughly enjoyed this day. I hobbled out for a rainy walk along the beach, I sat and watched the waves, I chatted with some tuna fishermen and got invited to go see cousin Garfield’s bottle collection down the way. I vegged in my room, I read. It slowly hit me, not just cognitively but emotionally, that I was free to do whatever I wanted. And what a feeling that is.
I got a shuttle to Bothwell (Waypoint 23) the next morning and recommenced my walking tour in the direction of Souris. This part of the journey is all road walking so you have a few options on what path you take. The official Island Walk takes you onto side roads and lasts about 6-8 hours. With my heel not quite healed, I chose a more direct route.
Just to keep it real, I was not thoroughly enjoying this walk. When you’re walking the road rather than on the Confederation Trail, there is no place to rest or find shade. It’s just road and nothing else. But that’s the interesting thing about doing a walking tour, sometimes you’re propelled forward merely because you have no choice, you can’t just stop, and it’s the only way to get to your destination for the night. So whether or not I liked it, I kept going.
At one point I encountered a fox sitting on the side of the road ahead of me. He didn’t move when he saw me, rather he sat down and looked even more at ease. It was my second fox of the trip so far and because I am curious about these things, I decided to google the spiritual significance of fox as an animal totem. Apparently, the fox represents going within and trusting your instincts. By this point in the day, when I went within, it was telling me that I didn’t want to walk anymore. I’m not complaining, I’m just being honest. I had been reading about manifestation in Diana, Herself, and I decided that I wanted to manifest a ride the rest of the way to Souris. I am not a hitchhiker, and never in my life have I hitchhiked. And never in my life will I again. But islanders are known for being friendly, and other walkers have expressed gratitude for the rides they were offered by strangers passing by. I told myself that if I was offered a ride by a cute, little old lady, someone I immediately trusted, that I would take it.
I kept walking, concentrating on each step as the roads here are quite hilly. Eventually, with an hour of walking remaining, I decided I would get to the top of a very steep hill, then pull over on the side of the road and take a breather. I pulled the backpack off, sighing, and just as I did so, a car pulled up. It was a cute, little old lady, and she offered me a ride the rest of the way. I loved her immediately.
I was booked for two nights at a hostel in Spry Point. The water views here are beautiful, and on a clear night the stars are incredibly bright. You are also very far removed from everything. I had a choice to make. The hostel was 12km from the start of the next Waypoint, and further to get back. Or, I could just go inside, listen to my instincts, and do something different.
I ended up spending six beautiful hours just sitting on a beach. I read, I napped, I watched the waves, I napped some more. It was incredible and liberating, and by the end of it I finally felt filled up to the brim with rest. It was a good day.
The Second Third, The Second Task:
On Day 5 I was shuttled to Cardigan (Waypoint 26) where I would walk the shortest section of the Island Walk, 12km along the CT to Montague. I had figured out by then that I was walking at a pace of 5km/hr, so 12km felt pretty short. I had hoped to spend the morning exploring Cardigan and eating a proper meal at Clam Diggers, a popular local restaurant, before hitting the CT. Mother Nature had her own plans as usual, and as it was calling for massive downpours that afternoon, I decided to hit the trail right away. This little section of the CT is really nice–so green, so quiet. I barely encountered anyone which, for me, was a plus. I did at one point hear a pack of animals howling in the distance–dogs or coyotes, I don’t know which (fun fact, coyotes have only been on the island for about 30 years and likely travelled over ice to get there. Also there are no deer, moose or bear on the island)–but that was the closest I came to any other being.
I was about 1km from Montague when the skies decided to open. The rain came down fast and hard and I was soaked to the bone but in excellent spirits. I B-lined straight for the Lucky Bean Cafe and spent a few hours there, reading and drying off over a cup of tea, a bowl of tomato soup and a grilled cheese sandwich. There is nothing in the world tomato soup and a grilled cheese can’t cure. That evening I went to Windows on the Water for a supper of seafood linguine, fresh bread and red wine. I had been dreaming of seafood linguine for daaaaaays. It was so satisfying.
The next morning I started walking without a plan, and quickly realized that what I wanted most was to head back to Cardigan so I could complete my lunch plans of the previous day. So that’s what I did, back on the CT retracing my steps to Cardigan so I could have lunch at Clam Diggers, including a dessert of bread pudding which was also on my mind.
It seemed, at this point, that I was on to the Second Task in Diana, Herself: Take in nourishment, not poison. After days of eating microwavable rice, ramen, trail mix and protein bars out of my backpack, it felt wonderful to be filling myself up with real food. But I wasn’t only filling myself with food, I was filling my soul with words, too. I’ve always been a lover of words, and I’ve always loved to write, but I’ve had a dry spell lately–like I can’t remember what my voice sounds like. I used these days to read Mary Oliver and Rumi and to put words to page even if they were absolute crap. I just needed to feed myself words with the same vigour I was feeding myself food.
There’s a chain of gas station convenience stores in PEI called Needs. I found this name to be cheeky and quirky in its literalness–you go there for your immediate needs. But that’s what I was doing for myself, following the most immediate needs of my heart and soul and body. And I felt really grateful to have the time and space and ability to do so.
The Third Third, The Third Task:
By day 7 I was beginning to miss my kids. My toddler was desperately missing her mom. My husband, who had been doing an amazing job of holding down the fort, was also dealing with a dog that was throwing up, and another with diarrhea. I felt bad about this unfortunate turn of events, and guilty that I was absent, leaving him to tend to them and their messes–along with the kids–on his own. (This is a mom thing, right? This kind of guilt?)
I was also feeling a few pangs of loneliness. Up until this point I craved alone time, but the desire to communicate with friends and family crept up on me. Emotionally, I was de-stabilizing. And what this told me was that I had finally arrived at the place I knew I needed to get to on this trip–a place within, from where I could surrender.
I had known from the very beginning–back in January–that there was something I needed to “get” from this trip, an intention I needed to uncover. I realized that bringing this particular book with me on this trip had been a synchronicity, just as the journey I was taking was following a journey to bewilderment as outlined in the book. The final days of my trip, I realized, were aligning themselves with the Third Task in the book, which was letting go. Just as I was at the most emotionally complex stage of my trip, I had to decide whether to go all in and fully surrender, or to go back into the safety of my shell as a turtle might do in the face of something scary.
I wavered here. I was willing, but barely.
Leaving Montague, January-Me thought that I would need to do Waypoints 27-28-29 (a total of 42km) all in one shot, for lack of available accommodation. Once I was in PEI and had a better understanding of the walk and the trail map, I understood that this would all be road walking. And where there are roads, there are alternatives. As mentioned, the road sections of the Island Walk are not as enjoyable for me as the CT sections. I quickly decided that if I could take a straight path, walking for 3.5 hrs, rather than the long circuit that would take me over 8 hours… Well, it was a no-brainer.
I was full of pomp leaving Montague that morning. I left later than I normally would have, anticipating a short day. I packed less water so my pack would be lighter. I didn’t even check my map ’cause I was just that sure of myself and my decision. I didn’t check in at all until I had already walked an hour and a half in the wrong direction (following, rather, the Island Walk I had intended on avoiding). Well, there’s nothing like a little deflation of the ego to assist in a person’s acceptance of what is. I didn’t have a choice, I was where I was. I accepted, and kept going.
Based on price I had chosen a small motel, located in a field of nothing in the middle of nowhere. Joking, but not really. Check-in was at the gas station next door. It was clean and cared for, although if I did it again, I would have kept going down to Murray River. As it was, I was an hour and a half walk to the nearest grocery store or restaurant, and as it happened, it absolutely poured rain the next day. My intention had been to walk to Murray River, and then keep walking to rejoin the CT at Waypoint 29. This was my last full day on the Walk and I had a hankering for more trail walking–once you find your walking groove, you just want to keep walking. Given the rain, however, staying over in Murray River and doing some rainy sightseeing would have been a solid Plan B.
So unlike in East Point and Spry Point, where I happily fell into rest days, this time I felt backed into one. Facing a day of ramen for lunch and ramen for dinner, interspersed with chips and root beer from the gas station convenience store, I understood that my only option was, again, acceptance. I pushed my way over the hump and found my way to calm again. I read, I journaled like mad, I wrote a poem–the first in a long time. It wasn’t a great poem, but it made me feel great to write it. I also wrestled with some feelings I had about not walking as much as I thought I would in this leg of the trip. While I relished my previous rest days, this time I judged myself. Would other people judge me? I wondered. I didn’t want to wonder that, it was just a thought that ran through my mind. And as with all thoughts, I had to decide whether to grab onto it, or let it fly by.
But I was onto the Third Task. I was practicing surrender, which is synonymous with letting go, which is synonymous with acceptance, which is synonymous with allowing what is to be. So I let it go.
In another synchronicity, I was emailed my Substack letter of the week from a column I follow, Letters from Love with Elizabeth Gilbert. That week’s letter had been written by Rob Bell, and it was all about the surrendering of goals. In his letter, Bell (& Love) wrote:
My darling child, it is not a problem to have a goal (sure, go for it, have fun, knock yourself out!) but it’s a big problem to be attached to the outcome of your goals — or, worst of all, to tie your idea of yourself, your WORTH (your worth, heaven help you, your worth?!) to whether or not you got whatever you wanted. Why attach so much value to things that are not up to you? What a recipe for doom!
Far, far more important than getting what you want is learning how to want what you get — and that, child, is the work of the second half of your life. Not manifesting, but surrendering. Accepting. Giving over the outcome, in all areas of life.
Well, those were some appropriate words for me to be reading that very day. Some necessary words. And in a flash of inspiration, it came to me–the very thing I had taken this journey to “get.”
Because I did have an intention in taking this trip to reconnect with myself. But it was also to reach some piece of me that I found difficult to reach in the hustle and bustle of daily life, it was also to know and unknown. There exists a desire in me, about myself, my life, and how I want to live my life, that has always been there. However, over the years, I have ignored it, I have disguised it, I have made excuses for it. I have never allowed it just to be. And I see now that I needed to be holed up in a gas station motel room, in a field of nothing, closer to a herd of buffalo than I was to any typical distraction, in order for this insight to work its way to me.
I have been doing 2-way journaling for a few years, but I decided to write my own Letter from Love that day, and this is what I wrote:
I realize that what I wanted most from this trip was to be free
10 days of free
And what I have realized
What has come to me
Is that I have always been free
And that the only one stopping me from being free
Is me
MY WHY IS FREEDOM………
Dear Love, what would you have my know about Freedom today?
My sweet, dear one,
You have always been free. And in fact, every human on this earth, every being, was and is born free. It has never been that any one of you was not born free, but rather that you humans bind one another and bear one another down, imprisoning each other both literally and metaphorically. Fear, guilt, ego, ownership…anything that feels unfree…is a human-made concept, not God made (not LOVE made). My dear, you have only ever been free. But you put yourself aside based on the belief that everyone else’s expectations of you were more important than your own, more relevant than your expectations of yourself. You did this over and over and over again. My dear, you learned on this trip that this is just another form of ego, that ego exists on both sides of truth, that ego lives just as much in giving away your power as it does in the ones who are full of their own pomp. You learned that the only way out of ego is to live in your light, to be fully, truly, undeniably, authentically, yourself. To live in you, and to live in me, your deepest, most loving, most spacious, most free resource. To not give away your power and light to make someone else more comfortable or feel better. The fastest way out of ego is kindness to self… you humans find that so counterintuitive (I find this so bizarre, that you believe I would create Life ‘in my image’ and then want this life to be unloving)… And that, my dear one, is also where you will find freedom. That is where you are most full. Be so kind to your lovely self, your beautiful life, that the freedom inside of you can finally stand up and take a bow.
With love,
Love
The Final Day:
I took a shuttle back to Charlottetown on Canada Day. I ate a ton of seafood, I watched the sunset over the harbour, I bought gifts for my loved ones, I listened to a Tragically Hip cover band, and I watched a beautiful display of fireworks that opened with a big, red heart illuminating the night sky. It was a beautiful ending to a beautiful trip.
On the whole I covered a 200km loop of the east island, walking 120 of those kilometres while seeing some lovely country and meeting some lovely people along the way. Mostly, though, I had a chance to hear my own thoughts–my own voice–and that was exactly what I’d needed most of all.
Would I do the Island Walk again? Not immediately, there are other adventures I’d like to have in this lifetime. But on the whole, as an experience, yes. Yes I would.
If you are considering a jaunt over to PEI for the Island Walk, here are a few general thoughts:
For anyone considering it, my suggestion would be to have a car, whether you drive to PEI or rent one upon arrival, it would be worth having, especially in the areas that are not reachable by public transportation. I paid for shuttles and the shuttles were expensive. True, much less expensive than a car rental for the 10 days I was there, but I also had much less freedom. Also, it would have provided me with the option of accessing camp sites instead of staying at inns the whole way through and could have saved some dollars that way.
If you are only on foot and in a less populated area, make sure you have food in your backpack. There were a few times where I was eating dry food out of my backpack for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
You don’t have to follow the Waypoints chronologically. When I decided to go, I just wanted to go. I chose the area I wanted to walk and planned the sections in order from there. Unless your intention is to do the entire 700km, I would focus mostly on the waypoints that fall along the Confederation Trail. I enjoyed being on the trail way more than the sections that involved road walking. Plus, you have the added joy of seeing the occasional bunny and garter snake along the way.
On that note, I will also mention that I had a conversation with a lovely older gentleman at a cafe one day who informed me that he had walked the Confederation Trail from one end of the island to the other, more than once. So keep this in mind as an option. You can always cover hundreds of kilometres by staying on the trail and only hopping off when it’s time to find a place to sleep.
Lastly, I will say this: Walking is a great way to travel slowly. I met someone at one of my accommodations who was moto-camping from Alberta to Newfounland and back, and one of his main cons for this method of travel is that he was always on the go, covering lots of ground but not seeing anything. I got to see a lot of a small section of the world by exploring it on foot, and that makes for a memorable experience.
-mtg
