Adventure is Never Far

Twenty-five years, one very well-used bicycle, and a new adventure partner.

JUNE 2001

The winter before, I read about the Climate Change Caravan in my Women’s and Gender Studies class at the University of Saskatchewan. I thought, “That sounds awesome!” The plan started to take shape in my head.

I joined the local youth environmental group organizing events at the U of S and found out that someone else was thinking about going too. Angela and I started hanging out and talking about joining the Caravan. I’m not sure I would have committed if she hadn’t been committed too. It definitely wouldn’t have been as much fun!

We were strangers before we heard about the trip. We became fast friends, and 25 years later, she is still one of my oldest friends. We both worked between finals and leaving for the trip so we could afford to go while still paying rent back in Saskatoon.

Angela and I were environmentalists, as was everyone in the Caravan. In some ways, that was what made the Caravan both so successful and unsuccessful. We honestly had no idea how exhausting the biking would be. It sounds ridiculous now, but at the time it really didn’t sound that hard.

We went on a few rides with friends before we left, but the longest I had ever biked was about 50 km. On the trip, our average day would be around 100 km. Again, that didn’t seem too hard. Spoiler alert: it was hard.

My buddy Tim took me bike shopping in the spring. My financial situation gave me very few options, and my best one was a Marin mountain bike with slick tires, a pannier rack and toe clips. A few weeks into the trip, I added a ridiculous, huge red front fender. It was not an ideal setup.

My Marin was my home for two months before the trip, and I rode it as much as I could around the city and on occasional trips out of town with Angela. On those training rides, I learned about “bonking,” although I didn’t know what it was called yet. I just knew that I was SO HUNGRY and wanted to cry.

Foreshadowing.

Preparing to leave on June 18, 2001, was nerve-wracking. We had breakfast at a locally organized send-off, I wrote the directions to Manitou Beach on a piece of paper, and we headed out. There was no GPS so we relied on good ol’ pen and paper every day!

Our Saskatoon friends biked with us out of town as we started our 130-km first day. Leslie was my “buddy,” assigned to help acclimatize me to the ways of the Caravan.

In my journal, I described her as “pretty cool.” This was a gross understatement as she was one of the most inspiring people I’ve ever met. She danced her way into the hearts of every person she met. Her passing just a few years after the Caravan was shocking, and she is still deeply missed by everyone who knew her.

THAT SUMMER

Church floors. Weather. Food. Riding. Climate presentations. Swimming. Friendships. Dancing. Bike trouble. Crying. Laughing. Exhaustion.

When we hit the Manitoba border, I kept saying, “This is the furthest east I’ve ever been!” It eventually became a somewhat annoying, running joke with Angela and a few of the others.

The ride to Winnipeg is still a core memory of my life. Isn’t it funny how so many of our core memories are not always positive?

According to my journal, we’d already had several days of headwinds and nasty weather. I sounded grumpy. The ride to Winnipeg was long and arduous, and it felt like the storm clouds followed us for many days leading up to that day. We were looking forward to one of our rare rest days.

Just when we thought we’d reached Winnipeg, we discovered we still had a long ride to the city centre, where we were staying.

I cried.

A lot.

Angela hugged me, and we encouraged each other to keep going—even after taking a wrong turn that added at least another 5 kilometres to an already ridiculously long day. We guessed we rode close to 150 km. We can only guess because we didn’t have cellphones or GPS. When we got back from the trip we would compare a hard day to the Winnipeg day. “Is this [insert event] as hard as biking to Fucking Winnipeg?” The answer has almost always been NO!

We were the last ones to arrive. There were 30 wet, exhausted cyclists everywhere. So was all of our clothes and camping equipment hanging from make-shift clothes lines around the bizarre loft apartment accessed by a strange outside elevator.

The Caravan had a knack for exploding wherever we landed. There were so many of us, and we were always so tired. We basically unpacked all of our belongings into piles near wherever our sleeping bags were laid out.

We were in Ottawa for one of our “rest” days on my 22nd birthday. Caravan rest days were actually full of interviews and events trying to spread our message about climate change and the need for action from governments and companies. This day was particularly bizarre and is etched into my memory.

That day, we held a Funeral for the Future.

The day before we had somehow lost our carefully constructed coffin and had to scramble to build another one in the middle of the night. It was painted in the wee hours of the morning and filled with the letters we had written to Prime Minister Jean Chrétien about what we feared losing to climate change.

In mine, I wrote about forest fires and wanting to see a polar bear before they became extinct.

Twenty-five years later, forest fires have become a serious reality around the world. It brings me no joy to have been right.

Then, because apparently the day wasn’t strange enough, I was a witness for a wedding.

A couple who had been together for 25 years and even had grown children came to the church where we were sleeping to secretly get married. The minister wandered into the basement where our Caravan explosion was spread out and asked for two Caravaners to be witnesses. I quickly volunteered

Somewhere out there is a photograph of me with two complete strangers on their wedding day.

Later, after a long, hot day, some of us escaped into an air-conditioned movie theatre and had birthday cake.

Hands down, one of the most bizarre birthdays I’ve ever had.

Another memorable day was a very happy one.

After many hours—and days—of discussion, we decided to defy the rule prohibiting bicycles from crossing the Confederation Bridge, a structure that had to be re-designed to account for the rising ocean levels from climate change.

The 14-km bridge connects Prince Edward Island to the mainland. For us, requiring fossil-fuel-powered transportation to cross a bridge by bicycle seemed like a contradiction worth pointing out.

So we rode it.

We stayed together, with our bus behind us and the music cranked. Bridge security tried to stop us. There was even an altercation!

But they didn’t stop us.

Traffic was held up at both ends of the bridge, so with the wind at our backs, we suddenly had this enormous road to ourselves. We danced on our bikes while the ocean stretched out on both sides.

The police were waiting at the end. Naturally, we had a huge dance party while we waited for the repercussions of our direct action.

We each received a $60 ticket. I kept mine as a memento and never paid it.

I’ve driven across that bridge since, and I genuinely feel bad for everyone who has never been able to bike it. Seeing the ocean on both sides was glorious.

We finished the day with another 50 km of riding and a lot of drinks in Charlottetown.

Somewhere along the trip, I also began to discover that eating large quantities of dairy made me spectacularly ill. In the official Caravan updates there were several mentions of my issues with heat and eating ice cream.

It took another year—and becoming vegan—for me to finally figure out that I was lactose intolerant. My body is grateful.

THE YEARS BETWEEN

Adventure didn’t disappear from my life after the Caravan. It just kept changing.

The following summer, I did a solo bikepacking trip through the Rocky Mountains. I still hope that one day I’ll finish the Caravan trip all the way to Tofino.

My Marin came with me through all of it. I’ve put thousands of kilometres on that bike and used it as my commuter for 25 years. The trip with Dylan this summer was partly an homage to my trusty steed.

Somewhere along the way, I fell in love with running. Add that to my love of swimming and biking, and triathlon came into my life.

For about ten years, I blogged about triathlon and being vegan. It held race reports, training woes and even some successes. I eventually completed three Ironmans, ten half-Ironmans and more shorter races than I can remember. I hope to bring back some of that content into my ongoing adventures on this blog.

The summer before I had Dylan—which also happened to be the summer before COVID changed the world—I squeezed in as many races and events as I could. I met another woman during a local triathlon who was trying to become pregnant. Now that Dylan is more independent, I’m looking at triathlon again. That woman and I plan to do that race again together in 2027! Full circle moment for sure.

Adventure is never far from my mind.

BECOMING DYLAN’S MOM

In 2020, I had my daughter Dylan, which has been one of the craziest adventures. I love being her mom, and watching her grow into the person she is becoming.

We’ve always stayed active together—biking, camping, hiking and cross-country skiing.

This past summer, I was watching the Tour de France and thinking about how much I’d love to take her to see it someday. That got me thinking about the Caravan and how I wanted to commemorate its 25th anniversary.

So I started looking at maps.

I came up with an elaborate plan to bike from Saskatoon to Waskesiu along the “Trans Canada Trail,” which follows the South Saskatchewan River and is, in reality, just a lot of gravel roads.

Then I got it into my head that we should stop along the way to explore our Métis heritage at Batoche and St. Laurent-Grandin, the Métis community where my great-grandmother grew up.

So a simple trip commemorating 25 years since the Caravan turned into a journey about a whole bunch of things.

That’s just how I roll.

AUGUST 2026

We left Saskatoon one Saturday afternoon. We aren’t really morning people, so we took the morning to pack and adjust our bike rig.

One thing I had forgotten about bikepacking is just how long it takes to pack and get ready to go.

Packing for myself AND A CHILD took even longer.

It probably won’t shock anyone to learn that my six-year-old was not particularly helpful and was, in fact, something of a hindrance to my hopes for efficiency.

We spent four days riding through the prairies along the river. We crossed the river on a Saskatchewan ferry, which was a first for me. We battled the deep gravel roads with our heavily loaded bike rig.

Weight was definitely a problem. The nitty-gritty of our setup is a story for another day.

Two days into the trip, I started feeling a sore throat coming on and by day four, I had complete laryngitis and generally felt shitty. Dylan wasn’t faring much better and had undertaken a hunger strike of sorts. She wouldn’t eat anything that wasn’t candy. Our candy supply, which was supposed to provide occasional treats throughout the day, dwindled quickly. She wouldn’t eat anything else. Not even foods she loves!

We became quite miserable. We kept going while I pondered what to do. At one point Dylan said, “I feel like I’m being punished.” That made the decision easy and I contacted our on-call backup for a rescue.

We found a beautiful spot along the river near St. Laurent-Grandin, had some snacks and water, and waited for my friend to scoop us up.

After a day to recover and get my voice back, we drove the rest of the way to Waskesiu. We were fortunate enough to get a coveted lake-side campsite at Namekus Lake, just a few kilometres from Waskesiu Lake.

After our 4-day trip, Dylan became obsessed with her bike!

I’d brought her 16-inch bike with us in the car and she ripped around the campground for four days. We also went on many long rides along the trails around Waskesiu. I offered to set up the trail-along bike but she said no.

One thing she repeated on our journey was that she wished she could ride her own bike.

She wanted to ride a bike. 

She just didn’t want to ride on Mommy’s bike.

Dylan’s independence is one of the best—and occasionally most frustrating—parts of her personality. I completely understand it because I’m exactly the same. That doesn’t always make it any easier.

Looking back, the Caravan trip and our 4-day adventure had quite a few similarities: We left without really understanding how hard it would be. We were underprepared. I tried to accomplish too many things in a single trip. And we ate a lot of oatmeal.

The biggest difference is me.

Life has been the crazy adventure I’ve wanted it to be and I’m looking forward to doing more crazy, awesome things.

I’ve even set my Duolingo to French.

No, we’re not going to France yet.

It might be time to revisit the beautiful province of Québec.