On My Way

What does one do after working 1062 hours on wildfire? Spontaneously decide to hike 800 km of course.

This past summer I returned to the dispatcher position with Parks Canada for the fourth time and going into the summer we knew it was going to be a busy season. Between the fuel build-up as a result of several low-key fire seasons and the below average precipitation in the winter, I knew going into the summer that it was gonna get spicy. However, I doubt anyone could have predicted exactly how intense it was going to get.

Several broken records later, roughly 2/3 of the NWT were evacuated for a significant chunk of August, Hay River had to evacuate twice, Fort Smith is surrounded by 2 of the 12 largest wildfires in Canada, a mere 3.4 km from town at the closest point. About 90% of Enterprise was completely destroyed. Needless to say, there’s a whole lot of rebuilding and recuperation to be done.

My contract ended on August 30th, 18 days after most of the community had been evacuated. The transition from “essential” to “evacuee” was abrupt to say the least, and I stayed in four towns and six different locations (thank you Carolyn and Katie for making it feel like home!) before I finally settled in and started trying to figure out what comes next. Thanks to a friend (Shout out to John!) hiking the Camino a few years ago I knew I wanted to do it at some point and around day 16 of leaving home I had somewhat of an epiphany; why not now?

The Camino (Peregrinatio Compostellana, O Camiño de Santiago, The Way of St James) is a network of trails/routes/pilgrimages all leading to Santiago de Compostela in Spain, said to be the final resting place of Saint James (one of Jesus’ BFFs for those of us unfamiliar with the lore). The original route is over 1000 years old and roughly 300,000 people complete the trek each year (over 400,000 in 2022)! In order to receive the Camino Compostela certificate however, you only have to walk the last 100 km (200 km if you travel by bike or horse). There’s a ton of really cool history that I totally  advise you research more but my main draws were the facts that:

a)I could be outside

b)It was warmer than the NWT

c)I can mostly  fake-it-til-ya-make-it with the languages

I will be hiking the Camino Frances, as this late in the season some Albergues start to close for winter and completing the most popular route should give me a better guarantee of a place to sleep each night. There’s a certain amount of cognitive dissonance involved in planning a Camino in a little over 2 weeks in the middle of an evacuation. I saw people on facebook talking about training regimes, even planning trips several years in the future. Well my optimistic (delusional?) ass decided that if I can roller skate 16 km on a whim, I can work my way up to hiking 25 km a day for 30-something days.

I’m currently finishing this blog post mid-way over the Atlantic, crossing my fingers I manage at least a few hours of sleep before we arrive (tell you all about the shenanigans that led to me staying a night in Montreal in my next post). In longstanding Alex tradition, I booked my hotel from the airport just before I left.  I have a train to Biarritz on Friday, one of the bigger towns closest to St Jean Pied de Port where I’ll start my Camino. Hotels are cheaper than Paris and apparently Paris is low-key high-key infested with bedbugs right now anyways.

Buen Camino!

(On My Way by the Proclaimers)