STORY By Simone Paget.
Dianne Whelan is an award-winning Canadian filmmaker, photographer, author and public speaker. For six years, the filmmaker hiked, biked, paddled, snowshoed and skied on the Trans Canada Trail, from the Atlantic to the Pacific and north to the Arctic.
Here’s what she saw and learned along the way.
A short film about 500 days by JL Munce – 500 Days in the Wild
Dianne Whelan on her expedition, ‘500 Days in the Wild’
Dianne Whelan – 500 Days in the Wild
30 JUNE, 2021 Canadian Dianne Whelan completes an epic six-year solo journey across the Trans Canada Trail.
Ms. Whelan will complete her journey on August 1st by paddling through British Columbia Montreal, June 30, 2021 –
On July 1, award-winning B.C.-based filmmaker and multimedia artist Dianne Whelan will begin the final leg of a monumental trip across the world’s longest recreational trail, the Trans Canada Trail, which connects the Atlantic, Arctic and Pacific oceans. Whelan will begin her final paddle of 500 km in Vancouver on Canada Day and is expected to arrive in Victoria on August 1. The Trans Canada Trail is the world’s longest network of multi-use recreational trails, stretching more than 27,000 km and showcasing Canada’s diverse landscapes and cultures.
Since beginning her journey in Newfoundland in 2015, Whelan has hiked, mountain bike, snowshoed, cross-country skied, and, for close to 7,000 km, paddled a canoe. For most of it, she has travelled solo, while simultaneously writing and filming an independent documentary about the experience, titled 500 Days in the Wild.
What makes Dianne’s perspective unique, in today’s world, is that this journey is not about the challenge or the athletic achievement. Instead, she describes the journey as an ecological pilgrimage to honor the land and the water, and to pay respect to Indigenous peoples.
“I am an artist of settler descent. My mother is Acadian with ancestral roots on this land that go back to the 1600s and my father is a Newfoundlander whose ancestors arrived from Ireland in the early 1800s,” said Dianne Whelan. “On this journey, I wanted to pay my respect to Indigenous people on this land whose ancestors date back 10,000 years.
I was taught there is no word for forgiveness in the Mi’kmaq language, the literal translation of the word means, to make things right.
I hope what I have carried in my heart on this journey and the art made from it will be a ripple on those healing waters.”
A book and a film, both under the title 500 Days in the Wild, will chronicle her journey and are expected to be released in 2023 and 2024 respectively.
“As the national ribbon that connects Canada’s diverse landscapes, seasons, people and experiences, the Trans Canada Trail is a fitting backdrop for Dianne Whelan’s personal journey,” says Eleanor McMahon, President & CEO, Trans Canada Trail. “There is an incredible richness of knowledge that Indigenous communities can impart, as they have stewarded these lands for thousands of years.
We share Dianne’s commitment to honoring Indigenous peoples, developing and sustaining reciprocal relationships based on respect, dignity, trust and cooperation. And we commend her courage, perseverance and adventurous spirit in traversing the Trail from coast to coast to coast. She is an inspiration to us all, and we thank her for sharing her journey.”
The final paddle of Dianne’s journey will take her through traditional territories of the Coast Salish People and the following locations: Vancouver ~ West Vancouver~ Squamish First Nation ~ Horseshoe Bay ~ Bowen Island ~ Keats Island ~ Gibsons ~ Roberts Creek~ Sechelt ~ Sechelt First Nation ~ Halfmoon Bay~ Texada Island ~ Lasqueti Island ~ Parksville ~ Lantzville ~ Nanoose First Nation ~ Nanaimo ~ Snuneymuxw First Nation ~ Gabriola Island ~ Penelakut Tribe ~ Saltspring Island ~ Sidney ~ Tseycum First Nation ~ Victoria.
About: Dianne Whelan
An award-winning Canadian filmmaker, photographer, author and public speaker known for taking a multi-disciplinary approach to her subjects. In addition to the award-winning documentary and interactive project This Land, she wrote a book about her time in the High Arctic called This Vanishing Land.
Whelan then turned her attention to Everest in the independent documentary 40 Days at Base Camp and companion book Base Camp: 40 Days on Everest. While on her epic six-year Trans Canada Trail journey, she also co-created with filmmaker Ann Verrall, and in collaboration with other artists and Indigenous communities, a companion series of three films called The Beacon Project. diannewhelan.com
About: Trans Canada Trail
Winding its way through every province and territory, the Trans Canada Trail is the world’s longest network of multi-use recreational trails, stretching more than 27,000 km & showcasing Canada’s diverse landscapes and cultures. It is a connector of people and communities, a national unity endeavour that brings together Canadians and visitors from all walks of life, enhancing their quality of life and the communities where they live, work and play. Supported by donations, it links over 15,000 rural, urban and Indigenous communities from coast to coast to coast. Our national trail is managed by local trail groups and partners who work in conjunction with Trans Canada Trail, a registered charity. tctrail.ca
Since beginning her journey in Newfoundland in 2015, the award winning Canadian filmmaker has hiked, biked, snowshoed, cross country skied, and, for close to 7,000 kilometres, paddled a canoe. For most of it, she has traveled solo, while simultaneously writing and filming 500 Days in the Wild, an independent documentary about her experience.
However, Whelan knows she’ll miss it when it’s over. “The trail became home,” she says. At some point, she stopped feeling like she was in nature, but rather was with nature. “When you’re out here, you’re not in the world that we created, but you’re in a world that created us,” she says.
It was this desire to reconnect with the land that inspired her pilgrimage. When she left, she felt she was no longer living in a society but merely an economy. “I really thought that everything we needed to know we had forgotten as a culture, we’ve lost our connection to the web of life and to the future.” So, she set out in search of hope, wisdom and a better understanding of how we can move forward together to protect the earth for future generations.
Embarking on a solo journey of this magnitude has been humbling. Whether you’re on the waters of Lake Superior or deep in the woods on a fur trader trail in Quebec, she says, “it’s a very grounding experience to be in nature alone for weeks at a time. You have to accept that no one will rescue you. If things go sideways, you have to accept the responsibility to save yourself.”
That isn’t to say that there weren’t physical challenges along the trail.
However, once she gave into the experience, “it was like something ancient woke up in my DNA and I felt more connected to life than I ever have and suddenly I wasn’t paddling on the water, I was paddling with the water. I wasn’t on the earth, walking, I was part of her.”
Whelan, who’s in her 50s, says she is still waiting for the buff athlete to spring from her body, “because it hasn’t happened yet!” she jokes. But she is okay taking her time. Completing the Trans Canada Trail has never been about athletic achievement for her, but rather honouring the land, the water, and paying respect to the First Nations peoples of Canada. “For me, it’s not about the fastest way. It’s always been about what is the most meaningful way,” she says.
Whelan says the trail “has profoundly changed my understanding of the word ‘sacred’. Nature is sacred to me and the old growth cedar trees are my cathedral.” We need clean water, air and food to survive, she has realized. “And I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to protect those things” she says.
She’s come to see the trail as a symbol of how the land connects us all.
“If you’re alive today, you can trace your ancestry back to the beginning of human time … It doesn’t matter if you’re conservative, liberal or NDP, it doesn’t matter what culture you’re from. We are connected by the land and the water because we all live on the same planet,” she says.
For Whelan, the important journeys are the ones that happen here on earth—not the flights of billionaire astronauts. Besides, she says, “I don’t want to live on Mars. There are no butterflies on Mars.”
“The water is sacred, the air is sacred, because it’s what we need to survive—and not just us, but all the birds, animals, the fish and everything.” It’s because of this that “we all have the shared responsibility of protecting it all for future people.”
Whelan found hope in the indigenous communities she spent time in. They reminded her, she says, that “we are tomorrow’s ancestors.” When it comes to finding a way to live on the planet sustainably, “it’s all about bringing traditional indigenous wisdom and science and technology to work together.”
Whelan—a woman who has quite literally forged her own trail—encourages other people searching for hope and faith to ask themselves, “what is the most meaningful way to move forward?” and to be led by their hearts. As she points out, “your heart knows your purpose. Your heart knows why you’re here.”
Lastly, when in doubt, she says, drop into nature to find yourself. In an affirmation that has followed her through her journey, she reflects: “Solitude reveals what a mirror cannot.” Top Scenic Trans-Canada Train Trips (With Maps)
Dianne Whelan will soon become the first person to complete The Great Trail.
By J.D. SIMKINS – July 26, 2021
Dianne Whelan is expected to pull her canoe onto the shore of Victoria, British Columbia, on Aug. 1, the long-awaited culmination of a 17,000-mile journey along the seemingly interminable route known throughout North America as The Great Trail.
The award-winning filmmaker’s remarkable expedition, the majority of which she completed solo, began in Newfoundland in 2015. Over the six years that followed, Whelan cross-country skied, snowshoed, mountain bike, hiked & canoeing through Canada’s vast and unforgivable network of plains, lakes, and forests that form a bridge between the Arctic, Atlantic, and Pacific oceans.
Whelan’s historic trek will subsequently become the subject of an upcoming book and documentary of the same name, which she produced. 500 Days in the Wild is a story of trading in the rigors of society for the natural world, honoring its Indigenous people, and pursuing inclusivity and environmental awareness.
The herculean project comes on the heels of Whelan’s award-winning documentaries This Land, which chronicles an expedition to Canada’s northernmost peninsula, and 40 Days at Base Camp, A story of one team’s pursuit of the Mt. Everest summit while analyzing the impact of climate change on the world’s highest peak.
The final leg of Whelan’s journey, meanwhile, a 300-mile paddle she launched earlier this month from Vancouver, will take her through territories steeped in the cultural history of the Coastal Salish People, including the Squamish, Sechelt, Nanoose, Snuneymuxw, and Tseycum First Nations, “people on this land whose ancestors date back 10,000 years,”
Whelan had her sights set on acknowledging the history of wrongs committed against Canada’s Indigenous peoples from the moment she stepped off in 2015 from Newfoundland, one of the country’s Atlantic Provinces where approximately 60,000 people identify as members of the Mi’kmaq First Nations.
“I was taught there is no word for forgiveness in the Mi’kmaq language, the literal translation of the word means ‘to make things right,’” she said. “I hope what I have carried in my heart on this journey and the art made from it will be a ripple on those healing waters.”
A 500 Days in the Wild official Instagram account will document the final stretch of Whelan’s journey, while the book and film (of the same name) are expected to be released in 2023 and 2024, respectively.
“The purpose of 500 Days in the Wild is to inspire reverence for this Earth again,”
Whelan said in a release. “A new mindset; a journey of reconciliation—learning, listening, and letting go. At its very heart, that’s what this film is all about.”
GATHER for HER – Dianne Whelan ⋆ PowHERhouse
The Great Trail of Canada | Dianne Whelan – YouTube
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