Four apples, four carrots, a loaf of bread, and a cucumber.
That is the entirety of what Ori Nevares and Phil Roberge have bought in the last three weeks since they set out to hitchhike across Canada.
But that’s all the two B.C. university students have needed. The rest has been provided by strangers they’ve met along the way.
Nevares and Roberge are travelling across the entire country with just $150 each in their pockets, in a bid to meet the people of Canada and celebrate our country’s 150th birthday.
Though they worried their tiny budget wouldn’t last them long, the 23-year-olds are halfway through and have spent only $9 – all of it on that already-mentioned food in the first few days of the trip. Since then, strangers have stepped up to pay for the rest.
“Honestly, the generosity and kindness that we’ve experienced from the start is way more than anything we ever thought,” Nevares told CTV’s Your Morning on Thursday.
The pair has learned that once they get to know strangers, they are more than happy to feed them, offer them a lift, or give them a place to spend the night.
The two have stayed on farms in the Prairies, camped in open canola fields, and snuggled into beds in the homes of people who heard about the journey on their Expedition Canada 150 website.
Nevares says one of his highlights of the trip, so far, was staying on a sheep farm southeast of Edmonton. There, the family let them sleep in a cabin at the back of the property, and sat down with them to a feast of farm-fresh lamb, eggs and honey.
“Hearing their story, they came over from Germany, was just amazing,” Nevares said. “That was probably a personal highlight for me, to just get a sense of the small farm life in Canada, which is a huge part of the country.”
For Roberge, one of his highlights was meeting the Parmar family in Saskatchewan. The family’s patriarch, Ramnik Parmar, was exiled from Uganda in 1971 when former dictator Idi Amin came to power.
“The dad came as a refugee to Canada. He had $3 in his pocket and went straight to Swift Current, Sask., and started working in a welding and fabrication shop,” he said of Parmar's mid-winter arrival in Canada.
Parmar soon made enough to bring his wife Indira and family over from Uganda before starting his own business.
“And now, he’s like a star in Swift Current,” Roberge said. “Everyone’s story has been something quite incredible like that. That’s just one of the standouts.”
Nevares and Roberge have been filming their whole journey, creating vlogs for their website and Facebook page. Their aim is to create a full-length documentary of their unscripted adventure, highlighting the people they’ve met, and focusing on what it means to be Canadian.
It isn’t the trip they first imagined. The environmental studies students had planned a journey in which they would travel to every national park to celebrate Canada’s 150th birthday. But, after applying for a few dozen grants and sponsorships, they realized no one was on board with their idea.
So, with some basic camping equipment and several pieces of photography and film equipment in a backpack, they switched to a hitchhiking adventure to learn more the people of this country.
They next plan to see the eastern part of Canada, stopping in Ottawa on the way with the hope of camping on the front lawn of the prime minister’s residence.
Everywhere they go, they ask people the same four questions: From where and how did your family come to Canada; what’s your favourite thing about Canada; how did you come to meet us today; and what is the greatest piece of advice you have to offer?
Roberge says, after three weeks, they’ve met so many diverse people and learned so much about this country.
“I definitely know more about the people of Canada and that’s been one of the main goals of this trip: to share their stories with other Canadians like ourselves, and to encourage more young people to travel across the country,” says Roberge.