Some people buy a motorcycle or get a tattoo when they have a mid-life crisis. Dianne Whelan decided to explore the longest trail in the world.
The Canadian filmmaker spoke with CTV News Channel on Thursday about writing and directing "500 Days in the Wild," a documentary that follows her six-year journey travelling all 24,000 kilometres of the Trans Canada Trail.
"I made a film about Mount Everest and I made a film about the most northern coastline in Canada, so from a professional perspective, making one about the longest trail in the world seemed like a natural next step," Whelan said with a grin.
In actuality, the combination of turning 50, having her marriage end and her dog of 16 years die made Whelan realize it was "time to check out to check in for a little while."
"It was an amazing gift to give myself to spend six years out there, and in six years, I never met one mean person," she said. "It definitely gave me some new faith in humanity."
Whelan's trip began on July 1, 2015, in St. John's, N.L., and ended Aug. 1, 2021, in Victoria, B.C. She said she spent time in Indigenous communities and was met with grace and kindness. There were several instances where she was lost, but fellow Canadians offered her shelter, water or places to stay.
"Sometimes when we watch the news, there's a lot of darkness out there, but there's not. There's a lot of kind people out there, and when you get out there and you get back to the land, you can find a lot of them," she said.
With more than 800 hours of footage and thousands of stills, the final project has been shown at film festivals around the world and opened at select theatres across Canada on March 1.
Whelan acknowledges that she spent plenty of time by herself on the journey, but makes a case that she was never really "alone."
"Solitude reveals what a mirror cannot," she said. "When I was alone, I was never really alone, because humans are just 0.01 per cent of all life on Earth. When you go out there and spend time with nature, you get to connect with the other 99.9 per cent."
Whelan said the six-year journey really made her feel connected with the web of life, and that if you connect with nature, "something ancient wakes up in your DNA."
"I tend to romanticize individualism, I go off on these kinds of journeys. But one of the things I learned out there was that we're kind of like the trees," Whelan said. "On the surface we look like we stand alone, but beneath the surface, all those roots are interconnected."
While it may be difficult for most people to travel the same 24,000-kilometre journey that Whelan travelled, she encourages Canadians to carve out some time on any part of the trail.
"When you walk a part of the Trans Canada Trail, you're walking a trail that connects us all," she said. "That's a pretty incredible gift we're leaving for the future. We are yesterday's descendants but we are tomorrow's ancestors. Leaving a public trail from coast to coast to coast is an incredible legacy to leave for the future."
Watch the full interview with Dianne Whelan at the top of the article.
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