Cross country trip for mental health launches in midwestern Ontario

A Bruce County Indigenous man has begun his walk across Canada for mental health/depression awareness, CTV London's Scott Miller reports.

Mikey Morrison is into Day 2 of his Great Canadian Walkabout.

“Oh man, I can’t get enough of the fresh air, and it really helps my mental state. It helps me get out of my depression, and obviously my anxiety. As you can see, I can’t stop moving, and that’s part of my bipolar disorder,” says Morrison.

The Cambridge native left Wallenstein on Monday morning on his cross-Canada journey to bring awareness to mental health and depression, something he’s been dealing with for most of his life.

“I’ve struggled with bipolar for almost all my life, and I’ve found other ways to overcome it besides, you know, medications. I talked to my doctor. We took the right steps to get me off, and I’ve been med free for about 12 years, and I found a lot of cool ways to deal with my depression,” he says.

One of those ways is exercise and outdoor activity — he’ll get a lot of that over the coming months as he plans to pull a pony cart that he’ll sleep in at night, across Canada. He’s starting by walking on the Guelph to Goderich Rail Trail. So far, he’s about 60 kilometres in, to a potential 5,500 kilometre journey.

“I don’t have a lot of money. I’m on disability income, but I took what I could save through the winter and buy off of marketplace, and we ended up building this cart for me to pull. When I was a young fella, my dad always told me, get off your pity pony and walk it off. So, what I did was I bought a pony cart and turned it into a shelter, and I’m going to walk it off,” says Morrison.

Morrison isn’t raising money for any specific charity or cause, he just wants to “walkabout” for his own mental health, and maybe others, as well.

“Lots of people are depressed, and especially with the divide that’s going on in our country, I figured, hey, one thing we can all agree on is that Canada is beautiful, and I want to see it for all its beauty, dangers, and grace,” says Morrison.

He plans to arrive in Goderich on Wednesday, and work his way along the Lake Huron shoreline from there.