A Windsor artist is preparing for a 750-kilometre trek across Southern Ontario to promote peace and raise funds for local youth organizations. Teajai Travis plans to spend part of the summer on a 750-kilometre walk for peace and unity from Ottawa to Windsor. For much of his life, Travis has spent time learning about and tracing the lineage of his ancestors, who were freedom seekers and travellers of the Underground Railroad. “It’s an ancestral pilgrimage. I’m leaving Parliament Hill on Canada Day to pay homage to that beacon of freedom that Canada represented for my ancestors,” Travis said. “It’s going to be a walk that concludes on August 1st, which is Emancipation Day, really celebrating the reason why, you know, my family and so many other families came here.” As a community storyteller and educator, Travis wants his walk to embolden others to consider their own family history that brought them to Canada. “I also want to encourage other people to think about the circumstances that had to happen for us to be here in this time, you know, living in this country together,” he said. A planned route will keep Travis off the highways and into city centres and small communities where he’s hoping to be joined by local residents. People can join the walk for a short stretch or join Travis for a lengthy portion. “The walk itself. It’s sending a message of peace and unity. It’s also sending a message that every day people can go out and do can do something,” Travis noted. As part of the walk, Travis will be raising funds for two Windsor-Essex-based youth organizations, the Sandwich Teen Action Group (STAG) and the Windsor Youth Centre. Growing up, Travis said STAG served as a “safe space” that kept him away from anything potentially harmful. As he grew up, Travis served on the founding board of the Windsor Youth Centre. “When I reflect on my own ancestors’ walk towards freedom, I think they were thinking about the next generations,” he explained. “I want to make sure that, you know, we are doing everything that we can to support the youth in our community.” Travis will also be fundraising to cover some of the costs of his travel as he takes a month off from work to complete the journey. Training to complete the walk consists of 15 kilometres on a treadmill completed in an hour, at least five days a week. Once he’s on the road, Travis is hopeful that a more peaceful pace will mean less wear and tear on his body. “It sounds like a really, really long distance when you kind of bunch it up, but it’s 750km over the course of one month and could never compare, you know, to the walk that the ancestors made,” Travis said. Once he’s completed the walk on Aug. 1, at Jackson Park, Travis wants to make the walk an annual event and consider raising awareness and funds in other parts of Canada.
