“I walked 200 kilometres in eight days in search of inner peace”

In 2016, I was volunteering as a gardener at the Ignatius Jesuit Centre in Guelph when someone mentioned the Martyrs’ Shrine walk, which begins in the north end of town and continues almost 200 kilometres north to a church in Midland. I was intrigued. I’m not Catholic or of any other religion, but I have found that being in nature puts me in touch with my spiritual side, and physical challenges can amplify that. At the time, I was juggling work and raising two kids with my partner, and couldn’t seem to make any time for myself. The idea of spending eight days on a pilgrimage sounded freeing, so I signed up for the walk that August and convinced my then 12-year-old daughter, Poppy, to join me.

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It’s a ported journey, which means staff haul your camping gear on a truck and provide you with meals at stops along the way. We’d wake up at 6 a.m. and have cereal, bread, eggs and yogurt before covering between 20 and 30 kilometres. Your focus is walking and reflection—we were mostly free to talk, but there were also mandated periods of silence. I left my phone behind because I wanted to be in the moment rather than take pictures, listen to music or text. The walk was more challenging than I expected: the late summer heat was intense, and by the second day, I already had blisters from my hiking boots and rashes across my legs from the gravel dust. The cars and trucks flying past us were a real test of our spiritual focus too.

Our group was made up of 40 or so pilgrims. There were elderly folks who had recently lost their partners and people going through midlife crises. One woman was struggling to rebuild her identity after leaving a 25-year career. It was a nice reprieve to watch Penny and the handful of other kids on the walk laugh and explore creeks by the side of the road, carrying their own ideas of what was important. By the halfway point, I realized that many of my frustrations in life were of my own making: I was grasping for control of things that were out of my hands. I spent the rest of the hike trying to let go. I realized I could give myself a break, ease up on my kids a little and allow my partner the time to do his own thing. It’s the kind of resolution I could achieve only away from the daily commitments of work and running a household.

The pilgrimage concluded with a service at the Martyrs’ Shrine, a stone church on a hill in Midland. Surrounded by trim gardens, it was quite a contrast to the forest roads and fields we’d been travelling through. After eight days of walking in community, I felt my heart open in a profound way. A few years later, I hiked part of the Camino de Santiago, the ancient pilgrimage trail in Europe, which is something I’ve always wanted to do. I’m open to other pilgrimages in Canada too. It’s lovely to make time for self-reflection and to meet others doing the same. On a pilgrimage, everyone comes with their own needs and expectations, but you walk together.