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What the Trail Requires: The Mantario
For the past couple years I’ve heard stories about the Mantario Hiking Trail from friends who’d hiked and run it. At about 63km (40 miles) long, it’s not to be taken lightly. The trail was created in 1970s (though I wonder at its prior history), and traces a north-south path through the Mantario Wilderness Zone,…
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Men on the run: Mennonite Marathon
At sunrise on Saturday, August 1, a fisherman stood outside his tent at the point where the Rat and Red Rivers meet. Rod in hand, a curious smirk crossed his face as he watched 11 runners walk down to the river’s edge, dip their toes in the water, then start off running towards the sun.…
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The Foot’s Silver Prayer
When Annie Dillard wrote about the man who kept a daily journal about the clouds, I thought the idea ridiculous. Who would document something as mundane as clouds? Most of us think clouds as boring as the paint on our walls, simply, unremarkably, there. But would this documentarian of the sky have disagreed? Today marks…
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Secret Paths of Steinbach
When I was a kid, I was enthralled by secret portals into other worlds. Books like The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and Secret Garden captured my young imagination. What if I could crawl into a tunnel, a cave, or an ordinary wardrobe, and enter into a secret mystical world? I imagined carving a…
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Small Kindnesses
Have we ever paid so much attention to our connection to each other? If ever we were aware of exactly how many metres separate you from me, and how quickly we can spread both kindness or viruses between people, it’s now. One year ago, Naomi Shihab Nye said of a poem, “Sometimes a poem just…
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We Will Rise
Last night I made bread. As I was lining up to take a photo of my glorious creation, my nearly-three-year-old said with disbelief, “You’re taking a picture of the bread?!? Bread can’t say “cheese”… I’ll say “cheese” for it!” And she did. But as my little helper and I baked, I thought about the time…
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Running Every Single Street in Steinbach
“To walk across a place is to truly know a place.” – Rickey Gates # Last year I was inspired by Rickey Gates’ “Every Single Street” project, where the ultrarunner set out to run all of the 1170km (1100 miles) of street in San Fransisco. No big deal, right? Here’s the documentary that was produced…
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The Peace of Wild Things
In this week of stress and uncertainty, my morning ritual has been essential. Leaving the house, weaving down familiar trails under the vast dawn sky, this poem by Wendell Berry has surfaced day after day. The Peace of Wild Thingsby Wendell Berry When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the…
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The Right Path
Lately I’ve been reflecting on a recent read, On Trails, by Robert Moor. Looks like we’ve got a little impromptu series of posts going, you can read other thoughts from this book here and here. This book’s cover, even in its Dutch form, drew me in last summer, and this winter I finally had the…
