How Hiking Ouimet Canyon Changed My Life During the Lockdown
A spiritual experience hiking Ouimet Canyon restored my sense of adventure during the lockdown. Now, I’m on a lifelong mission to photograph the world’s most beautiful landscapes — and you’re invited.
When the lockdown began, it felt like a particular cruelty. I was trying to find my way through a long period of loneliness, and I’d left the country just twice in my life. So I wanted to see the world, make new connections, and extend myself — not spend another year in solitude.
My work as a writer synced with my home office easily enough, so in retrospect, I count myself among the lucky. But for the first three months, I sprawled with retro video games, indie cinema, and Oreo ice cream scooped onto warmed-up chocolate chip cookies. I was miserable.
In June, I took a road trip to the scene of my childhood in Thunder Bay, Ontario, sanitizing after gas pumps and pittstopping in bushes as I went. I’d never driven anywhere by myself except to the valley, and I hadn’t been that far north in over three decades, so it felt like a meaningful use of my time. But my life there hadn’t been easy, so I wasn’t sure what to expect.
I made great time during a thrilling drive north through the soaring, coastal roads of Algoma, so I had more for a diversion. As I neared the city, I instead took the turnoff for Ouimet Canyon Provincial Park, a place I loved dearly. The sun was high, my windows were down, and the narrow, cracked asphalt was hot nostalgia as it wound into the thick pine of Ontario’s north.
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Hiking Ouimet Canyon after 32 Years
In the parking lot, I stepped out into the past, where long grasses and weeds grew freely, but purple and yellow wildflowers peeked from the green like long, wet noses sniffing for the sun. The office was closed, but I recognized a few old picnic areas, and an information board outlining the loop hike ahead. It didn’t look long, so I set out right away.
The first kilometre was an easy, pleasant stroll across a long boardwalk and a high wooden bridge I wasn’t expecting. On the other side, the wide pathway broke off into more typical hiking trails, and it felt as if time were flickering back and forth as my memory succeeded and failed. Clouds billowed like smoke through gaps in the forest canopy, urging me deeper into the forest.
Soon, the trail opened up into the first lookout. I get adrenaline from heights, and it was dizzying standing at the top of that deep brown canyon wall. The south end of the gorge was partially obscured from the viewing area, but on the canyon floor to the north, there was the humanoid rock face I always remembered best about Ouimet.
As I looked out from that broad, high expanse, I had an intense flashback to the last time I stood there in 1988. It was one of the last moments before we moved east forever, and I was experiencing many of the same emotions; already missing people I wasn’t sure I’d see again, anxious about the future, but full of hope and ready for a voyage. As those moments merged, I felt more at home in the world than I had in a long time.
The next lookout wasn’t too much further down the path. This angle, looking out into the majestic hills and forests surrounding Gulch River at the canyon mouth, was the one I loved the most as a child, but had forgotten entirely in the years since. The flood of memory was like a veil lifting from my field of view. And as I hiked back to my car, I recognized the park fully as the day I left it, all those years ago.
It was as if a portal opened along that pathway, and the ten-year-old version of me that lived for adventure, and made the most of what freedom he had, walked right back into my life. Except instead of having to go back to my Dad’s Ford pickup, I could spirit him away with me. My grey sedan is only almost as cool as the red-and-yellow BMX I had back then, but it’s way faster. And we could go anywhere.
Becoming a Lifelong Hiker
For months, the kid and I drove like Thunderbolt and Lightfoot on the run, hunting out new places, new trails, and new spiritual tears in the fabric of time to leave about, like so many talismans to discover later, when old age takes everything else.
At the end of August, I went for a pleasure cruise out to Bruce Peninsula. As I hiked the Niagara Escarpment and skinny dipped secret, lush hideaways along that turquoise Georgian Bay coast, a resolution took place between my inner child and I, and we became someone else entirely, closer to our source code. And I knew I would be seeking out beautiful, remote landscapes for the rest of my life.
It’s funny. I’ve been thinking about my biography since before I was ten, when I had to write under the covers at night by the glow of my old Lite-Brite. I never could have predicted that when I finally published something personal, it would be in the form of a hiking blog. And there are a lot of stories I could tell about myself.
I’ve brought my weight from 320 pounds down to 175. I’ve done two long stints in Ottawa’s live-in mental health system. I went back to school at 33 after a lifetime of minimum wage, got my shit together and built a fulfilling career from scratch. I gained all that weight back and lost it again. But this is the right story to tell. You’ll see.
At its core, this is a hiking blog. There will be the formulaic trail reviews people need in order to access photos and information quickly; I won’t deny you that convenience. But there will also be the ongoing story of these hikes and the stunning images I’ve captured, beginning here where I peeled out of that Ouimet Canyon parking lot. So choose your own adventure.
Now, I’m getting ready for another beautiful summer finding gorgeous, remote landscapes to be my creative muse. Follow me on Instagram for updates as I release stories and reviews for the trails I’ve already done, and backpack some intense spots!