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Ontarians to Walk Canada’s Great Trail Over Three Years

Sonja Richmond and Sean Morton from Ontario will be walking along Canada’s 24,000-kilometre Great Trail, the longest in the world.

They are planning to hike from St. John’s, Newfoundland, to Victoria, B.C, and paddle from Edmonton to Tuktoyaktuk. They intend to blog their experiences, post pictures and talk to students and classes across the country.

“Working in collaboration with Bird Studies Canada, we will start in May 2019, and it will take us nearly three years to complete the 23,000 km long portion of the trail we plan to cover.”

Dana Meise from Alberta recently walked the trail over 10 years and German hiker Melanie Vogel is walking the full trail. “As we walk we will be passing through more than 73 important bird areas.”

Richmond recently earned her PhD in forestry from the University of Toronto and works at Bird Studies Canada.

They completed their first medium-distance hike in 2016, when they walked 800 km along the Camino Frances, from St. Jean-Pied-de-Port, France to Santiago de Compostela, Spain.

They followed that with a 780 km hike along the Via Podiensis, from Le Puy-en-Velay, France to Roncesvalles, Spain in 2017. In 2018 they walked 250 km along the East Coast Trail in Newfoundland, which is also part of the Great Trail. You can follow along on Facebook here.

Sonja Richmond and Sean Morton

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