Nicholas Ruddick
Published: 2021-03-19
Total Pages: 301
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When they retired, Nick and his old friend Mike both moved with their wives from Regina, Saskatchewan to southern Ontario: Nick to Dundas and Mike to Hamilton's lower city. Nick (65) had been a university professor and Mike (70) a senior civil servant, and in spring 2018 both were in need of a new challenge. Though neither had any experience of long-distance hiking, they decided to take on the Bruce Trail end to end. The Bruce, which follows the devious course of the Niagara Escarpment for 890 kilometres/553 miles through southern Ontario, is Canada's oldest and longest waymarked hiking trail. Two and a half years later, after battling rocks, roots, heatwaves, mud, ice, noxious insects, and their own mortality, they managed to complete the Trail ... in the middle of a pandemic. Was it all a nightmare? No, it was one of the greatest experiences of their lives. This book, illustrated with more than 300 colour photographs, is Nick's opinionated photo-documentary of what they encountered and endured on the long, hard, but utterly inspiring journey from Niagara to Tobermory. If these two could do it, perhaps you can too.