A Long Walk for a Bowl of Soup

I’m off to a late start this morning. Christine went swimming, and I waited until she got home so we could have breakfast together. But I’m on the road now. As I walk east along College Avenue, I watch two well-dressed men, laughing, photograph a power pole. I spot them again a few blocks away, and they are still laughing. I wish I’d heard the joke. The elm trees and their canopy of cool shade remind me of Richard Powers’s book Overstory, which I finished on Saturday, particularly the account of chestnut blight, which, like Dutch elm disease, destroyed forests throughout eastern North America, although the chestnuts, according to Powers, were like eastern redwoods in size and age—not something one could say about the comparatively short-lived elms. “Short-lived”—although their lifespan outstrips a human’s: my anthropocentric misunderstanding of trees says a lot. My pack is lighter today; I’m carrying less water and food, which could end up being a problem later. This might be my last walk before I attempt the Bypass, and I wonder if I’ll be able to cover the distance in three days, perhaps with occasional deliveries of water. I want to make that journey before classes begin. I notice a janitor spraying herbicide on the playground of Crescents School. Is that really necessary?

It was cold this morning, but it’s getting hot now. I spot a poster on a streetlight: an orange cat is lost. Fragments of plastic from the car accident still litter the sidewalk, and the downed NO PARKING sign has been removed. At the corner of Albert Street, the boulevard planting includes tall corn plants, rudbeckia, and the inevitable petunias. I turn north. Someone has scattered peanuts all over a bus shelter: transit squirrels? I push the beg button to cross 15th Avenue. Maybe I mention beg buttons too often, but I’m interested in counting the number of times that pedestrians have to wait for vehicle traffic, and I’m curious about whether green lights are shorter if the beg button hasn’t been pushed. I’m distracted this morning, thinking about the Bypass walk. What’s missing from my pack? I haven’t put in a toothbrush, or a little bottle of aloe vera (I’m sure to get sunburned), or Rolaids (a quick treatment for heat exhaustion). Do I need another notebook? Do I have the cables that connect my charging battery to my phone? I seem able to walk upright now; with the lighter pack, I’m not bent under its weight. I notice a mask abandoned next to the sidewalk. Two young women, wearing masks, are waiting for a bus.

At 13th Avenue, the beg button is broken. I wait to cross. The sidewalk is still closed at Victoria Avenue, so I cross to the other side of Albert with a cyclist and a woman with a stroller and a parasol. One baby is in the stroller; she’s carrying the other on her chest. She looks tired. I stop to look at the vacant lot at Victoria and Albert, the legacy of a failed condominium and hotel project, but also of a failed housing policy: after all, the building that used to stand here, the Plains Hotel, gave shelter to many people who could afford nothing better. There is spray paint on the sidewalk—an omen of more construction? An office building has become “executive suites.” Are there that many executives here who need furnished apartments? I cross to the other side of Albert, accompanied by a woman carrying a shopping bag. An impatient motorist creeps up behind me on the crosswalk. At Saskatchewan Drive, other drivers frown at me. I walk through the underpass beneath the Canadian Pacific tracks. There is trash everywhere, and more pigeons than I remember. Magnetic tape is unspooled on the sidewalk. City workers are collecting garbage behind a row of trees. A cyclist passes me, then walks his bike up the small hill that leads out of the underpass. A dead sparrow lies in the harsh sunlight.

There is a long lineup to return bottles and cans for the deposit at Sarcan. I nearly step in dog shit, but I’m warned by a cloud of buzzing flies. A cardboard cat-scratching pad sits next to a building. I cross Dewdney Avenue, and wonder if the city council will decide to change its name. A car alarm honks. A sign reads, “Longevity is a blessing, funding it is a challenge. We can help.” More businesses have closed, and more storefronts are for rent. I drink some water. Across a vacant lot, flowers have been painted on a shipping container. I step over pamphlets about HIV and hepatitis C, and abandoned playing cards and empty coffee cups. A dead mouse lies on the curb. The International Church of God, a sign tells me, is on the second floor. There’s not much fruit on the volunteer chokecherry next to an auto parts store. I cross 4th Avenue. Outside Tim Horton’s, two little girls climb on a bike rack as it if were a set of monkey bars. A billboard urges us to vote by mail. I turn west on Avonhurst Drive. I can feel my pack getting heavier. I’m walking under mature elm trees in a neighbourhood that’s about as old as me. A Purolator driver delivers a package, and a dog barks. 

I press the beg button and wait to cross Elphinstone. There’s a sudden cool breeze, which doesn’t last. Avonhurst Drive becomes Argyle Street. I cross Sherwood Drive, where a discarded rubber glove lies on the sidewalk. I see another mask, tossed next to the sidewalk. It’s close to noon now, and it’s getting hot. I stop in the shade of a tree and take a drink of water; then I cross the Ring Road on the overpass. I haven’t walked this way for a year or two. A child’s blue wading pool lies under a stoplight. A woman wearing a face shield boards a bus. I turn west on Sangster Boulevard. A row of tiny cedars has been planted on the north side of a fence; maybe the shade will help them survive. Another mask lies beside the curb. The sidewalk ends, then begins again, and then ends; pedestrians seem to have been an afterthought when this neighbourhood was designed. I walk past a lovely front garden, with sunflowers, herbs, and fruit trees. It’s the kind of garden that says “I care enough about this place to work hard,” although since I like to garden, I’m biased. It could just as easily say “I’m privileged enough to have the time and money to make this nice place for myself.” 

I push the beg button and wait to cross Pasqua Street, an extension of Lewvan Drive. There are eight lanes of traffic here, and the green light gives me 30 seconds to cross them. I walk north in an alley and, when the alley ends, on the grassy right-of-way, under sweet smelling poplars—no doubt the reason for their common name, “balsam poplar”—and beside sunflowers and strawberries. I cross a pipeline right-of-way and think about the number of pipelines that cross this city. Then I walk through the Home Depot parking lot. My stomach and my watch both say it’s lunch time. I cross Rochdale Boulevard and turn west. There are roses and crabapple trees and buffaloberry trees next to the sidewalk. A city worker is pruning and weeding the Virginia creeper. I startle her without meaning to, and wonder if she’s surprised because nobody walks this way, or because she doesn’t feel safe even in broad daylight. 

I’m in a school zone now, and perhaps it’s because the reduced speed is enforced by photo radar, according to a sign, but the traffic is slow and I feel much safer. There’s a skate park across the street, between a public and a Catholic high school. I stop for lunch—Thai soup—and when I leave, I smell woodsmoke in the air. I wonder if it’s from the huge fires burning in California, or if the source is nearby. A kid on a skateboard is making a video in the parking lot; other kids with skateboards are there. Later I see the kid with the camera speeding south on a busy street in the middle of the road, riding against the traffic. Kids think they’re immortal. A middle-aged man in a black Corvette plays the Eagles’s “Witchy Woman”: too many clichés for one sentence to bear. Children cycle past. I cross Rochdale and head south on McCarthy Boulevard. I see a rabbit on the lawn of the Catholic high school. It bolts when it sees me. A ladybug crashes into my face. A baby poplar tree is growing out of the lawn at the base of a streetlight. I cross back over the pipelines. Behind me, a muscle car roars through the intersection. An ancient orange Dodge van chugs past. Hiphop rumbles from a car waiting at a stoplight. I push the beg button and wait to cross McCarthy Boulevard in the shade of an ash tree. A 50-year-old Mercury, lovingly restored, passes me. I’m acting like a little boy, noticing all the passing automobiles. I hear some chickadees in a tree, and realize I’ve heard very few birds today. Why is that? Could it be the heat? Have they started heading south already? 

Sticks lean against a power pole in an imitation of a strange pagan rite. I’m full from lunch and rather uncomfortable. I cross 9th Avenue North. On the other side, cyclists pass me, and I smell burning fat coming from a burger joint. I suddenly think that I have nothing to say about this tidy suburban neighbourhood, that all of its strangeness has been pared away. Then I notice a sign asking pedestrians to watch for a lost cat, and footprints imprinted in the sand left over from the winter, and the cars parked in the bicycle lane, and the plastic Labrador retriever sitting pretty on a front porch, and I realize that some strangeness is still here. Besides, I’m strange enough, this big, sweaty man carrying a big pack and a camera, intently taking notes about what he sees, and worst of all, walking. I’m feeling my plantar fasciitis now, but it’s not that bad. There’s an abandoned house near one corner. I hear a roofer’s air hammer. I cross 1st Avenue North and see a lone bur oak between clumps of spruce and fruit trees. It’s hotter now, and the traffic is loud. The heat must be getting to me; I mistake a short wooden post for a small dog. As I realize what I’m looking at, a real dog starts howling. I decide to take a rest break under a popular tree, next to a wolf spider’s nest in the grass. I feel sweat trickle down the small of my back. I’m tired. The tree’s exposed roots have been damaged by lawn mowers. There’s a haze in the air to the south—could that be the California wildfires? I read an article on my phone about the environmental damage that will be caused by the provincial government’s $4 billion irrigation scheme. Then I stand up, haul my pack onto my shoulders, and start walking again. What are we to do when our leaders are hellbent on ecocide? I’d never vote for the Saskatchewan Party, but they’re likely to be re-elected. Then what? Why do most people here support this government? It is a mystery to me.

I notice another abandoned mask on the sidewalk. Someone has set up a hose to spray a cooling mist onto their patio. It’s a nice idea in the heat, but it’s also a waste of the water that’s piped 100 miles to get here, especially since nobody is sitting on that patio. It’s empty. The water is just adding to the uncomfortable humidity. Tall plants with pink columnar flowers line the boulevard, and bees and cabbage moths are feeding there. Dogs bark. I wonder what those plants are; I’ve never seen them before. Is this a deliberate planting? A low rumbles comes from the city sewage pumping station. I cross 4th Avenue. My pack straps squeak with every step I take. I cross the creek, cut through a gas station, and head east on Dewdney Avenue. The boulevard planting here is another mystery. It looks like someone has bought one of those wildflower mixes that are sold at garden centres and planted the seeds here. It’s very colourful, although to call it “wildflowers” is probably a misnomer, since nothing I can see is actually native to the northern prairies. I cross the creek again, and notice the ducks and geese paddling about. There are no red-winged blackbirds here, though, and no robins, and the creek is silent without them. I pass another face mask, and a plastic poppy left from Remembrance Day last November. I cross Dewdney—the south side looks to be shadier—and a dog on the north side barks and runs towards the road. It’s called back by its owner, but I wonder if I just missed getting bitten. 

I pass Optimist Park, with its baseball and football fields, surrounded by tall lights for night games. I pass Luther College and turn south to walk alongside it. My plantar fasciitis is hurting now. I walk into a street of wartime houses—those wooden prefabs built for returning veterans. Air conditioning hums. I notice a front yard vegetable garden, but it’s been neglected; the spinach has bolted, the peppers are withered, and I wonder what happened. I turn east on 11th Avenue. Mosaic Stadium looms in the distance. Sage grows in a lawn, the ghost of the prairie. I turn south again, on a street of postwar bungalows. I can hear children in one of them, loudly disputing the results of a game. I stop on 12th Avenue to listen: silence, just the whir of a pair of grasshoppers on someone’s lawn and the hum of an air conditioner’s compressor. It’s too hot for any activity. Everything is still. A stamp on the concrete sidewalk reads “1962.” The sidewalk is older than I am. I mistake the sound of an idling pickup truck for a locomotive on the CP tracks a block away. I can feel a blister forming on the sole of my left foot, in the usual place. I hear the traffic on Lewvan Drive. 

Then I’m at the footpath under the CP tracks. I walk in the shade of spruces, Russian olives, and poplars. Then I’m at 13th Avenue, and I’m nearly home. I push the beg button and wait to cross Lewvan Drive. I wonder if 30 seconds will be enough time to hobble across. When I get to the other side, I smell artificial flavours—bubblegum, fruit—and wonder where the smell is coming from. Next to the sidewalk, sow thistle grows as high as my armpits. I consider stopping at 7/11 to buy some ice cream, then decide against it. Two young women jaywalking across 13th stop traffic; a rabbit, running across a minute later, does the same thing. I stop to take a photograph of a demolished house and continue walking down an alley. Gravel crunches under my feet. Tall goldenrod is covered in delirious bees. Behind a fence, a small dog barks. I turn east on 15th Avenue. I stop again and listen to the same silence I heard before: distant traffic and air conditioning, someone spraying water from a hose. Otherwise, it is quiet. I decide to cut through the park. I cross the newly mown football field, pass the community art centre, and exit onto College Avenue. I have three blocks left to walk. And then I’m home. I take off my boots and my feet are damp and pruny—a warning about removing my boots when I stop to rest. I shouldn’t need that reminder, but I do feel silly in the city, sitting somewhere, barefoot with my acrid socks lying beside me. Maybe on the Bypass I’ll feel a little less ridiculous.