With around 5,000 kilometres under his kilt, Michael Yellowlees is on his third pair of shoes.
His dog Luna trotting at his side, Yellowlees has been pushing his improvised cart along the shoulder of the Trans-Canada highway since March.
“We’rewalking 40 or 50 kilometres every day,” Yellowlees said. “But we’re living an adventure of a lifetime. Canada is such a beautiful country in so many ways.”
Man and dog are walking west to east, from Tofino, B.C., to Cape Spear, N.L., which they hope to reach sometime in December.
Their journey is to raise money for Trees for Life, a charity based in Scotland dedicated to “rewilding” the Scottish Highlands. According to the charity, only 2 per cent of the original forests in the highlands of Scotland remain.
“If you ever go to Scotland, you walk in the Highlands and you’ll see it’s a very barren landscape,” Yellowlees said. “I’ve always found it a very sad landscape, walking through it. And then you find out it should be forested from coast to coast and be bursting with life, and you start to go, ‘OK, well, we need to fix this.'”
Yellowlees hopes to do exactly that, and so far he’s collected more than $25,000 on his walk.
WATCH | The feature about Michael Yellowlees’ long walk, Sunday Oct. 3 on The National at 9 p.m. ET on CBC News Network and 10 p.m. local time on your CBC television station. You can also catch The National online on CBC Gem.
Why Canada?
Yellowlees, who turned 32 on the road and celebrated with a steak each for him and Luna, got the idea for the walk last year when he was working at a sled dog company on the west coast.
That was also when he met Luna — a seven-year-old Alaskan husky and former lead dog of a sled team.
“This is a kind of retirement for her,” Yellowlees said with a smile.
Yellowlees and Luna walk along a trail beside the Trans-Canada highway near Petawawa, Ont. Man and dog left Tofino, B.C., last March and hope to reach Cape Spear, N.L., some time this winter. (Nick Purdon/CBC)
Yellowlees says the reason he decided to walk across Canada is pretty simple.
“You’ve got wilderness here, and that we don’t have in Scotland anymore,” he said. “We’ve lost it over the last few hundred years. The ecology in Scotland has been eroded and we’re kind of left with the bare bones.”
His eyes light up as he explains one of the greatest experiences he’s had to date on the walk.
“Just the other night I’m hearing wolves howling, and for me that’s like a bucket-list moment. That was spine-tingling and something that I really hope that Scotland will have in the future.”
Rock star on the road
The journey is striking a chord with people across Canada.
Theresa-Jane Snyder drove a couple of hundred kilometres down the highway to take a care package to Yellowlees and Luna after she found out about them online.
“I think it’s just brilliant,” Snyder said. “I’m just inspired by him, by choosing Canada to walk across!”
WATCH: Michael Yellowlees meets Theresa-Jane Snyder on the highway near Deep River, Ont:
Kindness of strangers supports Michael Yellowlees on his cross-Canada journey
3 days ago
Theresa-Jane Snyder stopped her car on the Trans-Canada highway near Deep River, Ont., to hand Michael Yellowlees a bag with supplies to help him on his cross-Canada walk for charity. 0:44
This is the effect Yellowlees has. All day long people honk and holler and stop to offer him food or water.
“People have just been glorious — right from the get go,” Yellowlees said.
“The amount of times they’ve just lifted us up in our spirit — it’s totally just carried us along.”
Darla Stewart recently spent the day peeking out her windows and watching the road from her home in Point Alexander, Ont., so as not to miss Yellowlees and Luna.
When she finally caught sight of them she waved them across the highway to her house.
Yellowlees chats with Darla Stewart on her driveway in Point Alexander, Ont. Stewart found out about Yellowlees and Luna online and spent the day waiting for them to pass her house. (Nick Purdon/CBC)
As they chat, Stewart fills Luna’s bowl three times with water.
“This is what we do. This is the Ottawa Valley,” Stewart said. “We call people in. We feed them. We put them on their way. That’s what people do here.”
Stewart invites Yellowlees for a meal, but he declines as he has already fallen a little behind schedule. He and Luna have to keep walking.
Stewart waves from her driveway — smiling.
“He’s had long days, hard days, hot days, cold nights, and it’s going to get worse before he gets where he’s going. It’s just uplifting,” Stewart said. “I’m like a mom. You want to make sure they’re safe along the way and they’re not hungry.”
Yellowlees continues on his way, and as the sun begins to set he turns down another stranger’s offer — this time a place to stay.
Yellowlees speaks with Peter Selander, a.k.a. Bicycle Pete, in Deep River, Ont. Dozens of Canadians stop to chat and bring food and water to Yellowlees and Luna every day. ‘I knew this would be a trip of human kindness,’ Yellowlees said. (Nick Purdon/CBC)
Still, after only a few more kilometres Yellowlees and Luna are exhausted.
It’s anything but glamorous, but Yellowlees turns his cart away from the highway and finds a secluded spot of grass just behind a gas station. He pulls out his sleeping pad and lies down under the stars.
He calls Luna over and she lies down next to him.
“You think of giving up all the time you know — all the way across,” he said before shutting his eyes.
“You have moments of going, ‘Oh, I don’t know if I can do this,’ especially early on when you have such a long road ahead of you,” he said. “There’s always these doubts. So you dream about giving up.”
Four-legged inspiration
After only a few hours of rest, Yellowlees is awake. Each morning he carefully wraps Luna’s front paws and slips on the booties she’s started to wear to protect her from the hard pavement.
Then they’re back on the road committed to walking another 40 to 50 km.
On days like this when he’s tired, Yellowlees says with a smirk that he tries to convince himself that he’s just taking his dog for a walk — a very very long walk.
In the end, Yellowlees says it’s Luna who keeps him going.
“She’s the motivator in all of this. She’s the one pulling us along,” Yellowlees said.
“The mornings where I’m laying in bed just sort of wanting to give up, she’s the one licking me in the face and telling me, ‘Hey, come on, let’s get. Let’s get moving.'”
WATCH: Michael Yellowlees talks about Luna’s central role in his journey:
Michael Yellowlees inspired on his journey by his dog Luna
3 days ago
Michael Yellowlees explains how his dog Luna has helped him keep going through the hard times during his walk across Canada to raise money for a tree-planting charity. 0:45
There have been lots of highs and beautiful moments on the road, but Yellowlees is clear about when he hit rock bottom.
He was on remote stretch of road east of Fort Frances, Ont., and Luna ran off. Yellowlees searched for days in the deep bush but he couldn’t find her.
“It was the worst week of my life,” he said.
“I was grieving her. I thought I’d lost her. And I’ve got to be honest, I was a mess.”
Yellowlees says he never gave up hope that he’d be reunited with his companion, and he put the word out on social media.
Finally, on the seventh day, someone found Luna and they were reunited.
“I just got the most beautiful, beautiful hug from her. She came over, just gave me the most beautiful hug,” remembers Yellowlees. “Then she fell asleep, fell asleep in my arms. What an amazing dog, you know?”
Luna is an Alaskan husky Yellowlees met in Tofino, B.C., where he worked for a dog-sledding operation last winter. ‘Luna is absolutely everything to me,’ he said, ‘she’s been a superstar through it all.’ (Nick Purdon/CBC)
Luna was in rough shape when she returned — thin, exhausted and dehydrated. She was still wearing her leash and Yellowlees wonders if she got it snagged somewhere in the forest and that was why she didn’t come back.
What is it that people say about absence and the heart?
“I just couldn’t imagine life without her now. My life wouldn’t be the same going forward,” Yellowlees said.
He plans to take Luna back to Scotland with him when he finally returns.
State of the planet
Yellowlees has had plenty of time to think on his journey, and he says his thoughts often turn to climate change and the state of the planet.
He says there’s a parallel between his journey and the work that needs to be done to solve the issue.
“We’ve got a long road ahead of us to get things back in balance,” he said.
Yellowlees says he is part dreamer and part realist. He understands that raising money by walking across Canada won’t solve the climate crisis, and so he tries to raise awareness of the issue with the people he meets on the road.
Yellowlees shakes hands with a couple who brought him a care package along Highway 17 near Pembroke, Ont. ‘People have just been glorious – right from the get go,’ said Yellowlees. (Nick Purdon/CBC)
Nancy Rose read about Yellowlees’ journey online and drove out to find him.
On the side of the highway they chat about Scotland and the Canadian wilderness, and then Yellowlees nudges the discussion toward climate change.
“With the climate crisis maybe we can blame the government, we can blame whomever,” Yellowlees said. “But until we start to say ‘we need to change this,’ nothing will really happen.”
Rose nods her head. “You are just an amazing person,” she said. “I think there should be more Michaels and Lunas in the world!”
While Yellowlees has raised more than $25,000 for a charity called Trees for Life, he also hopes his walk will raise awareness about climate change. ‘We’ve got a long road ahead of us to fix things and get things back in balance,’ he said. ‘We can’t give up.’ (Nick Purdon/CBC)
Soon enough, dog and redhead are back on the road heading east, one step at a time.
Yellowlees says he feels blessed to have witnessed the beauty of Canada from a unique perspective, and he has a message for Canadians about our wilderness.
“Look after what you have here. It’s so, so precious and so important, and not only just look after it. Give back to it as well, be proactive in restoring it and looking after it.
“We can’t give up. This is the future of the planet, so we can’t give up.”
WATCH | A Scotsman and his dog aim to cross the country on foot:
The Scotsman and his husky aiming to walk across Canada
4 hours ago
Michael Yellowlees of Scotland, and his Alaskan husky Luna of Canada, are walking across Canada. They left Tofino, B.C., last March and have finally reached Ontario. While they hope to reach the eastern tip of Newfoundland sometime in December, their real goal is to raise money for a Scottish charity called Trees for Life. 6:25
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GENEVA (AP) — Two former Olympic champions are in the race to be the next IOC president. So is a prince of a Middle East kingdom and the son of a former president. The global leaders of cycling, gymnastics and skiing also are in play.
The International Olympic Committee published a list Monday of seven would-be candidates who are set to run for election in March to succeed outgoing president Thomas Bach for the next eight years.
Just one woman, IOC executive board member Kirsty Coventry from Zimbabwe, entered the contest to lead an organization that has had only male presidents in its 130-year history. Eight of those presidents were from Europe and one from the United States.
Coventry and Sebastian Coe are two-time gold medalists in swimming and running, respectively. Prince Feisal al Hussein of Jordan is also on the IOC board.
Juan Antonio Samaranch Jr. of Spain is one of the four IOC vice presidents, whose father was president for 21 years until 2001.
David Lappartient is the president of cycling’s governing body, Morinari Watanabe leads gymnastics, and Johan Eliasch is president of the International Ski and Snowboard Federation. Coe is the president of track’s World Athletics.
All seven met a deadline of Sunday to send a letter of intent to Bach, who must leave the post next year after reaching the maximum 12 years in office. Bach declined at the Paris Olympics last month to seek to change IOC rules in order to stay in office longer.
A formal candidate list should be confirmed in January, three months before the March 18-21 election meeting in Greece, near the site of Ancient Olympia.
Only IOC members are eligible to stand as candidates, with votes cast by the rest of the 111-strong membership of the Olympic body.
The IOC is one of the most exclusive clubs in world sports. Its members are drawn from European and Middle East royalty, leaders of international sports bodies, former and current Olympic athletes, politicians and diplomats plus industrialists, including some billionaires like Eliasch.
It makes for one of the most discreet and quirky election campaigns in world sports, with members prevented from publicly endorsing their pick.
Campaign limits on the candidates include a block on publishing videos, organizing public meetings and taking part in public debates. The IOC will organize a closed-door meeting for candidates to address voters in January in its home city Lausanne, Switzerland.
The IOC top job ideally calls for deep knowledge of managing sports, understanding athletes’ needs and nimble skills in global politics.
The president oversees an organization that earns billions of dollars in revenue from broadcasting and sponsor deals for the Olympic Games and employs hundreds of staff in Lausanne, Switzerland.
Coe has been widely considered the most qualified candidate. A two-time Olympic champion in the 1,500-meters, he was later an elected lawmaker in Britain in the 1990s, led the 2012 London Olympics organizing committee and has presided at World Athletics for nine years.
However, he has potential legal hurdles regarding his ability to serve a full eight-year mandate. The IOC has an age limit of 70 for members, while Coe will be 68 on election day. The rules allow for a special exemption to remain for four more years, but that would mean a six-year presidency unless those limits are changed.
Coventry, who turned 41 Monday, also has government experience as the appointed sports minister in Zimbabwe.
The only woman ever to stand as an IOC presidential candidate was Anita DeFrantz, a former Olympic rower from the United States. She was eliminated in the first round of voting in a five-candidate election in 2001, which was won by Jacques Rogge.
Lappartient also is president of France’s national Olympic body and has carried strong momentum from the Paris Summer Games. He leads a French Alps project that was picked to host the 2030 Winter Games and was picked by Bach to oversee a long-term project sealed in Paris that will see Saudi Arabia hosting the Esports Olympic Games through 2035.
Eliasch is perhaps the most surprising candidate after being elected as an IOC member in Paris less than two months ago. The Swedish-British owner of the Head sportswear brand got 17 “no” votes, a notably high number in Olympic politics.
TORONTO – Ontario is proposing to further expand pharmacists’ scope of practice by adding to the list of minor ailments they can assess, allowing them to administer more vaccines and order some lab tests.
But while pharmacists see the proposal as an overdue solution to easing the burden on other aspects of the health-care system by leaning more on their professional expertise, doctors are raising concerns.
The government in early 2023 granted pharmacists the ability to assess and treat 13 minor ailments, including pink eye, hemorrhoids and urinary tract infections. In the fall of that year six more were added to the list, including acne, canker sores and yeast infections.
Now, the government is proposing to expand the list to include sore throat, calluses and corns, mild headaches, shingles, minor sleep disorders, fungal nail infections, swimmers’ ear, head lice, nasal congestion, dandruff, ringworm, jock itch, warts and dry eye.
As well, the Ministry of Health is looking for feedback on what lab tests and point-of-care tests might be required for pharmacists to order and perform as part of assessing and treating those conditions.
The government is also considering funding pharmacists to administer tetanus, diphtheria, pertussis, pneumococcal, shingles and RSV vaccines for adults, in addition to COVID-19 and flu vaccines. The province is proposing to allow pharmacy technicians to administer the same vaccines as pharmacists.
“Our government is focused on improving access to care in communities across the province and we have seen the success of our minor ailment program, connecting over 1 million people to treatment for minor ailments,” Hannah Jensen, a spokesperson for Health Minister Sylvia Jones, wrote in a statement.
Justin Bates, CEO of the Ontario Pharmacists Association, said the minor ailments program has been going well so far, and further expanding pharmacists’ scope can help avoid visits to family doctors and emergency rooms.
“We want to build health-care capacity through looking at pharmacies as a health-care hub and the pharmacists’ trusted relationship with their patients and to leverage that, because they are underutilized when it comes to what scope they can do,” he said.
But doctors are pushing back on the scope expansions.
“The bottom line here is that pharmacists are not doctors,” said Dr. Dominik Nowak, president of the Ontario Medical Association. “Doctors are trained for years and thousands of hours to diagnose and treat conditions.”
Nowak said that sometimes the symptoms that would seem to suggest one of those minor ailments are really a sign of a more serious condition, and it takes a doctor to recognize that.
“When I look at a lot of the minor ailments list, I think to myself, there’s nothing minor about many of these,” Nowak said.
“Many of these ailments rely on the patient … one, knowing the diagnosis themselves, so the patient’s own opinion. And last I heard, most of my patients haven’t been to medical school. And then two: it also relies on the patient’s own opinion about whether this is something minor or something serious.”
Bates said he has been “disappointed” at some of the messaging from doctors, and added that any notion that there is an increased risk to patient safety is “misinformation.”
“I want to support OMA and primary care, and I do – in hiring more doctors, solving some of their issues – but it shouldn’t come at the expense of other health professions gaining their … appropriate scope of practice,” he said.
“So it’s not a zero sum game here. We want to have physicians be comfortable with this, but … the way that some of these doctors are responding, it’s almost like hysteria.”
The government’s proposal on its regulatory registry is open for comment until Oct. 20.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
VANCOUVER – The president of the Union of B.C. Municipalities says communities have billions of dollars worth of infrastructure that will need replacing in the next decade and the province needs to step in with new funding to help.
Trish Mandewo says a call for $650 million in additional infrastructure money each year is one of a series of requests the organization is making to provincial leaders days before B.C.’s provincial election will be called.
They’re also asking for a percentage of the provincial property transfer tax to support housing projects, and a share of the growth in the carbon tax to help pay for responding to extreme weather.
Local politicians are gathering for their annual convention in Vancouver this week and are expected to cover a range of topics including housing, the toxic drug crisis, growing financial pressures, and a host of other issues.
Mandewo, who is on Coquitlam City Council, says the municipalities are looking for a new, flexible revenue stream to help fund an estimated $24 billion in infrastructure replacement that’s expected to be needed in the next 10 years.
She says without the additional money, municipalities won’t be able to build “complete communities” without raising taxes.
“So it’s the individual taxpayers that are going to be paying for that, because local governments have no other way of raising funding,” she said.
Mandewo says municipalities are facing rising costs due to extreme weather events like fires, floods, droughts and heat domes and the scale of what’s required for mitigation and adaptation exceeds their tax base.
“We are asking for a new dedicated revenue source so that we can support emergency planning and risk assessments, which have been asked of us,” she said.
Municipal leaders are going to spend the week discussing more than 200 pages worth of resolutions at the conference. Mandewo says issues surrounding addiction and toxic drugs are front and centre in members’ minds.
Resolutions include calls for more overdose prevention sites, more complex care beds for people struggling with addiction, and more money directed at community safety.
“Local governments have been trying to deal with it as much as we can, because we are the ones that are closest to the communities,” she said.
“That issue is not selective, whether you’re a small community or a large community.”
Premier David Eby is scheduled to address the conference Thursday. B.C. Conservative Leader John Rustad and Green Leader Sonia Furstenau will speak Friday.
A series of “cabinet town halls” are also scheduled where municipal leaders will get a chance to question cabinet ministers on housing, public service and emergency preparedness.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
