Running my trapline

During the start of December, I trekked through the bush in northern Alberta with a group of First Nation elders. I spent the week studying hunting sites, medicine gathering areas and sacred places. We tracked moose, deer, lynx, coyote, bear and cougar. We walked traplines deep in the forest.

Slowly, methodically and thoughtfully we trudged along trails blazed by animal and man, far from the trappings of contemporary urban living. Hanging with the elders granted me access to a wealth of experience and knowledge of a traditional way of living off of the land – simple and intimately connected to the world.

These Elders told stories of the erosion of traditional uses of the land and subsequent degradation of culture. A particular point of concern is the movement away from the land, both in physical connection and in understanding and relating to the land. I was told the best way to rebuild this thinning relationship is through intimate, personal and repeated connection with the land.

As I left the field and laced my runners for my first run in a month I thought about what was shared with me. I don’t trap for subsistence or economic gain, but I can appreciate the connection that comes from following one’s line through the forest, over ridges and along rivers, day after day. The elders I’ve met have a way of life deeply connected to the world around them. Their survival is tied to the bounty of the land. Their sense of identity, spiritual connections and worldview are equally entwined with the earth. And, to maintain that connection, they return day after day, season after season to the land and trails they know. When I think of trail-running and my relationship with it, I feel a kindred connection to the trails I trace.

The connection begins with a physical practice of traveling on the land. I trace my routes daily, and though I travel on countless different trails I learn the twists, turns, rises and drops over the years. The routes become engrained in my mind and inform my identity and view of the world.

Though running begins in the physical motion, it extends to encompass a sense of shared community with other like-minded and like-legged adventurers. Through experience and continued meditation trail-running can transcend mere physical activity to encompass mind and spirit. Memoirs and accounts of runners worldwide describe running moments — maybe minutes, maybe hours — where he or she steps into a place of seamless connection with the trail – moments that seem out-of-body, of blending with the surrounding world. As runners become increasingly familiar with their trails, focus can expand from the few feet ahead to include subtleties not picked up initially. One begins to notice changes in vegetation, wildlife signs and sightings, and the changing seasons. Runners may realize and learn to appreciate the evolving, living nature of the trails they cross. The growth of community, then, comes in part from the shared knowing that arises from a sustained and conscious practice. Though landscapes shift in climate and terrain, trail-runners the world over share in this same process of connection and communion with the world underfoot. We all speak the same body-language.

I return, as do trappers, to my lines in an effort to sustain my connection to the land in a meaningful and personalized way. Each time I return I feel a keen sense of returning home, reacquainted with a dear friend. And, though I do not bring home food (other than the uneaten Snickers bars that my wife steals following my long runs) or pelts to sell, I return with a valuable reward felt in body and a deepened connection to the land around me. In this way, I hope to sustain the principles at the heart of trail-running.

To Canadian Running magazine readers, in what ways do you find connection through running?