He made it! Long walk to Whitehorse nets $11K for anti-poverty group
Whitehorse resident Patrick Jackson is sleeping a little easier these days. And in his own bed.
That's because he recently completed a more than 500-kilometre walk from Dawson City to Whitehorse — raising over $11,000 for the Yukon Anti-Poverty Coalition along the way.
'It feels wonderful,"Jackson said. "I keep walking around my house saying I'm home. I'm home."
Jackson left Dawson City on Sept. 19 and arrived in Whitehorse on Oct. 14. The walk was anything but boring. Along the way he said he encountered toothaches, close calls with wildlife, and extreme weather changes.
"I think it was a day after I saw you the slides kicked in" Jackson began, referring to landslides that temporarily closed the North Klondike Highway.
"Just coming up that big hill out of Dawson and the weather changed rather dramatically. We had those torrential rains so I wasn't going to travel in that," Jackson said.
"Then I started having a tooth issue and worked through a bit of that pain."
The pain ended up become so bad that Jackson got a ride to Whitehorse to get his tooth checked. Once fixed, he was brought back to where he left off.
According to Jackson, at no point did he ever think of giving up.
"My heart and my family and everything I love is here," he told CBC. "I was just determined to get back on track."
A lonely Thanksgiving
Jackson says one of the toughest moments for him was when Thanksgiving came around.
"Just being away from family, and friends," Jackson shared."You know, everyone is having turkey dinner and you're stuck in a tent off on the side of the highway."
The feeling of loneliness was short-lived.
Jackson said eventually good friends, family, and even people who were following his journey reached out to offer support, which included bringing him hot meals, giving him a warm place to stay, and even walking alongside him.
Jackson says he couldn't have done the trek without support from each of the communities, but he says one person in particular really made the walk special.
"My daughter Abigail joined me and was planning on joining me for the last 50 kilometres," he said.
The pair had planned to go 25 kilometres before checking the forecast for the next day. Seeing that four centimetres of snow was expected in Whitehorse the next day, they decided to push on — for a total of 47 kilometres in the last day.
Now that Jackson is home, he says it's not quite time to relax yet.
"I may have been out doing all of the walking and tromping down the highway, but behind the scenes, so many people really stepped up to help make that happen, so now it's my time to reach out to all those people and thank them for their support.
"And then I don't know ... what do you do next?"
