Pierre Cloutier moves across Canada in horse-drawn wagons
Pierre Cloutier got his first horse when he was 12-years-old.
By the time he was 16, he started building two covered wagons in his father's yard, dreaming of the day he would cross the country in the style of the pioneers.
Now he's within sight of the end of a months-long journey across Canada, travelling in his two wagons — one for him and his few possessions, and one for his horse supplies — although he doesn't really have a final destination in mind beyond somewhere in the Okanagan Valley.
"I'm doing just what the pioneers did," he said by phone from Spring Coulee in southern Alberta. "I'm just travelling and when I feel that I'm home I will stop right there."
Getting started
Cloutier sold off most of his belongings and hit the road last November after his girlfriend broke up with him and he quit his job as a trucker.
He wasn't daunted by the prospect of travelling by horse and wagon in the middle of a Canadian winter, though he did have a tough go in some -30 C weather.
"I realized it would be a lot easier to catch the bad weather at the beginning and it was a lot more flat land out there than the mountains in B.C." he said.
"I don't want to reach the mountains in B.C. with freezing temperatures. That would be very dangerous for horses and me and everybody."
Hospitality never far
Along the way, Cloutier has been surprised that his odd method of travel has attracted attention. As far as he was concerned, he would just head off with his four Belgian horses and make his quiet way.
"As soon as my horses touched the paved road, people started to stop me right away and started to invite me to their place and the news started to phone me back, and so I had to change all the plans," said Cloutier.
"That's better than my dream, actually."
