The Fellow in Yellow Trevor Redmond is passing through Muskoka this week as part of his cross-Canada run to promote health, mobility and recovery.
Redmond’s journey started in Halifax on March 26, and he plans to continue until he reaches Victoria, BC. He was inspired to create a “movement for movement” after getting hit by a car at age 15. He was lying in the hospital at risk of losing his leg, thinking of figures like Canadian athletes Terry Fox and Rick Hansen, when he made a promise to himself. If he kept his leg, he would run across Canada someday. After roughly 12 surgeries, he kept his leg, and now, he’s keeping his promise.
“I want to show all of Canada what a successful patient is,” Redmond said. “Now, the best way that I can show it myself is to get out there and show people what I have done on a leg I almost lost. I am up to over 31,000 kilometres between walking across Canada, biking across Canada, and now running across Canada.”
At age 53, Redmond said most people doing these “outrageous events” traversing Canada are about half his age, but he feels like he just keeps getting stronger. Looking back at the accomplishments of walking and biking across the country help remind him of what he’s capable of doing, though the commitment to running does make it the toughest trip yet.
Still, it exemplifies the point he’s trying to make that exercise is a critical part of health. Every time a person exercises, they’re asking their inner mechanics for an upgrade, he said, and he aims to upgrade continuously.
The conversations he has with the people along the way focus on his tenets of health, mobility and recovery, but each talk changes based on the people he meets. Different parts of his mission speak to different people, and he’s motivated to meet as many people as possible.
“I’m really pushing exercise that mind, exercise that body and exercise that spirit. It’s important for your health,” he said. “When all those are equally exercised, you’re a lot healthier for it.”
With the recent snowfall, Muskoka gave Redmond a lot to contend with. He stayed in Orillia for an extra two days due to the forecasts of additional snow, and the towering snowbanks required some special navigating once he made his way north. He said walking through the tunnels of ice surrounding the sidewalks felt like walking through the halls of the Death Star.
Redmond is always ready to keep moving, but he can’t say the same for his equipment. After about 5,400 kilometres, a bracket on one of his cart’s wheels broke. He shared his predicament online, and JSW Manufacturing in Bracebridge invited him in for repairs.
The cart is what allows him to carry two tents, a battery pack, a solar panel, a sleeping bag, a small foam mattress, food, water and more. He figures he needs to get a bigger cart or start pushing a tank across Canada, but for now, the cart will get him where he needs to go.
That said, he hasn’t used his tent since early December. He tented back in Innisfil during a freezing rain event, but since then, he’s stayed in a house, a hut, a garage, a motel and now a bed and breakfast.
“I’ve had very generous offers of people offering me a good place to pull in, but I do know there’s going to be points where I’m going to be in between and that might be next to impossible,” Redmond said. “I’ll prepare a tent, and I do have a propane heater, a sleeping bag that’s good to minus 30, and lots and lots of hand warmers.”
With -26 forecast for the weekend, he has to decide exactly how far to go. He won’t take any special risk to get here or there by a specific time, but just in case, he bought boots and mittens to add to his arsenal of warmth.
The intensity of his trip doesn’t allow for a lot of sightseeing, but Redmond has been blown away by the height of the snowdrifts in the region. It really struck him when he saw the amount that had collected on the giant yellow Muskoka chair in Gravenhurst. From afar, it looks like a regular lawn chair with snow, he said, chuckling at how small he looked in comparison.
“It’s see as you go, see as you move along,” he said. “What you see is what you get in this journey, because there’s really not a lot of time to explore like I would like to, but certainly taking those dips in and out of communities really is another exploration altogether of meeting people and communities you’ve never experienced before.”
Redmond said the best part of the trek is undoubtedly the people, which is why the hardest part is feeling like he isn’t reaching as many of them as he would like. He always says, “The more we move, the more we move others.” He wants to spread that message and give Canadians the best opportunity to be inspired by themselves and accomplish their goals.
For people with complex health challenges, those goals may look different. He knows what it’s like to lay in the hospital and have hopes of healing and moving forward. His hospital dream of keeping his leg came true, and he wants to help others reach and surpass their hospital dreams.
Just above Gravenhurst, Redmond crossed the same number of kilometres travelled by Terry Fox in his iconic Marathon of Hope. It’s emotional for him to be able to surpass that milestone in honour of one of his heroes. He identified so much with Fox’s story as a young man facing potential limb loss, so he plans to continue using the legs and the life he’s blessed to have to keep spreading a message of health and hope.
His other hero Rick Hansen, a track and field athlete and wheelchair user, wheeled across Canada as part of the Man in Motion World Tour, also inspired by Fox. He travelled a total of 40,075 kilometres, which is equal to the circumference of the Earth, so Redmond would love to reach that number someday.
He’s already gone more than 31,300 kilometres, so he’s well on his way to yet another personal triumph. It’s all been possible thanks to the various people and businesses that helped him on his travels, so he wants to extend his gratitude to every single one of them.
“I’m coming up on nine months on the road, and I could not at all have gotten this far without the support of people along the way,” Redmond said. “It just wouldn’t have happened, so that’s the most amazing thing.”
To learn more about the Fellow in Yellow and his journey, visit his website.
