On Sept. 14, on a beautiful sunny Saturday afternoon, Aengus Finnan cycled down the winding roads of Lester B. Pearson United World College in Metchosin.
He arrived quietly with surprisingly little fanfare considering he just completed an epic road trip.
"Returning to the Narnia-like campus surrounded by pine, cedar, and arbutus trees always feels like coming home," he shared on his Instagram.
The 52-year-old folk musician and arts organizer had just finished a solo cross-country bike ride spanning 92 days, 8 provinces, about 8,000 kilometres and 8 flat tires.
"The Great Canadian Song Cycle" is what the Pearson alumnus calls his epic musical journey whose conclusion coincided with the school's 50th anniversary on Sept. 25. Finnan spent two years in the college immersed in an education focused on peace and international development for students from all over the world.
"Pearson helped galvanize us, embedding a humanized world view, and forged lifelong friendships," Finnan said. He joins an illustrious list of alumni that include Victoria Mayor Marianne Alto (Year 2), OpenAI chief technology officer, Mira Murati (Year 32) and RadioLab director of research, Latif Nasser (Year 29) to name a few.
Riding solo but not alone
He may have cycled alone, but around the country, people took part in his journey through an interactive map he created online where artists and fans started adding their favourite place-based songs on the map.
"The map is its own thing, but on a daily basis I would look at the next hundred kilometres and see if there were songs that people have put on the map anywhere related to that area," Finnan explained. "Sometimes, I would go to that place, to that bridge, to that town to listen to the song and just sort of appreciate that this is where this song is about. And then other times it was more just getting the feeling of a place that I was entering and getting a sense in someone's own way telling the story about that location and what it meant to them."
Much as he would've loved to, it was nearly impossible to visit all of the places; the map had hundreds of songs even before he started his road trip.
"There are songs that are nowhere near where I was going and are in the middle of the lake or up in the arctic. For the most part anyone who cycles across the country is on elements of the same route and there are places where you can only be on one highway, but I kind of went off on little side adventures based on songs, invitations and curiosity about a place. I didn't want to just make a beeline from point A to point B, I wanted to see new things as well."
Finnan began his journey on June 15 dipping his back wheel on the water of a Beothuk fishing camp farther north on St. John's in Newfoundland before reaching his final destination - Pearson College, where he concluded his coast-to-coast tour by dipping the rear wheel of his bicycle on Pedder Bay; a tradition for folks crossing the continent where a wheel or a shoe is dipped in one ocean and then again in the other, in this case, the Atlantic to the Pacific ocean.
Giving himself the gift of time
Finnan's Great Canadian Song Cycle is completely secondary to just deciding that he needed to do something different.
Before coming to Pearson at 16, he rode around lake Ontario, with a friend for eight days. At that time, they mused about one day cycling across the country.
"It was an idea. When you actually think about how long it is and how much work it takes, it's less inviting," he said. "I got to a place in work and life where I really needed to stop to give myself some time and I finally did that. I gifted myself the freedom to stop whenever and if I made here to Pearson - great; if I didn't - that was okay, too."
Reflecting on the ups and downs of the trip
The miles were long and the roads were ever changing as one crosses every province from the east coast to the west.
"It's one thing to look at the map and say, oh, that's 150 kilometres, I can do that, and then it's another thing to wake up and look at the mountains and the climbs ahead that day and realize it would be a very different 150 kilometres in other places."
Weather was also a big factor that posed a challenge to Finnan's daily bike ride.
"If it was raining in the morning, the temptation to stay in your tent is great, but then you also don't wanna sit there for a day, so you get on your rain gear and get on the bike and off you go into the rain. Being wet and riding in the rain, I could handle more than going into a headwind, which takes all your energy away."
Distance and weather conditions aside, navigating the landscape with big trucks and the Trans-Canada traffic was also a challenging experience for Finnan.
Stopping along the way, seeing interesting places, trying local food and meeting people were some of his favourite things during the cross-country trek. He singled out one place somewhere west of Wawa, Ont., as his favourite, having met another rider, a South Korean man named Jin, who rode with him for a few days, parting ways after they camped out off the beaten path that led to a wide open bay.
Not exactly a life-changing experience
Finnan confessed, many people may see his experience as life-changing.
"I don't know if it is. I'm the same person. I thought with 8,000 kilometres there's a lot of time to think. I thought maybe that's what it'll take to stop all the thinking. It doesn't stop. You can go as far as you want, you still show up with yourself. I thought about my time here at Pearson, my childhood, adulthood, friendships, relationships...Part of the magic of that gift of time is, you just get to keep thinking."
Learning about Canada
After spending three months traversing the country, Finnan reflected on some of the things he learned about Canada.
"It's a complex, conceptually conflicted country in terms of the size of it. It's a strange thing to think that from one side to the other, something can keep a common thread and identity intact. You do see elements of regional identity that are very different and with that comes different norms and cultural expectations. But, there is a charm and challenge to Canada."
With an 8,000 kilometre bike ride under his belt, Aengus Finnan is looking forward to finding out how it's like to not being on the road again.
"It will be interesting to see if being still comes naturally."
