She’s had blisters all over her feet.
She’s slogged through torrential rains and sweltering heat.
She’s even come across a fox and a bear.
But Emily Forrest keeps on walking.
And she’s mostly loved what she’s found along the roads, around the bends and over the hills of Nova Scotia’s coastline.
As of June 30, the 37-year-old Halifax woman had walked 1,600 km, over halfway through her summer sojourn around the province.
By Aug. 8 she hopes to have logged 2,995 kilometres on this journey of fitness, fundraising and fortitude.
Forrest is trying to raise money for Brigadoon Village, a camp for children with chronic illnesses. (For more information on the camp, visit www.brigadoonvillage.org.)
She doesn’t accept money directly, despite some “very generous” offers of cash, but tells people how they can donate to the facility, now under construction in the Annapolis Valley.
Her main aim, though, is to promote walking, something she started as a teenager while struggling with her weight.
And on this much longer walk she’s also been spreading the word about the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Nova Scotia’s Walkabout program, which encourages group and individual outings.
“I find walking has brought so much to my life,” Forrest says by phone, walking and talking, just outside Port Hood, heading up the Cabot Trail.
“I’m just a freak about walking on the coast and walking along the water and getting the smells and seeing the sun glint off. That’s why I’ve planned my route all around (the coastline). ...
“When I go out for a walk, it calms me down, it sort of gets my creative juices flowing, it makes me feel good about myself. ... I find it’s sort of the easiest way to get motivated about exercising.”
Not that walking this far — usually for eight hours and 40 km a day — has been easy.
There were those blisters, which at first covered the bottoms of both feet and have now turned into leathery “armour.” There’s been strain from her backpack.
And of course there was that bear, crossing the road at Cape George Point near Antigonish.
“I was kind of frightened. I probably overreacted,” she says, laughing.
“Everybody I met after that (said), ‘You don’t need to be scared of that bear! ...’
“Actually this man was driving along and I got him to stop and I said, ‘I saw a bear,’ and he said, ‘You saw a bear, did ya?’ And he was laughing at me. And I convinced him to just drive his car alongside me while I walked for a little while so I could hop in if I was scared. ... I just didn’t want to miss any steps.”
“And yesterday I saw a fox,” she adds, taking breaths as cars buzz by.
“I couldn’t believe it; it stood there and looked at me. I took a picture and then it sort of like changed sides as if it was giving me its profile.”
Forrest posts pictures of animals, people and places she’s seen on her Facebook profile, which also gives her route and other details about her walk. Anyone can access the site by Googling “Forrest Walkabout.”
Some people have walked with her as she’s entered their villages and towns, where Forrest arranged free board with homeowners, hostels or bed-and-breakfasts months in advance.
“I had a 68-year-old woman walk 39 km with me — that was just outside of Shelburne — and then I had a 13-year-old boy walk 36 km with me ... and some other people have walked 20 or 30 with me. ... It’s great,” she says, especially since she’s heard wonderful stories about everything from land-lore to pirates.
Her husband, who walked 1,000 km of P.E.I. coastline with her six years ago, has also stopped by for several visits.
But when she’s alone, her memories keep her company.
She often thinks about people she’s loved, here and gone, like her late father, an outdoorsman and nature lover who’s still her guide.
“I’ll go by and I’ll think, ‘God, I wonder if that’s a beech tree.’ You know, try to remember something that he told me or something about the foliage or — and this is going to sound funny — but I might pick a pink clover flower and try tasting them because I remember he said they were kind of sweet.”
And when her endurance starts to wane, there’s always the stunning Nova Scotia scenery — the “great cliffs” off Ballantyne’s Cove, distant hills past Judique, a “wonderful ... crescent of a beach” outside Lockeport — to help her turn the next corner.
She figures by the time the journey wraps up in Halifax on Aug. 8 she’ll be able to tackle a lot more obstacles than when she started.
“I can picture in the future saying, ‘You know what, like I walked 45 km and my feet were screaming, I think I can deal with this.”’