Our Walk Along the East Coast Trail (ECT)

  “The edge of the sea is a strange and beautiful place.” Rachel Carson, The Edge of the Sea Where Land, Sea and Sky Meet Years after walking Newfoundland’s East Coast Trail (ECT) , we have returned to our original travel journals, online blog series, photographs and unpublished bird lists to look again at what we encountered along the way. At the time, we were focused on learning how to carry our gear on our backs, navigate the practical realities of camping every day, adapt to Newfoundland’s unpredictable weather and continue walking through a landscape far more demanding than we had anticipated. En route, we recorded birds, whales, seals, wildflowers and changing habitats whenever circumstances allowed, without yet knowing how important that practice of paying attention would become. In 2018, we had not yet set out across Canada on the Trans Canada Trail, nor had #Hike4Birds developed into the six-year, almost 18,000-kilometre journey it would eventually become . The Ea...