Jeromy Farkas chats with Cory about his hike from Mexico to Canada
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Summary
Jeremy Farkas is in studio with me today to talk about his epic run from Mexico to Canada. In this episode, we talk about the Western Standard Trail Run, his experience on the trail, and what he's been up to since he left the trail.
Transcript
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Jeremy Farkas is in studio with me today. Hey, welcome back to Canada.
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Well, thanks so much for having me. I know we did a couple of chats remotely from the trail
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and just really appreciate the coverage and the love that the Western Standard's been giving big
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brothers and big sisters. Well, it's a good cause. I mean, you know, if you're doing some run for
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something stupid, you know, fair about it. But no, it's a good cause and it was a good creative
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way to do it. I mean, some people, some of that discussion, they're saying, you know,
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why can't people just donate when they was going to do a run? Well, because that's the way it works.
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You bring attention to something, you make it an event and it draws people's eyes. So we'll start
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with, I mean, so I'll get you to explain the whole thing in a sense, but I mean, it's been a great
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success. What number is the fundraising at so far? And I know there's still room to help out with this.
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Yeah. So by day one on the trail, we hit the $50,000 goal. And then by halfway, we hit a hundred
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thousand. And then we've set this new goal of 125,000, which we're going to be fundraising until
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September 20th, when we are hosting sort of like a welcome home party, kind of movies from the trail
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kind of nights at Kenya Meadows theater. So there's tickets that people can buy for that, but
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sort of rewinding a bit, last five and a half months has just been insane. I've ran something
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like 5,000 kilometers all the way from Mexico to Canada. And of course, as you said, you have to
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have a hook, right? There's a lot of good charities out there, but they're not all made the same. And
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myself as a fiscal conservative, I spent a lot of time looking at their books and reviewing just
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where that money is going. And I was just really, really proud to see how their volunteer organization
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making a difference in the lives of kids. And that money that's being raised is actually going out the
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door to help kids and not on a bloated administration and stuff like that.
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Yeah. And big brothers and big sisters. I mean, it's more like a mentoring organization for kids who
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might not have a household where they're getting enough time with, I guess you could say guiding figures
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and so on. And they help with that sort of relationship for kids. I mean, it's very
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beneficial for everybody in the long run. I mean, there's a lot of good causes, but it is a good
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one. So I start describing your run there. I mean, you know, you documented it for people who aren't
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following, you know, Jeremy is really documented excellently on Facebook. You know, you can have a
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look at it and you've been posting your almost a diary and pictures and thoughts. And there's some of
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the pictures coming up on the screen you took, you know, the Canadian flag and up on
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mountaintops. I mean, you started on the Mexican American border as far south as we're going to
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get. So I guess you're beginning in quite a desert environment. Yeah, it's pretty much all of the
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above. My friends dropped me off at the Mexican border. And from there, it was sandstorms. Even
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though it was the desert, it was very cold at nights when I started in March. So it was still
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sometimes minus 20, minus 30 degrees Celsius. And the hottest day I had was 118 degrees Fahrenheit,
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which I had to look it up. It translates to like 47 degrees Celsius, which I cannot believe.
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Some of the conditions. And again, we had all the above. So we had blizzards, we had snowstorms,
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raging rivers, creek crossings. And, you know, it was a great experience for me personally. And
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I felt that, you know, maybe there's a potential there for sending off more former politicians into
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the wilderness. Yeah. Well, no doubt it. Maybe some current ones too.
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I mean, you get a lot of time to think though. I mean, being serious almost, you know, I mean,
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an opportunity for some introspection. I mean, the views look incredible. I'm sure you're
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distracted with a lot of that, or just trying to keep your legs moving or trying not to freeze
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your knackers off in the night, but still you get a lot of time to dwell on things and, you know,
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meditate and think of what you might do with stuff. I mean, that was, what was it? Four months,
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five months? Yeah, five months. And I had a lot of close calls, a lot of challenges. I ran into
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frostbite and other issues. And I, there was a lot of times I really wanted to quit, but I had so many
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people from back home supporting me, supporting big brothers and big sisters, contributing,
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following along online. And that, that really helped me. And, you know, I'll even admit to
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Korn, on just a personal level, you know, after you're done on the election night and it's a failure
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in a very public way, it's hard to bounce back from that. And I knew on election night, I knew I could
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either focus on being bitter or getting better. So I knew I wanted to continue to make a difference.
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And I wasn't happy to take no for an answer and just really, really thrilled to see how Calgarians
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has stepped up in such a big way for such an incredible organization.
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Yeah. And it is a good positive bounce. Like for people who haven't run before,
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don't understand necessarily. I mean, I've run before, but I never ran under the illusions that
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I was going to win. I always did to make a statement, but I actually managed some campaigns
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where we had a very realistic chance of winning. And when you're that immersed in it, it's personal,
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it's serious. And when you narrowly lose or, you know, you, or even with a low-eyed margin,
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but you thought you were going to win, it, it, it's quite a blow. It takes some recovery. I mean,
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you know, so that's a good, healthy way, you know, you didn't curl up in bed and, and you know,
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watch the world go by, you, you jumped on something else and you got rolling. It's great.
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Yeah. And I, uh, wasn't ever sure how much of that support for me politically would translate
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into something completely different. Like, I don't think anybody on their 2022, uh, bingo cards had
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Jeremy Farkas running from Mexico to Canada, but, uh, I had a lot of people step up in a big way.
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And even to his credit, uh, former mayor Nenshi, he did a great video for me and a lot of funny jokes
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in there. You should watch it, but he's, he's talking about, well, Farkas, I told you to go take a
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like, how many times, but I never thought you'd take it literally. So it's been very, very, uh,
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fun to see how Calgarians have stepped up in such a big way. And now I just got to figure out what
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else to do with my life. Well, I wanted to get onto that a bit. I mean, you're here, uh, you know,
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we got a whole lot of political activity happening. I mean, we know it's in your blood, whether you like
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it or not. I mean, it's a terrible affliction. I, I, I, I suffered from it myself. I'm never running
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for office again. Now I just sit on the sideline and picket you guys, but have you got any plans?
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What's going on here? Well, on September 20th, we're going to be hosting that welcome home party.
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So really my focus right now is selling tickets to that. I think we still have maybe two dozen
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tickets. So that's selling out fast. And it's a BBBS Calgary.ca where people can find that,
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but beyond that, you know, I'm looking for opportunities to still make a difference.
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And the last five months I've been really good. I've been off of Twitter, but now that I'm back,
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it's sort of like, it's a drug that you're addicted to and I'm kind of relapsed. But, uh, I think
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right now, just kind of taking it easy, eating all of the ice cream and enjoying my air conditioning.
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Yeah. I mean, there's just those comforts in life. You'll certainly learn to, uh, appreciate a lot
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more. I mean, uh, I remember, uh, the first time I had you on, cause you're still kind of in the
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desert area and that too, and you were dealing with, I mean, well, again, the extremes, you're
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getting near frost at night, but you got rattlesnakes to watch out during the day and things like
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that. And then you hit the high country. I mean, you've got bears to look at, or, or even concerns,
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I guess about, uh, other hikers. Actually, there's something I wanted to ask about it. I worked on
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the Texas and Mexico border a lot in the past oil exploration, but it could be very dangerous down
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there in the sense of some of the people, unfortunately. I mean, uh, most of them were
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people just trying to cross and make a better life and they're running for it, but there's a lot of,
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uh, you know, cartel activity and drug runners and so on. Was that a concern while you were doing
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that first self zone down there? Oh, it, it was, uh, pretty much everything. Like you'd run into,
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um, uh, crazy encounters with animals like mountain lions, bears, rattlesnakes, all the above. And then,
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uh, I'd say the people were the best part of the experience for me. Like I'd run into all sorts of
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incredible people that, uh, I never in my ordinary life would, uh, ever have the chance to. And it's
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about, uh, one in 10 or one in five who started in Mexico actually make it to Canada. So by the time
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you're nearing the end, these are people who are battle worn buddies, like they're comrades who you
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would give everything and anything to see them finish more so than you want to see yourself finish.
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So you make some incredible friends for life, but, uh, I'll, I'll be sharing more stories. Uh,
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you have to hitchhike a lot, which is just, that is an incredible tour of small town America having,
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uh, got him maybe 50 or 60 hitchhike rides. And there's some interesting, uh, people that I got
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to meet and maybe I'll leave it there. Yeah. Well, and, uh, you know, the social opportunities,
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I mean, you know, for crabby introverts like myself, for example, I drive Uber, I like driving
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it. I always have, I never, you know, I actually enjoy it. And part of the reason for it is I get a
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completely unfiltered mix of people in the box. I mean, some of them, oh, they suck. Some of them stink,
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literally. I mean, in summer weather, there's some, you know, I should be able to charge extra for
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people for personal hygiene. Well, that would be the hikers. That would be
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me for sure. Well, you got an excuse for when you're in the mountains for a week,
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at least you're in an open area. So the wind can blow it away. But I mean, what I mean though,
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is it's, it's nice to get, you know, when we're in politics, when we're at home, when we're in
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Alberta, we can get into our own bubbles. We only talk to our own social circles. We only talk to
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our own. And when you get something that's completely random as you would be, you know,
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in hiking a trail, I mean, you get every sort of person who's joining you, whether for a day,
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or maybe they're doing a couple of weeks or whether you're hitchhiking. I just think,
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likewise, an Uber, I never know who I'm going to. And there's some very interesting and they help
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me think sometimes people, geez, I never thought, you know, I would never get that idea from somebody
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here in the newsroom. Not that there's lots of ideas here. But it's interesting how much they say
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that all politics is local. Like I did the side trip to San Francisco where their big Democrat defund
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the police district attorney was actually being recalled. And there's that election going on. And
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there's a part of Oregon and California that's actually trying to separate and go on their own as
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their own state. And they're, and they're frustrated and they're frustrated with the big cities making
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the decisions for them. And, you know, it's interesting history doesn't repeat itself,
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but it seems like it rhymes. For me, it was just incredible to be able to unplug. And especially
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after the election, we're just so busy or nonstop, maybe 40, 50 events a day to actually hear nothing,
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hear silence. That was an incredible experience.
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Yeah. I mean, it's a big challenge, but your goal is kind of a lot more simple too. It's just
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keep that one foot in front of the other, keep going. I mean, it's not nuanced in that sense.
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It's still challenging. I mean, the psychological aspects, I mean, your writings, sometimes you can
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see you were seriously questioning yourself at times. One, I got to admit, you did that on purpose
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a bit. You started out as if, oh, I'm pulling the pin. I'm out of here. You know, I'm going to be at
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the airport. I think you were in your Sacramento at that time or so. Ah, shit, he gave up. And no,
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Well, for me, I just wanted to do something I really never could as a, as a politician. I just
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wanted to be very raw. I wanted to be unfiltered. I guess as a politician, I was relatively unfiltered,
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but I wanted to actually show people the highs and the lows. And for me, it was an incredible
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experience because it made me really realize that, you know, life is just not a, it's not just a
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straight line between successes and successes. There's failures there. And for me, I think I've
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come back to Calgary now and probably the toughest I've ever been physically and mentally.
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Well, it helps humanize you when you're writing your thoughts and things like that too. I mean,
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people forget politicians are just, they're people with thoughts and ideas and doubts and things such
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as that. I see Linda Gibson saying, you should write a book. Are you considering such? I mean,
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that could be the basis. You know, one of the most interesting books I ever read was a young guy who
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sailed solo around the world in a little sailboat. And that was just, you know, his diary and thoughts
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all the way through. You know, I'd want it to be interesting. I would like to write a little bit
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more about how my experience during the election shaped some of what I was seeing and what I was
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feeling on the ground, but I'd like it to be more like a how-to manual. I don't want it to be a boring
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memoir of somebody who's been off on some adventure. I see the best potential in terms of how I can
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challenge people to get up and try to do the same. Like, you don't just wake up one day and decide
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you're going to run 5,000 kilometers across the continent. Like, I would want to challenge especially
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young folks to think bigger and to want to take on a challenge like that or even bigger. So it would
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be more of an invitation. It would be more of a challenge to people to, you know, for me, I never
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thought that when I started that I would be able to finish, but I was able to learn along the way. And I think that
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speaks to a lot about life as well as the work that big brothers and big sisters do.
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So it sounds like you have thought about writing a book already, but you got a little bit of mind
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on it. If you were to write one, that that's kind of where you would go with it.
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Well, I got probably thousands of pages already up on Facebook where I go on a daily basis,
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the people that I met, the adventures that I've had, and really excited to share some more of the
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video and the pictures on our movie night on September 20th, where I'll actually be able to go into the
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details and see, well, this is the mountain that I've climbed. And it's just,
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it's astonishing to think about how far I've come. And I can't help but think though,
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a lot of the people that I met along the way who are not as fortunate enough to me had injuries and
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for one reason or another, were unable to finish. So I think a lot about the people that I met.
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Yeah. So how are you settling in? Like, I remember my oil field time. So I go for 60,
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80 days away, actually, for my first couple of weeks back to Calgary, Jane would note it. I'm a
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little squirrely for the first little while. It takes a bit to get used to the city again,
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to other people, traffic, routines. Has it been a bit of a culture shock coming back right now?
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Well, I've been eating all of the food. When I got back, I went to Costco and I think I'm going
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to have to go to Costco again in terms of all the cookies and the chips and the stuff that you really,
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really crave when you're out there. Pizza too. And you kind of get tired eating all the same stuff
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because when you're out there, of course, you have to carry everything on your own back. You have to wear
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basically your tent, your shelter, your food, your cooking supplies and stuff like that. So I try to
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keep everything really ultra light, but yeah, I've been eating a lot and hopefully, well, there's the
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benefit though, that I think I'm the only one who's been away as long as I have and actually came back
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with my jeans fitting better than when I left. Well, there you go. Yeah. Most people come back from
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vacation. You know, like me, I go up a bra size, but I go to sit around. So with all of that though,
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I mean basically, are you considering other types of runs then down the road? I mean, there's a East
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Coast trail that goes through the Appalachians and things such as that that looks pretty fascinating.
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Not quite that long connected stretch like the West one, but yeah, I have a lot of ideas kicking
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around. I know I want to be involved in youth mentorship. Politics is very much my passion. I was able to
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kick my Twitter habit while I was gone, but now I just really, really care about what's happening
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in our community. And I know that for better, for worse, I built a certain kind of platform and
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people, I was just so fortunate that people were willing to actually take a look at Big Brothers and
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Big Sisters. So I'm thinking about ways that I can make a positive difference that way. But, you know,
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I haven't really thought too much and there's not a lot of mental bandwidth when you're out there,
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but just so grateful for the fact that people have stepped up in such a big way. And
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I'd say for all the kind of adversity I experienced, there's a lot of kids here in Calgary who are
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experiencing absolutely worse every single day of their life. So when I think about ways that I can
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contribute to them to be able to help them make a, write a new chapter or rather a new ending to their
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story, that makes all the difference to me. Well, that's it. I mean, it's a very important
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developmental time. I mean, if we get into larger conversations, these things I write my columns on,
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things like that though. I mean, when you're talking about
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chronic criminals or people who are in trouble or, you know, rehabilitating. I mean,
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the best time to get somebody back on track is in that first 20 years of their life, not
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once they're 30 and already in grave trouble. And things like Big Brothers, Big Sisters, that helps
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catch kids before they get on the wrong track quite often.
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I would just challenge the typical Conservatives to donate, to contribute. If you're not wanting
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government to do things like this, I think it's our responsibility to step up and support those
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organizations. Because organizations like Big Brothers and Big Sisters, they have a strong
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stated goal to be less reliant on government programs and government grants. And that's going
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to rely or require that grassroots support to be able to step up and allow them to roll out these programs.
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Yeah. And likewise, there's a lot of volunteer opportunities too, of course. I mean,
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there's that mentorship that's involved. So, I mean, if somebody has the time and is good with
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that sort of thing, you know, they can sign up and get involved directly with Big Brothers and
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Sisters as well. I mean, they need those people, right?
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Yeah. And there's many, many different ways that you can give. And I think that the fact that we've been
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able to use that platform and showcase a lot of the work that BBBS is doing, I think that's incredible
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success. And we're going to be pushing as hard as we can over the next, I think two weeks or so to
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be able to smash through that final $125,000 goal.
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Mm-hmm. So just maybe just a bit back to the hiking. So you're talking about carrying your food
00:16:18.920
and I know you got to work with stuff that's nutritional and light, but I mean, so you had
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quite an organizational thing too. Like you had mail drops or you had food set ahead of you,
00:16:29.240
Yeah. So I was on my own and there wasn't any kind of support crew or van or anything like that
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following me. And whenever I was in a big enough place, like say Palm Springs, I'd go to the Trader
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Joe's or the Costco or the Walmart and I'd take these boxes. I'd go to the post office and say,
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well, all right, I'm going to send this package with granola bars out to this corner store in
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Washington States. And then I'm going to hope that it's still there when I roll out.
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Yeah. So there's, there's a lot of logistics and that was probably the most challenging.
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Sometimes you could be, uh, walking or running say a hundred or 200 miles without any water in
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between. So can you imagine carrying enough water to last you for a week or two weeks? Like that was
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just, it's heavy. And every step of the way though, there's these, uh, trail angels who step up and
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they're members of the local community that, uh, will arrange rides. They'll, uh, maintain water
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caches and stuff like that. And it was really the, I thought the trail was going to be the dirt or the
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mountains or the sand or the deserts, but it was so obviously the people and it's been incredible
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experience and I've definitely come back and feeling a lot more mellow, especially after the election.
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Yeah. So maybe, um, outside of that, you know, outside of the big brothers and the, if somebody's
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of a hiking mind or is interested in that trail, like, where do you find what's it calling us?
00:17:50.920
The Pacific coast trail. Yeah. So it's a Pacific crest trail. I'm told that there's a, this movie
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wild with Reese Witherspoon. So it showcases it, but I've not actually seen the movie.
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Okay. But, uh, I would definitely encourage people to take a look and there's many people I met. Uh,
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I think the youngest who was doing it was five years old and I think the oldest was 78 that I
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personally met. Yeah. Uh, there's some people who do a different section every single year, but for
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those who actually start in March or April and make it to the end, it's only about one in five who are
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able to finish. And for me, I was really lucky. A lot of things had to go right for me to be able to
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make it back home in decent shape. Well, and in one badly twisted ankle, or there's a number of
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things that could happen that stop it. I mean, even if you have the best of intention and, uh,
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so, I mean, you, you'd also, uh, got nailed with COVID while you were there. Yeah, I know.
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I think I got that in San Francisco. It was like the most ridiculous thing to get COVID when you're,
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you're completely alone for many, many days at a time. So you get monkeypox. So, uh,
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but I mean, COVID, I mean, if that's one thing I've heard from everybody who's gotten it,
00:18:54.040
actually of all the things it does, those really drains the energy out of you. So I mean,
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of all the things to get hit with when you've got to hike miles and miles every day,
00:19:01.880
uh, it was just an unfortunate thing to lay you up with. Yeah. My, my target was about a
00:19:07.880
marathon every day. So I'd be aiming for about 45 kilometers every day for the end. Uh, I was able
00:19:13.960
to dial that up to about, uh, 70, 80 kilometers. I was able to manage, but if you're, uh, running into
00:19:21.400
any sort of physical issues, injuries, stuff like that, uh, that really makes it tough,
00:19:26.120
but it also helped open my eyes to really what's possible for me personally. But I've been,
00:19:31.240
I've met so many others with other, uh, physical challenges, uh, disabilities who made a point to
00:19:36.760
complete the trail that, uh, I have incredible, mad respect for them being able to finish.
00:19:42.680
So safety issues though, uh, I mean, some of those areas, you don't have anything for cell coverage.
00:19:47.080
I mean, what sort of plans did you have in case there was something untoward happened? You have to have at least a
00:19:51.240
plan in mind. Yeah. I had a health insurance for Canadian travelers. Uh, I had a, uh, uh, in reach
00:19:57.240
device, which is a satellite communicator. So at least I could, uh, send messages back home. And then
00:20:03.240
otherwise, uh, I, uh, had a lot of these, uh, actually like paper maps, which a lot of people
00:20:10.520
made fun of me at the start because with your watches, smartwatches, your cell phone, your GPS,
00:20:15.720
like nobody uses paper maps anymore, but we were, uh, in a pretty remote place in the Sierra Nevada
00:20:21.480
where the snow was just coming down and it was so cold that all the electronic devices just failed.
00:20:26.920
So a lot of people were just looking around, but I actually knew how to get us back to a shelter and,
00:20:31.880
uh, back on the trail using my paper maps. And then from there, uh, people didn't call me Jeremy,
00:20:36.520
they just called me Pathfinder. Well, there's something to be said for the tried and true. I mean,
00:20:42.040
GPS is fantastic. I mean, the things we've got, uh, it frustrates me. I mean, as a starting Rodman
00:20:48.280
way back in the day, and I moved up to being a junior surveyor and I had to learn the formulas.
00:20:51.800
They wouldn't even let me touch a transit until I'd spent two and a half years.
00:20:56.360
And then GPS came along and now somebody with a phone can get a position as accurate, uh, in
00:21:02.120
elevation as what it would taken me, uh, you know, hours or a day or two to determine in an isolated
00:21:06.760
area. I mean, it's great developments, but it's nice to have the fallback and know how to read a map
00:21:10.360
anyways. Yeah. Even by satellite, my communicator, I could send messages with only about a 30 second
00:21:14.920
delay. So anywhere in the world, which is just astonishing, but you know, with all the, uh,
00:21:21.320
tips and the tricks and the fancy equipment, it doesn't, uh, it doesn't replace you actually
00:21:26.280
having to walk those miles or run those miles. So there's some really, uh, really terrible conditions
00:21:31.480
we went through. And still though, like it was very good for me to be just out of that political
00:21:36.760
situation and to be able to have the time to reflect. And as a politician for the last, uh,
00:21:41.400
four or five years, I never really heard silence in the way that I did out on some of these
00:21:45.400
mountain tops. So, I mean, I'll twist you back to that a little bit though. You've been back
00:21:49.640
for a little while, as you said, you've dived back into Twitter, not, not getting, you know,
00:21:53.080
in my way of calling people, getting right onto things, but you're catching up on the issues.
00:21:57.720
You're watching things. You're still politically involved. And what are your thoughts on our picture
00:22:00.840
today? We've got a lot going on. We've got a provincial race happening. We've got a federal race
00:22:04.600
happening. Uh, well, you know, our municipal where you used to be, that's going to be stuck
00:22:09.080
for three more years. So we'll see what happens there. Well, you know, my, my message is actually
00:22:13.720
the same as I left with on election night. You know, I, I said I was going to support our mayor
00:22:17.720
and our council and at least give them some time to be able to come into their own. And I know that,
00:22:22.760
uh, tour credit, uh, mayor Gondek has actually sent me a very supportive messages and stuff,
00:22:27.320
which how cool is that? Like you're out in the middle of nowhere and, uh, your mayor back home
00:22:31.800
is following what you're doing. I'm really grateful for that. And I think as far as just
00:22:36.520
the politics, I've promised, uh, big brothers and big sisters when I'm in this kind of role and, uh,
00:22:41.880
not exactly a spokesman, but kind of a brand ambassador, I'm not going to be
00:22:45.480
diving too deep into the political stuff. But you know, for me, like, uh, when I was out there,
00:22:50.280
sometimes I really felt like I was definitely itching to get involved because, uh, if you don't
00:22:55.640
get yourself involved and all these decisions are made without you and, uh, no sense in complaining
00:23:01.160
if you didn't try to fix it. No. And fair enough. I mean, you know, the, when you're raising funds
00:23:05.480
for something like that too, it's good to have that cross party participation. As I kind of said
00:23:09.960
earlier, I mean, you used to also drive Nancy right out of his mind. I used to quite enjoy it,
00:23:14.760
but Hey, you came together when it came, there's no doubt he's got a social media reach. And when he
00:23:18.680
put that video that got, you know, reached out to a lot of people that wouldn't normally have paid
00:23:23.080
attention to you. And it helps bring those funds into the, uh, the cause, which was the whole goal of
00:23:27.240
the run and the end of everything. I mean, you got plenty of time to fight with Nancy and Gondek.
00:23:31.880
I was hoping to get you to do some of it today, but I understand why you can't at this point.
00:23:35.000
You're, and you've still got, you know, before we close out then I just remind everybody that
00:23:38.200
event that's coming up at the Canyon Meadows theater. Yeah. It's a September 20th,
00:23:41.400
that Canyon Meadows theater there, the more details are online at, uh, BBBScalgary.ca,
00:23:47.400
as well as ways to be able to contribute to them. And there's such a fantastic organization,
00:23:51.800
an incredible caliber volunteer who is willing to step up and be such a, uh, uh, shaping and
00:23:58.600
formative influence, uh, for a long period of time in the lives of some of these kids and myself
00:24:04.040
growing up in East Calgary and, uh, seeing the impact of programming like that, uh, really means
00:24:09.720
a lot to me that, uh, Calgarians would step up and support them, but also to give me a second chance
00:24:14.600
because you know, on an election night, when you have a very public failure, sometimes it just feels like
00:24:19.560
the, the world, uh, it's the worst thing that could have ever happened to you.
00:24:22.840
It isn't the wrong term for failure. You didn't win. It's okay. Lots of people don't, you know,
00:24:29.480
I mean, it takes a few goals. You win some, you lose some. Not the first try.
00:24:33.480
Yeah. So failure is, it's just a step if that's all.
00:24:37.240
Well, I, I came to, I came around to really love this idea of failure because it's, it's only truly a
00:24:43.560
failure if you don't get back up on your feet and if you don't learn from it. So I had a lot of mistakes
00:24:48.440
and a lot of opportunities for learning out on the trail. And I think it's really, uh, sharpened
00:24:52.840
to my focus and trust me, I've been thinking a lot about, uh, that past election, my own time in
00:24:57.800
politics and how, if I did it again, I'd want to be, uh, better. So I can get that out at least.
00:25:02.520
You ain't done. Okay. Well, right on. I appreciate you coming in to talk to us today. I really appreciate
00:25:09.560
what you did on the run. It's great stuff. I mean, that's the conservative way of doing things.
00:25:13.000
They aren't begging government to take care of the problem. We're encouraging each other to take care of it
00:25:17.400
as a community and it was a really unique and neat way to do it just to encourage everybody else.
00:25:21.720
You know what? Jeremy Farkas, look it up on Facebook. You can really see all of the,
00:25:26.040
the, the great, uh, postings and pictures you took and things like that. So yeah.
00:25:30.280
Thank you again. And yeah, I'm sure we'll see you again soon. And then I'll grant you
00:25:33.720
on some politics stuff when you're done with your brand ambassador.
00:25:36.840
Oh yeah. Thanks. My job is more angry than yours, but I enjoy it.
00:25:40.680
I'm very mellow now. I couldn't, I couldn't sit in your chair.
00:25:43.240
Right. All right. Thanks again. Yeah. Thank you, sir. Cheers. All right.