By Heino Molls

I am reluctant to get on a plane. In fact, I no longer fly anywhere anymore. I have not for years.

It is not as if I have not been in an airplane before. I have taken long flights to Europe. I have been on short hops to New York and Montreal. I experienced the greatest courtesies from flight staff and the smoothest trips possible. No incidents, no near accidents, in fact I never had any problems flying. I have flown on jumbo jets, smaller jets and propeller airplanes. No problems ever.

For some reason that I cannot quite understand myself, I simply became uncomfortable flying and I will not get on a plane again.

I try to tell people about my reticence to fly and I see the same look come over them. I just can’t explain it. The best analogy I ever heard was that it was like trying to tell a group of people who go to a pool everyday that you don’t swim. They can’t understand.

It isn’t easy.

I have a son and a new grandson in Vancouver. I live in Southern Ontario. Visiting them is an overland challenge.

I attend trade shows from one end of the country to the other. Each one is a long journey by car or train.

Many people make sport of my reluctance to fly. I am pleased to give them a topic of amusement, in fact I have so often retold anecdotes relating to my eccentricity that I don’t think there is anyone left in the real estate community that I have not regaled with a story or two about my fear of flying.

As much as I tell those stories, I also frequently tell people that my fondness for traveling this country overland has increased with every trip I make. But for some reason people are not as interested in hearing that story.

That’s too bad. I wish more than anything that I could get people to try crossing the country by car or train. It would be an experience of a lifetime. It would be an adventure that they would never forget.

I cannot exactly recall how many times I have traveled across Canada now but I can tell you that I have cherished every trip. My passion for it has grown to a point that I now try to find a way to make the trips longer. I savour them. My memories of them are vivid.

If I had a nickel for every time that I have told the story of meeting the farmer on the prairie with wheat sticking out of his hair, or the woman in the Okanagan Valley who sold apples from her orchard on the road, or the fisherman in Nova Scotia who spoke to me with tears in his eyes about his life on the sea or the guy in the bar in Montreal who talked to me about his beloved Habs and the thousands of people in between that I have met on the road, I would be rich with money.

But because I met them all, I am even richer than that. I am a better person because of them.

You know, it’s all very well and fine to meet somebody from Quebec City at a trade show and talk to them and everything. It’s a whole different thing to walk the streets of old Quebec with that same person and hear stories that are provoked with the landmarks and old buildings.

If you met someone from Winnipeg, you might talk about the Red River rebellion or the Guess Who and that would be nice. But if you were to drive your car past Portage and Main or walk that wide old frontier street from the old train station, you would feel the history that this person knows like the back of their hand.

The value of these places seems to become greater by the journey to reach them. The St. Lawrence Valley, the prairie sky, the Cabot Trail, the Northern Lights and so much more is front and centre for the person who travels the incredible crossroads of this country.

 I have become so passionate about traveling Canada overland that I am determined to create a program or project to encourage everyone, especially young people, to travel across Canada. I may call it the Canadian Adventure Achievement or something like that. An award, if you will, for anyone who makes the journey from sea to sea to sea. Perhaps it could include a letter from the Governor General or the Prime Minister acknowledging the achievement.

If I could encourage just a few people to make such a trip, I know that they would return enriched. They would understand different challenges of geography from great mountains to asphalt jungles. They would know different cultures and languages that are part of the everyday fibre of this country.

They would come back and be better people. We would be a better country.

That would be a great accomplishment.

Heino Molls is publisher of REM. Email [email protected].

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