Navigating Hope is part of the Ways To Walk series of small softcover books documenting—through photography, prose and map graphics— short walks in search of nothing in particular other than some vague understanding of where I am at any particular moment.

Excerpt from the book:

May 24, 2018. Gail and and I step off our front porch. We wait for our dog-child Styxx to appear in the front window, as he always will. We wave goodbye, as we always do, and make our way across busy Portage Avenue. We stroll down the quiet residential streets of Winnipeg’s west end, beneath canopies of just-emerging leaves. Winter is behind us. In its place is a fresh explosion of heat and green. This is a time of renewal. Lawn mowers hum with the season’s first cut. Above us, an arborist’s chain saw chatters loudly. And there’s the high-pitched chorus of children playing at recess.

We are on our way to CancerCare Manitoba.

This is not the walk we had planned to take, back in January and February. By rights, we would be well into our plans and preparations for a long walk later this spring. The Camino Frangicena was in our sights, a long pilgrimage from Canterbury to Rome crossing Britain, France, Switzerland and Italy.

A small lump altered our direction. It would take us on a very different path.