Getting to know Bryson Guptill

In 2016, Bryson Guptill walked the Camino de Santiago, an 800-kilometre pilgrimage in northern Spain. Three years later, he completed a similar walk in Portugal. It occurred to Guptill that his home province of PEI is a perfect place for a similar long-distance walk. By the fall of 2019, the retired civil servant had mapped out the 700-kilometre Camino de la Isla or Island Walk. It circles PEI in 32 segments, each designed to be completed in a single day. Saltscapes spoke with Bryson Guptill about reliving childhood, creating common bonds and walking into serenity.  

Where did you grow up?
I was born in Wolfville, but my parents moved around quite a bit. My dad was a preacher. Then he went into medicine. To combine his medical work and his calling, he practiced medicine in the town of Dorchester and the penitentiary. We lived in the guard row, about 20 houses for the prison guards and people like my father.

Was your mom equally community minded?
She was a teacher when they were first married and had a strong calling to do good. Later, she got involved with community schools. Remedial reading was her specialty. It was a second career for her in her 60s.

So, where do you think of as home?
We eventually moved to Halifax, but I have a special attachment to a place near Petitcodiac, New Brunswick because I lived there when I was seven. Part of my motivation for moving back east from Toronto and Ottawa was to reestablish a connection to that property, a farmhouse burned down by vandals. I took some of the stones for the foundation of a timber frame cabin I built on the same spot. 

But when you moved back east, it was to PEI?
I had lived in all four Atlantic Provinces except PEI. I thought I’d stay for two years. That was 1995. I really like PEI as a rural setting with rural ethics. Everyone is family and it’s friendly, unlike Toronto and Ottawa. There’s something about Maritimers and their acceptance of people from elsewhere. They’ll do anything for you.

Do you still have your cabin in New Brunswick?
Yes. I wrote a song about it called “A Place Near Forest Glen.” The concept of the song is reliving childhood. I was going to a one room schoolhouse.
There was no bus transportation so it was a long, long walk in all weather. It’s really etched in my brain.

What is it about long distance walking that attracts you?
I like people getting some spiritual attachment to the outdoors when you’re walking, thinking, and letting your mind wander. There’s something about that vulnerability that attracts you to other people you meet along the way.
I love the idea that people as they walk in this setting will connect to other people in PEI and share that common bond. 

Your volunteer work is like your father’s community health work founded in his spirituality.
The Walk is something to help the common good. There’s something about the experience, the contemplation, the serenity. I believe for us to stay healthy there is something that compels us to want to move. It’s good for our heads as well as our hearts. You don’t need equipment. You can do it anywhere. You can just walk.