Two Women Walking

TWO WOMEN WALKING

To support Doctors Without Borders humanitarian relief programs.

Join adventurers Pat Gould and Kim Letson as they embark on a 2000-kilometre walk from Canterbury to Rome in support of MSF.

The adventure begins 24 August.

Meet Pat Gould:

Now retired, Pat Gould worked as Public Health Nurse in BC. Her first assignment with MSF was in 2005 as an outreach nurse in Liberia, West Africa. After retiring as a public health nurse in 2009, she worked in three more MSF projects in Bangladesh and Nigeria. Her interest in long-distance walking began in 2007 when she crossed Spain on the Camino de Santiago. Since then, Pat has walked other historic routes in Spain, Portugal, part of the Via Francigena in 2015 and the Via Egnatia in 2016.

Meet Kim Letson:

With a military father, Kim spent her childhood living in various parts of Canada and Europe. She and her husband also served careers in the Canadian Forces. After retirement they settled in the Comox Valley where they raised their two sons, were professional ski patrollers and for a time owned a kayak guiding company. Since her husband’s death in 2007, Kim has shared her time between adventure travelling, tending her unconventional garden, authoring books, and taking long walks with Pat.

Their Partnership:

The two women met in 1996 while ski patrolling on Mount Washington and have since shared West Coast paddling adventures then a short trek in Nepal. In 2016, after Pat convinced Kim that long, long walks were fun, they embarked on a challenging 1000 km walk along the Via Egnatia across the Balkans from Albania to Turkey. During that adventure they walked in support of an MSF fundraising challenge, an experience that has inspired this current endeavour. They have continued walking together on the Portuguese Camino, the Pilgrims’ Way and the Cornish Coastal path.

The Journey:

They will follow a network of ancient roads and paths that have been in use for millennia. When Sigeric, Archbishop of Canterbury, travelled to Rome for an audience with the pope in 990 CE, he kept a journal . The route he took is the foundation of the Via Francigena. Kim calculates that they will each take close to three million steps .

“That kind of effort – six million combined steps – that’s worth a million dollars, don’t you think?”

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