Partway through the 700-kilometre Island Walk this past spring, 85-year-old Betty Hope-Gittens felt like sitting down and taking a rest among the beauties of Prince Edward Island. But there was not a bench in sight. So, walking poles in hand, she went up to the first house she could find and knocked on the door.
"I said, 'May I please sit on your front steps? I'm so tired.'" Island Walk trekkers have more trail access, new accommodations this year From soul to soreness, the Island Walk will make you question everything Not only did the homeowner let Hope-Gittens take a load off; she brought her two lobsters to eat. Further along the walk, Hope-Gittens saw a man selling antiques and asked if she could take a break and sit in one of the chairs on his lawn.
"On both occasions, both these people welcomed me. The P.E.
I. people are particularly gracious — kind, you know," she told CBC News. The benches are being built on P.
E.I. and will be placed at regular intervals along the trail.
(Bryson Guptill) But they can't be expected to host everyone who happens to walk by with sore feet on the increasingly popular trek. As the days went on, and she continued to walk the trail 25 kilometres at a time, Hope-Gittens got an idea. She would go back home to Ottawa and raise money for benches to be placed along the trail.
She'd call it Adopt a Bench. Three months later, she's walking the walk — at least figuratively. About 20 benches are being built on P.
E.I. — at a cost of about $200 eac.