How to do a (not quite) solo prairie walk

This First Person column was written by Trevor Herriot,a prairie naturalist who writes books, essaysand radio documentaries about the intersection of culture and nature on the northern Great Plains.

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It was a perfect fall morning for a walk in Aspen Parkland: wisps of cirrus sailing in the blue above us, a light wind and the last of the poplar leaves hanging on.

The Charolais cattle we met on the hilltop were curious about our presence, perhaps wondering if we might be delivering something tastier than dry old prairie grass.

Veering north a bit to skirt around the herd, we lost the trail and arrived at a deep coulee filled with poplar and hazel.

"Dang. I did it again."

"What?" asked Karen next to me, looking down into the depths of the bush-whacking tangle in front of us.

"I always head too far north. We're supposed to be over there so we can get around this coulee," I responded, pointing south-east across a finger of the ravine where it peters out onto open prairie.

Just then there was a muffled crash of tree limbs snapping in the bush below. In silence we watched the humped shadow of a cow moose high-stepping through a screen of hazel and Saskatoon bush, with two large calves behind.

Doubling back to get south around the ravine, we stopped to look at a range of hills and poplar groves to the east.

"I have no clue where we are," Karen said, shaking her head. It was something she had said before on these walks.

"Why don't we try something?" I said. "Instead of walking together and me navigating, how about I stay back fifty or 100 paces and you just let your curiosity lead? I'll follow quietly and you'll get to have more of a solo walk experience. You know just wandering wherever you feel like wandering. And once you want to head back, just stop and let me catch up and we can figure it out together."

That was how we walked for the rest of the morning, each of us alone on the prairie but within eye-sight of one another hilltop to hilltop. Not quite a solo walk, but partway there.

When any of us walk with a companion who knows the trails and terrain, we tend to defer to their guidance, in effect turning off our own "navigation systems." It's a pleasant enough way to hike, but to rely completely on the leadership and decisions of others is to forgo some of the gifts that come with a ramble through unfamiliar terrain.

First, and perhaps most important, there is the therapy of silence and solitude. When your guide is the guy who thinks he has to mention everything that meets his senses ("look, a chickadee I think the cows aren't grazing the bluestem hear that? That's a raven just a sec. I'm going to start an eBird track"), your own senses tend to shut down.

Anyone who has walked alone in the wild will tell you that it feels different than hiking with companions. When we walk with friends, our attention is usually on them and our conversation. Alone, we find ourselves hearing the wind through the grass, seeing the spider ballooning past on a thread, smelling the tang of dry poplar leaves.

Then there are the benefits of simply wandering alone without purpose. Prairie landscapes, whether the dry open plains or the Aspen Parkland, are made for giving free range to this all but forgotten human experience. When you take time to drift through the land without purpose, track or schedule, your heart responds. Long-dormant responsiveness and sensitivities stir to life from somewhere deep in your hominid past.

Easy enough for some people, you say, but I'm afraid of walking alone and I can get lost in a shopping mall.

That is where the not-quite-solo walk comes in. Find a friend you feel safe with, one who is confident they can get you back home again. They will be your safety follower. She lets you walk ahead as far as possible without losing track of you as you wander wherever you like, curiosity guiding you from one rise to the next.

As it turned out, after some fine meandering, Karen found her way back to the start of the trail, completing a five-kilometre trek on her first attempt.

"How was it?" I asked, hoping for epiphanies, revelations.

"Nice. Really nice. My mind wandered, and I wandered. If I got scared of a moose popping out, I just sang Neil Diamond tunes."

Hot August Night as you wander. She might have something there.

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