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By Tom Zillich<\/strong> – Surrey Now<\/p>\n SURREY \u2014 The last place you\u2019d expect to find a guy nicknamed \u201cThe Walking Monk\u201d is in a car heading toward Chicago.<\/p>\n So apparently Bhaktimarga Swami does not walk everywhere, despite the moniker he\u2019s earned for hoofing it across Canada an impressive four times.<\/p>\n The Ontario-born Swami, who finished his last such trek in 2014, is currently halfway through a similar walk across the U.S., in another effort to promote a \u201cmore car-free, carefree lifestyle.\u201d<\/p>\n This week, he\u2019ll be in Surrey to attend a pair of events, and the Now<\/em> caught up with Swami \u2013 known as John Peter Vis before he adopted a monastic way of life back in 1973 \u2013 via cellphone as he motored down an interstate in Illinois earlier this week.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a pleasant day and we\u2019ve had a great trip so far doing half of the U.S. The whole idea is to reconvene next spring and do the second half, the western part, heading west.\u201d<\/p>\n Two decades ago, in 1996, Swami set out on his first cross-Canada walk as something of a 100th-birthday tribute to a mentor of his. Putting his \u201cfeet and heart together\u201d that year, he started in Victoria and made it all the way to Cape Spear, Newfoundland, with many stories to tell.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019d always wanted to see Canada closeup,\u201d he recalled, \u201cbecause before I was a monk I hitchhiked or flew and took buses, things like that, but I wanted to see it the way it was done by the ancients, you know, the way you should do it, especially because it\u2019s a kind of birthright for a monastic person to do this kind of thing.\u201d<\/p>\n He enjoyed the \u201cCanWalk\u201d experience enough to complete three more cross-country journeys in years since.<\/p>\n His first coast-to-coast walk was documented in \u201cThe Longest Road,\u201d a 2003 National Film Board of Canada movie about the Trans-Canada Highway.<\/p>\n While in the U.S. recently, a spell of hot weather prompted Swami, 64, to experiment with nighttime walking, starting at 9 p.m. and ending at 3:30 a.m.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was quite nice (in Omaha and other parts of Nebraska), you know, as long as you had a safe area to walk through, on trails, basically,\u201d he said. \u201cYou\u2019re not allowed to walk on the freeways, so the choices in America are a secondary highway or a back road.\u201d<\/p>\n In Surrey this week, Swami will make an appearance at Ram Mandir<\/a> (8473 124th St.) on Friday evening, Aug. 19, and is also scheduled to visit the market at Newton\u2019s Zaklan Heritage Farm<\/a> on Saturday, Aug. 20, from noon to 2 p.m.<\/p>\n Across Canada these days, he shares his \u201cTales from the Trails\u201d at community centres, yoga studios, libraries, schools and other places.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/webpapersadmin.bpnewmedia.com\/portals\/uploads\/surreynow\/.DIR288\/E6AAB0F1-D093-4764-9AF7-7C00A963A187.jpg\")
\u201cYesterday was a momentous day where I stopped at the midway point in America, in Nebraska, and now I\u2019m making a return journey back to Toronto, ultimately, my home place,\u201d Swami explained in an interview on Monday (Aug. 8).<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/webpapersadmin.bpnewmedia.com\/portals\/uploads\/surreynow\/.DIR288\/16546E0A-9B25-49F3-B913-2B7A54681064.jpg\")
\u201cI went through a lot of pain, physical,\u201d Swami admitted. \u201cThe biggest challenge of all is walking on an angle \u2013 it\u2019s like walking on a beach. But nevertheless, everything else compensated for that (pain), including meeting fantastic people, meeting characters, being confronted by black bears, grizzlies, whatnot, and finally I became an addict, I like it, gotta do it again.\u201d<\/p>\n
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By Tom Zillich<\/strong><\/p>\n