As I begin my final year here at the University of Guelph it seems fitting that I would spend my first days back wandering and exploring new territories and speaking to new people within this city that I will once again be calling home for the next eight months. In the time leading up to now, my life in Guelph hasn’t changed a whole lot from year to year. For the most part I have kept my same group of close friends and I have lived in the same apartment. I have developed my own rhythm and habits here. This year however things have changed. I have spent the last 8 months living and working in France and Prince Edward Island. Now, coming back to Guelph, everything feels new. I live in a new house with new surroundings and many of the familiar faces that I would normally see are no longer here. Having this chance to step back from school has allowed me to reflect on my experience thus far and to decide what I would like to accomplish in my final time here. And so, with this in mind, I was able to explore two new places in my first days back in Guelph. First, I would walk the route to school from my house for the first time. Second, I would take a walk through the arboretum, something I have always meant to do in Guelph but have never taken the time to do so. For each walk I would begin at my two planned starting points (my house and the entrance to the arboretum) and walk until I found a person to speak to. At that point, if they agreed, I would continue my walk with them and allow them to dictate where we would go next. I would bring along several balls of yarn and have them unravel the yarn of their choice along the way. This would leave an obvious trace of the walk since it would be out of place in both environments. It would also give some clues about the walk in terms of direction, pace (tension of yarn) as well as colour preference of the walker.

Originally I wanted to take photos of the people that I encountered. However, I found that the presence of a camera made the first few people that I met uncomfortable and seemed to raise too many questions about what exactly I was doing. I wanted to keep the atmosphere as comfortable and casual as possible where natural conversations happen rather than having it turn into a situation where they are focused on helping me with an ‘art project’. Instead I would document the trace left by the yarn in the environment after I had said goodbye to the walkers. After speaking with several people though, I was amazed at how open they were and what they actually told me. After completing each walk I jotted down notes of what each person said as well as some things I noticed about each person. The notes have become an unexpected part of the project. I had only planned to present these walks through pictures and maps but it seems that the stories, although I am undecided of whether they work best together or separate from the pictures, are an important part of the experience of these walks we have taken together.

Walk Route Number One:

The New Walk to School

About three quarters of the way through my walk to school I met Bill. I found him just up the road from his house at the start of his walk for the day. I asked him if I could join and he didn’t seem to mind.

Bill is newly retired and lives with his wife in Guelph.

He has one son who lives in B.C.

He is happy about the weather warming up again after the few cold days that Guelph had a few weeks ago

He plans to go golfing as much as possible while it is still nice outside

He is eagerly waiting for his wife to retire too (next year) so that they can join their son, his wife and their young granddaughter in B.C.

He was wearing a dark blue ball cap

After his walk Bill was going to go home and have a Bud Light and cut the lawn

Walk Route Number Two:

Explore the arboretum

Here I met Marie, a woman who looked about 70. She had already been walking a bit and was taking a break in a shady part of the

trail. I stopped with her for a minute to say hi and asked if I could continue with her when she was ready.

Marie loves coming to the arboretum because of her love for nature – especially birds.

She grew up on a farm.

Her late husband was a dairy farmer in the London area.

None of her family lives near Guelph

She is a proud grandmother and speaks very highly of her grand kids. I counted six.

She spends lots of time with the family next door who are very good to her

She has white-blonde curly hair and wears red nail polish

She wears the same beige shoes that my Nana wore every day

She has “bad legs” which looked like varicose veins and she alluded to heart problems

To my knowledge, varicose veins are painful and make walking difficult

We walked at a slow pace and she even held my arm at some of the tougher points of the walk

We ran out of yarn

I chose not to take photos of the people themselves and rather let the words that they said and the physical attributes that stuck in my mind produce an image of that person. For each walk I asked the person if they would be ok with me joining them. I also told them that I was interested in leaving a trace of our time spent together with the yarn and asked if they would unravel it as we walked. The reaction was confusion across the board but yet neither of them seemed to have a problem with it. The yarn also had an unexpected role. It seemed to be a good object to fiddle with and keep their hands busy. Although I was lucky enough to find some people open to speaking to me, there was still some awkwardness at times.