Loving our city, street by street
Exploring our physical surroundings breaks down barriers to belonging
When local writer Anita Joldersma told me she was a walker, I replied, innocently, “So am I.”
I prefer to travel on foot whenever possible — for groceries, meetings, dinners out. I consider myself to be quite pedally-inclined. But my swagger has nothing on this Hamilton Mountain mother of six.
Joldersma began methodically exploring the streets of Hamilton in September 2014, starting with the southern suburbs and progressing to other areas of the city, such as Stoney Creek, Ancaster and, my personal favourite, the downtown core. She uses a GPS-based phone app called MapMyWalk to document the ground she’s covered, and then copies her progress by hand onto a large, hardcopy transit map. On the Mountain, her “strategic starting point” was her house, but now she drives to further reaches of the city, parks her car, and walks.
“When you explore the city through sidewalks and trails, you get to see things you wouldn’t otherwise see,” she says of her hip-swinging habits.
Joldersma’s goal is to walk along every street in Hamilton. She even made a donation to Road2Hope to gain permission to walk Red Hill Valley Parkway — a road which could otherwise not be travelled on foot — during their marathon.
Her wandering ways have worn out a pair of shoes. And I call myself a walker.
It has occurred to me sporadically that I ought to make an effort to see more of the fine lines of Hamilton, and not just the main features. I’ve thought about spending afternoons in areas like Dundas and Westdale, being a tourist in my own city. I have adventurous aspirations for this summer. But what about the nooks and crannies?
“When you’re on a main street, people don’t talk to each other, but as soon as you get into a neighbourhood, you’re expected to talk to each other,” says Joldersma. “They think you belong there.”
The desire to belong somewhere is integral to the human experience.
Joldersma says she finished off the Mountain with the street she lived on when she was born.
It’s rather poetic, if you ask me, that she came full circle and arrived back at her place of origin. However, this was only the end of her first chapter.
She finished walking the mountain in July of 2016, and then continued progressing through the city as a way of making all of Hamilton feel like her own — her home.
While I find Hamilton to be a welcoming and inclusive city, this story reminds me of how fortunate I am to feel that I belong somewhere. Not everyone finds their place so easily, and perhaps mapping one’s landscape on foot can be seen as a very concrete example of how we are capable of reconceptualizing a place so that it becomes comforting rather than foreign.
There are plenty of barriers to belonging, and not only in terms of the very obvious linguistic and cultural barriers faced by our immigrant populations. Illness, poverty, abuse, and simply feeling like a different breed of cat can all create a sense of foreignness to one’s surroundings.
If you know someone who is struggling to belong, perhaps you’d like to suggest that they take a walk, breathe the air, and look around.
‘‘ When you’re on a main street, people don’t talk to each other, but as soon as you get into a neighbourhood, you’re expected to talk to each other.