On this episode of 'the Nostalgic Vagabond' podcast, I have two guests on to chat. And these two guests are zooming-in from two different locations on either side of Canada. Today's guests are Matt Sebastian and Shaun McCord.
Matt and Shaun are a cycling partnership. Together, they crossed the whole country of Canada, east to west. More or less. Shaun is from the west coast and Matt is from western-ish Canada but their journey together started on the eastern side of Canada, in a hostel in Halifax, Nova Scotia many years ago.
In conversation, we talk about whose crazy idea (10:50) it was initially to attempt such a daring adventure to cycle from the eastern tip of Canada, all the way to the west coast.
As with any trip, there are fears that have to be considered (15:35) and how these might be overcome. We talk about the unique route (18:50) that Matt and Shaun ended up taking and some of the picturesque vistas (28:50) they passed through, notably Manitoulin Island on Lake Huron.
On a mega-long trip, such as this one, there will always be those inevitable scary moments (39:20) but I was caught off guard by what Shaun and Matt had to say about witnessing an awful racism encounter one evening in Manitoba. But on a more positive note, Matt Sebastian's life changed on this trip as he met his now-wife en route (44:50) in Ottawa.
With so many weeks on the highways together I was curious to hear what Shaun and Matt experienced once they had finally reached the finish line (48:00), so to speak. I was confident that both Matt and Shaun would have comments about how this epic road trip - by peddle power - was life-changing (51:00) with countless opportunities for personal growth. And I didn't expect such heartfelt comments from both guys saying how much their riding buddy meant to the trip and their relationship in general...
Enjoy.
Shaun wanted me to make a note that he made a mistake about cultural greetings during the "Fav 4" at (56:20) and he actually texted me the correction, "Miigetwetch is not a Cree greeting expression, it is an Ojibwa word which means - thank you."
Cheers Shaun :)
A big thanks to Tom Forfar for creating the title tracks for the podcast series.
And, any comments or feedback feel free to email