Seizing the day

Some movies are so visually appealing and loaded with popular culture that they make you want to eventually go to where they were shot to soak up more of the sights, sounds and people.

But the Canadian movie I’m thinking of also reminds me that, like the lead character, my days are numbered.

Despite the weighty subject matter, the 2008 Canadian drama One Week lets you lean back and enjoy the ride on a road trip from Toronto to Tofino.

But why now?

Partly, because it gives that euphoric feeling that travel can produce, and partly because it convincingly presents the idea that travel can be transformative, something that’s appealing to a lot of us these days.

More on that later; first the movie.

Ben is a young schoolteacher in Toronto who’s simply living his life when he gets a grim diagnosis.

“We’ve picked up cancerous cells in your blood, your liver, and your lymph nodes,” his doctor tells him. “We need to get you into treatment right away.”

“How bad is it?” asks Ben.

“ It’s stage four.”

“ How many stages are there?:

“ Four.”

But instead of going for treatment, Ben buys a motorcycle and heads west.

“I’m not going on a vacation,” he tells Samantha, his fiancée, who can’t understand why he would postpone potentially life-saving treatment.

Insisting he needs an adventure before becoming a patient, Ben takes off on perhaps the best kind of journey — solo, spontaneous and free-wheeling.

Out of the city and into the big open spaces that define Canada, Ben begins to see his diagnosis differently — as a wakeup call, urging him to examine the choices he’s made.

Along the way, he meets people who provide clarity and insight, beginning with the old biker who sells Ben his 1973 Norton Commando.

“I tell ya, it’s a blink from diapers to Depends,” the man says with the understated humour that keeps this film from being a downer.

Cruising the Trans-Canada highway, Ben passes farmland and forests, prairies and mountains in a visual feast of the Canadian landscape while the soundtrack is entirely Canadian with popular tunes by performers such as Sam Roberts (Hard Road) and the Great Lake Swimmers (Imaginary Bars).

Ben stops at gigantic roadside attractions such as the Big Nickel in Sudbury, Ontario (the world’s largest coin) and the statue of Terry Fox near Thunder Bay, a tribute to the one-legged man who died from cancer while running across Canada in 1980.

At a roadside motel, Ben meets Gord Downie who was lead singer of Canadian rock band The Tragically Hip, and asks him for some advice: how do you know if you’re really in love?

Rolling a joint, Downie tells Ben if you have to ask, you’re not. (The fact that Downie himself has since died of cancer makes this exchange all the more poignant.)

When his bike breaks down in Saskatchewan, Ben gets help from an attractive rancher who takes him horseback riding into a dramatic landscape of canyons and wind-carved hoodoos. When she tells Ben she likes her men sized XXL, he wishes he was bigger.

In Banff National Park Ben checks into an expensive hotel room (the upside of not needing to save for retirement, according to the film’s narrator), but then spends the night outdoors in the wild after getting lost while hiking.

The young woman who finds him cold and alone takes him under her wing, playing guitar and singing around a cozy campfire, leading Ben to realize he doesn’t really love Samantha or their plans for a future together back east.

“Why do I care about the appliances I’m putting in a kitchen?” he asks Sam when she flies to Banff and tries to convince him to return with her to Toronto.

Carrying on, Ben finally runs out of ‘west’ when he arrives in Tofino, the popular surfing town on the west coast of Vancouver Island. His journey is over but travelling has empowered him to make changes in his life, even if has only a little time left. He breaks his engagement with Samantha and writes a book about his road trip.

The idea that travel can be transformative has probably been around for as long as people have been travelling.

But with problems from over-tourism to climate change, travel is getting a bad rap.

Getting on a motorcycle with no destination in mind almost sounds like a guilty pleasure.

Will future travel still deliver the life changing experiences we crave?

Yes, says Jake Haupert, co-founder of the Transformational Travel Council, but we need to travel more mindfully, to understand why we’re travelling and what we want to get out of it.

Based in Seattle, Washington, he thinks the pandemic has already changed how we view travel.

“And I think we’re being a lot more thoughtful about how we engage, any sort of travel, near or far and recognizing that it’s more about depth than distance.”

Launched in 2017, Haupert says the Transformational Travel Council is part of a global movement that’s gaining momentum. It offers membership as well as programs and courses for both the travel industry and individuals, including The Transformational Travel Journal. “It’s like having your own travel coach,” he adds.

I’m trying to imagine how a re-make of One Week might look in a more mindful future.

Perhaps Ben will write in a journal and motor closer to home. It doesn’t sound as exciting and certainly won’t make for as good a movie.

In the meantime, I’m simply looking forward to travelling again, mindfully or otherwise.

One Week can be rented on iTunes for $3.99.