Andrew Lumsden was 42 years old when he first decided to take his son, Gavin, hitchhiking from Ottawa to Vancouver — and back.
His son was an 11-year-old at the time.
Now, 50 years later, his son was the one intiating another trip, this time across the four Atlantic provinces.
With Andrew now 92, the dream team has done it again.
This time, they flew into Newfoundland and Labrador and hitchhiked four days to Channel-Port aux Basques, a town in the southwest corner of that province. From there they took a ferry to Nova Scotia, eventually making their way to Truro.
In total, the Lumsdens used three ferries and travelled the four Atlantic provinces for two weeks, eventually taking a train home from Bathurst, N.B.
“Both times, the biggest takeaway for us was just how much people wanted to help us,” Andrew said.
Travelling with a young kid had it’s perks in the 1970s. “It was clear some people only picked me up because I was with a child,” he told the paper at the time. Many people would stop and offer the hitchhikers a ride, Andrew said.
But making the trip, half a century later, this time with no youngster, was no different when it came to the hospitality they received.
Drivers were happy to pick them up, often taking detours to help them along their journey. This trip, they were even picked up by a tractor-trailer.
“He went out of his way to drop us off,” Andrew said of one man. “It was incredible how much out of his way he went.”
Andrew had similar observations when the Citizen first reported on their trip in 1976. “You learn more about the country and its people by hitching rides than by driving through with your family,” he said then.
Let’s put the passage of time into context. On Sept. 9 of that year, when this paper first reported on the Lumsdens’ trip, the front page of the Citizen offers a time capsule. That day, an era in Chinese history came to a close when the death of Mao Tse-tung was announced.
Also reported on the front page: Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau’s slump in popularity, a looming teachers’ strike in Quebec and inflation had dropped to 6.3 per cent, its lowest level since March 1973. (This June, the inflation index was 2.3 per cent, according to the Bank of Canada.)
None of this stopped the pair though. They thumbs upped their way out west for two weeks that summer. The pair travelled the distance in full — back and forth — between Ottawa and Vancouver.
This year’s trip started on June 12 and lasted until June 29. Andrew said he was struck by the humanity of people on Canada’s East Coast.
It was Andrew’s son, Gavin, who brought up the idea to hitchhike this time.
“The roles were totally reversed,” Andrew said in an interview Monday. During the first trip fifty years ago, the 92-year-old said he had been completely focused on keeping his 11-year-old son alive and well, and hadn’t had much time to socialize with people.
This time didn’t require the same vigilance.
“People in the Atlantic provinces, dare I say, are the warmest people in Canada,” he said.
Andrew wanted to prove that it was safe and doable, even at 92.
Andrew said he’d proved to himself and others that hitchhiking wasn’t as dangerous as what people made it out to be.
The trip didn’t come without its challenges.
Travelling long distances in his 90s carrying items of his belongings was hard at times. Though, in hindsight the most recent trip was one he enjoyed most.
“People acknowledge each other as human beings,” he said. “Maybe because it’s a smaller population in Atlantic provinces, but it’s really nice to be recognized as a human being rather than somebody walking past you on a sidewalk as if you didn’t even exist.”
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