This N.L. explorer is getting used to civilization again after a year in Canada's wilderness
Justin Barbour plans to make a documentary showing his year in the wild
A year in the Canadian wilderness can make getting used to life at home again tricky at times, according to Newfoundland and Labrador adventurer Justin Barbour.
"I'm still out in the driveway looking for a spot to pitch a tent and looking for dry wood. But it's nice to get back and take a rest," Barbour told CBC News with a laugh Thursday.
"I'm going around and putting things in cupboards where it's not supposed to be, and leaving doors open and all this kind of stuff. I'm still half wild."
Barbour has spent the last year in the travelling across northwestern Canada, recently completing what he called Expedition Northeast.
The trek began on the shore of Hudson Bay in July 2023. He travelled 3,800 kilometres east, down through the entirety of Labrador and ending at Cape Pine, Newfoundland's southeasternmost point, earlier this month.
"It's tough to digest something this long," he said.
"Ninety-nine per cent of the whole year, I was in the bush. You know, just camping, living with the seasons."
Barbour isn't new to this kind of journey, but he says this one marks the completion of the longest solo journey ever attempted across northeastern Canada — a dream six years in the making.
In a Facebook post, he called the trek long, demanding and often painful — but added he completed it with "youthlike giddiness" alongside his dog, Saku.
That struggle included travelling through the dead of winter, Barbour said, faced with temperatures near –50 C and only around four hours of sunlight a day as he travelled over 700 kilometres of Canadian tundra.
He remembers one night where he faced the most intense storm he'd seen while camping in a cove on a frozen lake. He thought he was going to lose his canvas tent.
"I thought she was going to go," he said.
"But the trick was that I had made that the Inuit would often do when they were in exposed areas. I built a snow wall, and I done that from about one o' clock in the morning til 2:30. An hour and a half, and that provided an excellent windbreak."
Barbour said he plans to take some time to relax at home with his wife, Heather — and turn his attention to all the video he shot, which he plans to turn into a documentary.
"This is footage that very few people will get to see. This is a rare experience, for someone to go out and spend a year in the wilderness," he said.
"Amazing scenery, so it's going to be a pleasure to get into it."
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With files from The St. John's Morning Show