Height of Land Challenge

Them Days is joining in the Participaction Community Better Challenge. You can participate from in-town here in Happy Valley, or from afar. We’ve been inspired by the physical achievements of the Height of Land trappers who canoed from Lake Melville to above Grand Falls (now Churchill Falls) and walked back, hauling their furs, on the frozen Grand River.

Our challenge is for all of us to do just even a tiny bit of that journey. Collectively, we will walk the distance from North West River (where many of the trappers lived) to Churchill Falls over the month of June 2021.

Participaction’s Community Better Challenge is challenging Canadians to get active and support their communities. The community that’s crowned Canada’s Most Active Community will win $100,000 towards physical activity improvements! There are also many secondary prizes to be won. Let’s get a winner here in Labrador!

We encourage you to track your kilometres walked during this time, and send them in to us. We’ll add them all up. Our goal is 681 km. Participants should also track their activity minutes in the Participaction app on their phone or on the Participaction website. This will automatically add the walks you do yourself to your community’s total, and bring your community closer to winning the prize.

Just to be clear: Them Days tracks kilometres, Partcipaction tracks activity minutes. If you have a fitness tracker like a Fit Bit or an Apple Watch, download the Participaction app on your phone, and it will sync to your fitness tracker and you won’t even need to think about your activity minutes!

To help us all reach the goal, we’ve scheduled a short walk each day and we’d love to have you come out and walk with us. We’ve designed them so they’re all short (2.4 km or under) and on roads or well-travelled paths, so they’re as accessible as possible. We want everyone to be able to come out and join us! We’ll be talking about the history of the area and sharing memories along the way–we’re Them Days, after all.

And that’s not all–we’ve got prizes for you, too. Anyone who comes on one of our group walks is entitled to a back issue of Them Days, and we’ll have a draw for a box of 100 back issues (all participants will have their names entered into the draw…we simply ask if you live far away, you pay for the shipping). ALSO…the person with the most distance walked will win a year’s subscription to Them Days.

ALL WALKS START AT 2:30.

Walk Descriptions

We follow public health guidelines for our walks. Participants must stay 2m from those not in their household bubble or Steady 20. Bring hand sanitizer and a mask (should you need assistance from someone, or to go inside to use the washroom, for example) and we will be meeting outdoors, not inside the office, before the walks. We will also keep a list of who attends our walks, for contact tracing purposes. We highly encourage tracking your own walks, but we know that sometimes, you just need to get out and see a familiar face and make a social connection in these days of high isolation. Stay safe, everyone.

Mondays – Around the Block (1.25 km)
Start your week with an easy walk around the local neighbourhood. This is our shortest walk. There are also benches in the park on Grenfell Street if you need to rest a moment. Meet at Them Days and walk around (soon-to-be) leafy Kessessaskiou Street, Cabot Crescent, and Grenfell Street, one of the main roads in the heart of downtown Happy Valley.

Tuesdays – Happy Valley Pioneer Walk (2.0 km)
You may know this as the tour we developed several years ago that tells the story of early Happy Valley. Leave Them Days office, walk down to Grenfell Street, Strathcona, and then join the path along the Birch Island creek, down to Birch Island, and then returning along Grenfell Street back to Courte Manche. Meet at Them Days.

Wednesdays – Birch Island Boardwalk to the Beach (2.0 km)
Birch Island was a community unto itself in the early days of the Hamilton River Settlement (now known as Happy Valley) before it was resettled in 1967. Enjoy the newly restored wetlands on the boardwalk put in there by Healthy Waters Labrador along the river’s edge. Meet at the parking lot next to the park boardwalk entrance at the riverbank.

Thursdays – Canadian Side (1.5 km)
The Canadian Side is known as such because it was the Canadian Base in the early days of Goose Bay. Many buildings remain, but no longer function in their original purposes, like a movie theatre and arena. Unlike the early residents of Happy Valley and Birch Island who walked all the way to the Base to play or watch hockey, we’re driving up. Meet at the parking lot of the old arena on Edmonton Street.

Fridays – Riverbank East (2.4 km)
Another walk around historic downtown Happy Valley. We’ll leave Them Days, walk down to Grenfell Street, to Grand Street and then along Hamilton River Road to the path’s entrance near Corte Real Road, and then come back via the path along the riverbank. Before Hamilton River was the name of the main road, it was the best way to get around in your boat or canoe! Meet at Them Days.

Walks repeat every week in June:
Monday – Around the Block (1.25 km)
Tuesday – Happy Valley Pioneer Walk (2.0 km)
Wednesday -Birch Island Boardwalk to the Beach (2.0 km)
Thursday – Canadian Side (1.5 km)
Friday – Riverbank East (2.4 km)

Want to do another route? Here’s another walk we did the last time we did the ParticipACTION Community Better Challenge:

Bunker Walk (2.2 km)
Now a popular dog-walking spot, this loop just behind the soccer fields near the entrance to the Base houses many semi-buried bunkers. These bunkers on the Base have stored many things throughout the years…maybe even more than what we ever knew! Meet where the road meets the loop–or add an extra 1.2 km if you park at the soccer fields.

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Frequently Asked Questions

[faq category=”height-of-land-challenge”]