Toronto Canada (Commonwealth Union)_Seven years is what it takes to travel to 29 countries without motorized transport. Canadian firefighter Markus Pukonen simply used his muscles and wind to circumnavigate the world – walking, kayaking, canoeing, cycling, tricycling, skiing, rowing, trimarans, rafting, sailing, stand-up paddleboarding and even jumping around on a pogo stick. And all this in his quest for a sustainable future. There were no planes, cars, trains, or even an elevator across the 80,000 kilometers he traveled.
When Pukonen was told his father was dying of acute myeloid leukemia, he asked himself what he would do if he was told he had a few weeks to live. Upon his father’s death, he decided to travel the world but not in any conventional way, but rather by putting his muscles and wind to the test. He prepared physically for five months, founded the non-profit Routes of Change to raise funds for small social and environmental organizations, and set off in July 2015 from his home in the street where he was born, walking to a canoe in Lake Ontario.
Since then, he has tricycled across the Canadian prairie provinces, skied across British Columbia, rowed to the US state of Washington, sailed to Hawaii, cycled through Macau, traveled down the Mekong River in Vietnam, and kayaked to Indonesia. Pukenon stresses that what he is doing is not unusual as 150 years ago, there was no motorized transport. I’m simply traveling the way people who lived two centuries ago would travel wherever they had to go.
In April, while border restrictions were in place, he sailed from India to the Seychelles which took him forty days and when his girlfriend joined him in the Seychelles, they sailed to Tanzania, Mozambique, and South Africa. From then, he traveled solo to Brazil, the Caribbean where he spent 3 months in Tobago, and then on to Florida. He stand-up paddle boarded to Savannah, Georgia. It was a walk up the Appalachian Trail which runs through 14 states to Maine and maybe using a skateboard, a bike, or even rollerblades to get home.
Pukenon confesses to loving his time on the water saying it was ‘super peaceful’ and says bicycling was probably the toughest. He bicycled through Asia and found black smoke from cars spewing in his face, some cultures being aggressive, honking horns, noise pollution, air pollution, and light pollution all intensely difficult to cope with. And skiing across British Columbia would probably be one of the most physically exhausting periods of his trip, especially due to the low temperatures.
Once he gets home, Pukenon has plans. He wants to grow his own food, write a book, and has hopes of turning his story into an adventure film. But his ultimate goal is the wish that his travels have changed the way we look at our planet, to have people realize that each has the potential to change the world. “I think it’s really important to acknowledge and appreciate the power that we have to make a difference,” he says.
