It only took 31 days for Steve Johnson to finish his long journey on foot when he ended up on the west coast.
The 33-year-old St. Albert teacher embarked on his Walk for Japan in mid-June, leaving from the Edmonton Japanese Community Cultural Centre on his consciousness-raising adventure that he called Gambaro!, the Japanese word for “stay strong.” Along with his wife, Yoshimi Tanaka, he arrived at the counterpart building in Vancouver on July 26, but his mission continues.
“It was very positive,” he exclaimed, only remarking that his feet took some time to recover. “They were pretty sore but they were hardened by [the end]. There’s still blisters on them. I think that the walk was pretty good for me.”
He set off on this adventure as “a message in motion, a dedication walk and a travelling talk” through as many communities as he could between here and his last stop. He’d just returned to Canada a few months before the walk after living and teaching in Japan for most of the past eight years.
His purpose was to keep people’s attention on — or to bring it back to — the devastating 9.0 magnitude earthquake and tsunami that happened in northern Japan back in March. It was one of the top five strongest seismic events to happen in recorded history.
This natural disaster, along with its several aftershocks — each registering 6.6 to 7.1 magnitude — caused thousands of people to die, thousands more to go missing, and significant damage to buildings and infrastructure, including the Fukushima nuclear power plants that threatened to meltdown, causing further destruction and chaos on a larger scale.
Less than half a year later, it barely registers on the global news any more, but it stays close in Johnson’s mind.
“It seemed to go very well,” he said, talking about how his message was spread not only across Canada but also back to the island country that he loves so much.
“I just received a postcard from a friend in Japan. They had heard about [the walk] and seen the website. She and her family were very moved by the whole event. They were very inspired to do what they could do, even if was just a little to conserve energy or to help with the disaster recovery.”
Each day, Johnson walked a distance comparable to the length of a marathon, about 42 kilometres. Along the way he met hundreds, if not thousands, of people with whom he shared his message of endurance and perseverance in the face of adversity.
While he wasn’t out to fundraise for the Red Cross relief effort, he did have some of the relief agency’s wristbands to sell.
“I’d like to say that we raised somewhere between a couple hundred and a couple billion dollars, because I don’t know,” he laughed.
Now that it’s all over, he is content to reflect on the connections that he made and how people changed after meeting him and hearing his messages. Some people already knew who he was before getting face-to-face with him.
“I was walking on the trails within Red Deer and before I opened my mouth to explain what I was doing or talk to someone, a young man comes along and says, ‘Hey, you’re the Walk for Japan guy!’ He’d seen me on the news already or maybe read something online.”
You can see pictures and read more about Johnson’s trek at walkforjapan.blogspot.com.
