A WALK IN MCLENNAN PARK WITH DAVID ALTON

Community facilitator David Alton was easy to spot when I arrived for our walk in McLennan Park. They were dressed head-to-toe in bright colours, contrasting with the grey March day.  

“Lately I’ve been calling myself a paladin of joy,” Alton said. “I have this commitment to this idea that life and existence is fundamentally meaningful, and I want to use my big, buff body to try and make it possible for people to experience the joy.” 

Alton guided us along the park paths before we tackled the big hill, known locally and affectionately as Mount Trashmore, to enjoy the view from the top. 

“A paladin is like a husky knight who’s got a responsibility complex to some kind of divine calling…which I feel is pretty representative of myself,” Alton said. “I chase joy, but then I’m also putting myself in constant suffering [so] other people have space for joy.” 

Joy is a driving force in Alton’s life. For them, joy is not merely the pursuit of happiness, but rather a more nuanced expression of the human condition. 

“[J]oy is the experience of being valued,” they said. “Joy is actually a much more all-encompassing emotion that’s everywhere.” 

Alton grew up in Elmira and Baden, spent some time in Toronto, then returned to Waterloo Region just before the pandemic to reconnect with community and pursue activism work. They started Ground Up Waterloo Region with some friends to connect with people and fill in perceived gaps. 

“Being in community and having relationships with lots of people, that’s kind of my constant,” Alton said. “[Asking], ‘What’s going on? What do people need? What’s the vibe in community?’.” 

In 2022, Alton began working with the Social Development Centre Waterloo Region as a lived experience consultancy facilitator and in 2024 their role expanded to include grants and program development. Much of their work revolves around the housing crisis in the region, as well as advocating newcomer rights. In 2025, they were the recipient of the Lynn Macaulay, Exceptional Housing and Homelessness Community Educator Award given by the Region of Waterloo. 

With a master’s degree in urban development and education in conflict management and mediation, Alton understands the intersection of structures and people that exist in cities. However, they believe Kitchener needs to embrace being a growing and diverse city to deal with current issues. 

“I think it’s the moment now for Kitchener to embrace its own sovereignty and its own people,” Alton said. “If we are not asserting everyone’s basic rights, then we are at risk of having our own rights stripped away…it’s time for Kitchener residents to own what we are doing.” 

For Alton, the path of activism needs everyone to use their voices and contribute as they can, which often means sitting in the discomfort and anxiety that this kind of work can produce. 

“There’s a lot of failing forward in activism,” they said. “There’s tons of conflict because everyone is processing their own shit at the same time…it’s going to be messy, [so] embrace the fact that it’s going to be messy…it’s time to just raise your hand and see where it goes.” 

Activism work is Alton’s calling and allows them to find meaning even within conflict, but it also comes with a cost, and they have had to make choices that impact their life. 

“Holding the level of both interpersonal and political conflicts that I hold definitely has impacted me,” Alton said. “I don’t do friendship anymore. I’ve really pulled back. I do acquaintanceships which I love…the life outside of work is doing what I need to do to sustain myself, to stay in community.” 

Alton pursues activism and community building through a study and practice of theology. While working at church camp, Alton built their philosophy about finding joy and meaning through value. 

“I’m not a Christian…but I often spend time in Christian spaces because they’re really the only spaces that have infrastructure I can work with,” Alton said. “Most of what I do in Christian spaces is just remind everyone that the Bible is gay and horny. Which it is…but my real passion is about making the experience of faith and spirituality and meaning accessible for where we are right now.” 

As we ascended to the top of the hill, Alton reflected on the role of parks in the city and advocating  them as sites of survival for the unhoused. 

While there are many challenges that Alton sees in their work and in the community, they take solace in spending time with their coworkers, board games, reality television and going for walks. 

“The world may be hard, but I’m not,” they said. “There’s lightness everywhere.” 

We paused at the top of the hill to take in the view of Kitchener.  

“How can you not just fall in love with the city when you’re able to see all its little nooks and crevices?” Alton asked. “I’m constantly trying and searching and yearning for ways to do justice to the meaning around me, and I think that will be a lifelong journey.” 

A WALK AROUND BECHTEL PARK WITH EMILY URQUHART

It was author Emily Urquhart’s pup June that brought us out to the Bechtel Dog Park on a grey Saturday afternoon. We were greeted by a well-dressed poodle in boots and an orange jacket, and June and her new friend ran off while Urquhart and I opted for a slower pace.

“Walking is one hundred per cent part of my writing process,” Urquhart said as we followed the path on a loop around a cluster of trees. “[O]ften, when I’m walking, I’m working something out…something about the movement of walking forwards can sometimes shake things out in a way that, if I was sitting at a desk and trying to write, it just doesn’t work.”

Urquhart was born in Kitchener and lived in Waterloo until she was seven, when her family moved to Wellesley. After high school she studied art history and journalism, then ended up at Memorial University in Newfoundland where she completed a PhD in Folklore Studies and also met her future husband. It was his job at the University of Waterloo that brought them back to Ontario to settle with their family in Kitchener.

“I was always interested in folklore,” Urquhart said. “I had this huge Brothers Grimm silver-coloured book that I used to read as a kid a lot. And I was interested in my Irish culture and heritage, and that kind of naturally coincides with folklore.”

Urquhart’s understanding and exploration of folklore goes beyond the written stories of her youth, and includes visual art, gossip, rumours and even home decor and bumper stickers.

“[Folklore is] the way you’re signifying who you are to the world and the story you’re telling about yourself and your place in it,” Urquhart said. “Once you’ve got [folklore] under your belt, it kind of changes your worldview.”

Urquhart explored folklore in her third book, Ordinary Wonder Tales, published in 2022 and shortlisted for the 2023 Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction. She drew on her journalism background for her second book, The Age Of Creativity, published in 2020, in which she examined late-in-life creativity using her father, acclaimed painter Tony Urquhart, as the subject and inspiration.

Her mother, award-winning novelist and poet Jane Urquhart, is also an artistic presence in Urquhart’s life. She was in high school when her mother gained wide-spread notoriety for her novel Away, and people became interested in her last name and family.

“There was a rumour at university that my mom was Jan Arden because there was a broken telephone situation…someone said ‘Jane Urquhart,’ but [someone else] heard Jan Arden,” Urquhart said. “So, I’ve always had a kind of kinship with Jan Arden.”

From an early age, Urquhart was an avid reader and was also drawn to writing.

“I had teachers who [said] ‘oh, you’re such a good writer’…But I’d feel like, is that because my mom’s a writer, or is it coming from an authentic place?” she said. “But I knew I liked to do it, and I also knew that it didn’t pay any money.”

Pursuing a PhD allowed Urquhart to continue reading and writing, and also to have some security in the form of teaching. In addition to being a published author and a non-fiction editor at The New Quarterly, Urquhart is also a Professor of Creative Writing at Laurier where she coordinates the Edna Staebler Awards.

It was through The New Quarterly that Urquhart connected with other writers in the area. At the Wild Writers’ Festival in 2019, Urquhart was approached by novelist Carrie Snyder about forming a writer’s group along with author Tasneem Jamal. Urquhart agreed, and they have been writing and workshopping ever since.

“It’s so wonderful to have that community,” Urquhart said. “We write together, which I’d never done…I’ve been through two books with them now.”

Urquhart’s experience of community is one done directly with other people as she is not on any social media. In 2016 she made the decision to leave Facebook when she found the platform to be full of vitriol and in-fighting. She left Twitter not long after.

“It was getting me down,” Urquhart said. “Finally, I was like, no one’s inviting you to this party. You have to stop showing up.”

While she reads poetry daily and cites short stories as a favourite genre, Urquhart is also drawn to some less-expected media.

“I like to watch really trashy documentaries,” Urquhart said. “When I say documentary, people think, ‘Oh, that sounds smart.’ No, I like anything to do with catfishing…I’m really into cults. I just find it fascinating.”

Urquhart’s dog June came over to say a quick hello before going to greet a new arrival. Before adopting June from the Humane Society a year ago, Urquhart and her family rescued a dog from another agency; however, they were unable to keep him because of an aggressive response to walks.

“He was sweet, actually, in the house, but…he wouldn’t go in our yard, so he had to be walked…whenever I walked him, he attacked me,” Urquhart said. “I had leather gloves, they were split open, my parka was split open. I was on the ground trying to shield my face and he had my hand and he didn’t let go.”

The experience did not deter Urquhart from dogs, however. 

“I just got obsessed or something after that,” Urquhart said. “I was thinking about dogs, I only watched things about dogs, and then I started writing about it.”

Part of that writing process included painting a watercolour of the destroyed gloves and using visual art as research. What started as memoir turned into a fairy tale.

“I don’t know if the stories I’ve been writing connect as one piece or if they’re connected stories,” Urquhart said. 

“But they all have some sort of supernatural…element threaded through them.”

While the move to writing fiction might be new for Urquhart, her background in folklore and careful powers of observation honed through journalism will no doubt mean she is right at home navigating these creative waters.

Alice in the Park – Dry Grass All Around and a New Forest

Alice walked along a path. She chose a way. And now she's following the trail. Yellow autumn leaves all around. And a bunch of half-withered autumn plants. Such yellow grass. Already dry.

https://dimalinkeng.blogspot.com/2026/01/alice-in-park-dry-grass-all-around-and.html

#Alicefromwonderland #Alice #magic #fairytale #magicforest #path #tales #autumnpark #walkinthepark #drygrass #trail #indreams #8bit #msdos

Riverside walk.

#nature #WalkInThePark #Winter #Saanich #VancouverIsland #VanIsle #PacificNorthwest #PNW #GetOutside #SaanichParks #Colquitz #VictoriaBC #NaturePhotos #rosehips #fungi #forest #foliage #footpath #WorldInMyEyes #NatureWalks #woodlands #SilentSunday

#SilentSunday

This big old #GarryOak #tree is one of my fave trees in the entire city 😃💚

#nature #WalkInThePark #Winter #Saanich #VancouverIsland #VanIsle #PacificNorthwest #PNW #GetOutside #CuthbertHolmesPark #Colquitz #VictoriaBC #oak #OldGrowth #TreeLovers #TreeHugger #gnarly #arbor