Author Archives: The Order Of Walkers

Essay: On Going A Journey

I grant there is one subject on which it is pleasant to talk on a journey, and that is, what one shall have for supper when we get to our inn at night. The open air improves this sort of conversation or friendly altercation, by setting a keener edge on appetite. Every mile of the road heightens the flavour of the viands we expect at the end of it. How fine it is to enter some old town, walled and turreted, just at approach of nightfall, or to come to some straggling village, with the lights streaming through the surrounding gloom; and then, after inquiring for the best entertainment that the place affords, to ‘take one’s ease at one’s inn’!

Essay: Walking Tours

“In the course of a day’s walk, you see, there is much variance in the mood. From the exhilaration of the start, to the happy phlegm of the arrival, the change is certainly great. As the day goes on, the traveller moves from the one extreme towards the other. He becomes more and more incorporated with the material landscape, and the open-air drunkenness grows upon him with great strides, until he posts along the road, and sees everything about him, as in a cheerful dream. The first is certainly brighter, but the second stage is the more peaceful. A man does not make so many articles towards the end, nor does he laugh aloud; but the purely animal pleasures, the sense of physical wellbeing, the delight of every inhalation, of every time the muscles tighten down the thigh, console him for the absence of the others, and bring him to his destination still content.”

Essay: Why I Walk

By Ben Kilbourne, Backpacking Light As part of your formation with the Order of Walkers, there are questions you must pose to gain insight and promote growth. Ponder the age old “Why I walk”?  A simple question but a difficult answer to articulate. There are no wrong answers. It’s a  big sky and your essayContinue reading “Essay: Why I Walk”

Quote: Thomas Wentworth Higginson

Thomas Wentworth Higginson, (born December 22, 1823, Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.—died May 9, 1911, Cambridge), American reformer who was dedicated to the abolition movement before the American Civil War. During the Civil War Higginson accepted command of the 1st South Carolina Volunteers, later the 33rd U.S. Colored Troops, the first black regiment in the U.S. armed forces. After 1864 he wrote a series ofContinue reading “Quote: Thomas Wentworth Higginson”

Quote: Henry David Thoreau

“I think that I cannot preserve my health and spirits unless Ispend four hours a day at least — and it is commonly morethan that — sauntering through the woods and over the hillsand fields, absolutely free from all worldly engagements. […]the walking of which I speak has nothing in it akin to takingexercise, asContinue reading “Quote: Henry David Thoreau”

A Survey By Way Of Preface

The train, the car, the buggy, the bicycle are excellent means of getting from place to place; none of them gives him leisure to note what lies between. That is peculiarly the walker’s gain. It is then that he gathers the harvest of the quiet eye, and he sees not only the widespread landscape, but also the details of Nature’s plan.

Quote: Ralph Waldo Emerson

This quote speaks directly to the sacrament of ad Communionem for the the Order. “There are two companions, with one or other of whom it is desirable to go out on a tramp. One is an artist, that is, who has an eye for beauty. If you use a good and skilful companion, you shallContinue reading “Quote: Ralph Waldo Emerson”

Quote: J. Brooks Atkinson

“Walking companions, like heroes, are difficult to pluck out of the crowd of acquaintances. Good dispositions, ready wit, friendly conversation serve well enough by the fireside but they prove insufficient in the field. For there you need transcendentalists — nothing less; you need poets, sages, humorists and natural philosophers.” — J. Brooks Atkinson, “A NoteContinue reading “Quote: J. Brooks Atkinson”