Author: Mark Wihak
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Laura Pfeifer – Pedestrian
I really enjoyed talking with Laura about her passion for cities and walking. I first met Laura around 2010 at a Jane’s Walk, which Laura brought to Regina and organised even after she moved away from the city. Laura’s Regina Urban Ecology blog and related activities, which ran from 2009-2015, documented really interesting discussions and…
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Johnny Strides
Johnny Strides is the handle of John Hicks, who’s been posting videos of his walks – mostly in Toronto but elsewhere as well – since before the COVID pandemic. His YouTube channel has thousands of videos and he’s adding more on a daily basis. In an interview with Spacing Magazine in 2024 he said “I…
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Flânerie
I was first introduced to the word flâneur and the ideas behind it in grad school. In learning about it, I realised in many ways flânerie described behaviour I’d be pursuing for some time: leisurely strolling through cities, observing the variety of activities an urban environment offers. It’s one of the things I most enjoy…
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Walking across Britain (from your sofa)
The Canadian province of Saskatchewan – where Project Pedestrian originates – is 651,036 square kilometres, with a human population just north of 1.2 million. The island of Great Britain (England, Scotland, Wales) is 209,331 square kilometres, with a human population just over 65.5 million. Perhaps this explains why there are so many British TV shows devoted…
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Tasha Alexson – Pedestrian
I met Tash a couple years ago when she took an introductory filmmaking course I was teaching. In that class she made a lovely short film that really captured the sense of a flâneuse, a woman exploring a city on foot. When I started working on Project Pedestrian, I knew Tash was one of the…
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Pedestrian Space
Pedestrian Space is a wonderful resource on a range of topics connected to walking. Created by Annika Lundkvist, Pedestrian Space is an NGO that “through media, communications and research, advocates and educates on walkability as a central aspect of sustainable urbanism”. The website has an extensive catalogue of materials, including a reading list, and connections…
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A Right to Roam?
Outside our cities and towns, walking in the countryside is impacted by the legal parameters of the jurisdiction one walks in. Nordic countries provide significant public access to land, with Norway allowing it under the concept allmannsretten. In Scotland, walkers have wide access to the countryside, including golf courses (though not the greens). Right to…
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Who & What?
My name is Mark Wihak and I’m the person behind Project Pedestrian. I’m a filmmaker and educator living on Treaty 4 lands in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. Walking has been an important part of my life ever since I meandered down the back alleys to and from elementary school. My film (stories from) The Land of…
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Text Walking
Among the influences on Project Pedestrian is the Text Walking project of Calgary-based artist Baco Ohama, where she gathers text found while walking (signs, graffiti, posters) and uses them as sources for poetry, artist books, postcards, and videos. Baco and I met in the early 1990s in Montreal when we were both doing MFAs at…
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Matthew R. Anderson – Pedestrian
I had the pleasure of speaking with Matthew Anderson about his books The Good Walk and Someone Else’s Saint, walking on the prairies, and pilgrimage. It was my good fortune that Matthew was back in Saskatchewan to mark the 10th anniversary of the walk from Wood Mountain to the Cypress Hills that forms a significant…
Project Pedestrian 