Last Sunday we honoured Stan Skirrow with a late afternoon hike and celebration. For those of you who didn’t know Stan, he was the member with the vision and dedication that really got the Waskahegan Trail going. When Stan passed away last December, we decided pretty quickly that we would do something special around Stan’s Bench on the Mix-Cloverlawn section of trail early in the summer hiking season.
We picked the Sunday closest to Summer Solstice and invited the Skirrow family to participate.
We climbed up the hill to the narrow ridge and crowded around Stan’s Bench for a toast and sharing of stories.
From there we walked over to the landowners’ beautifully-landscaped lawn for conversation and home-baked refreshments. The landowners had known Stan for 30 years and have been generous friends of the trail.
After the group photo, 28 people joined in for the hike, including five members of the Skirrow family. The Skirrow sons remember working with their dad building shelters on the trail.
The hike was a short one—only 5 km—but that allowed us more time than usual to linger and visit in the late day sun.
Thanks go to Oscar for leading hike, to the trail maintenance work party who got it into shape, and to the landowners whose generosity made this event even more special.
You can find all the pictures on Flickr.
What a beautiful way to honour Stan.
I believe he was watching from up Above on his new home away from
the physical world.
I always admired his gentle personality .
Thank you, Stan, for the footprints you left behind.
Thank you for the lovely sentiment, Alda. I hope we meet on the trail this summer.