War cemetery bicycle tour years in making, goal decades in length

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This article was published 01/08/2023 (800 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

One man’s 30-year quest to visit every Commonwealth war cemetery in the world by bike reached Manitoba this week.

Originally from Australia, 58-year-old Micheal (Mic) Whitty has little to his name beyond a hammock, sleeping bag and dandelion yellow French postal bicycle. To cover the rest, he relies on the generosity of open-hearted folks he encounters during his travels.

After finding his grandfather’s 1916 war diary in late 2015, Whitty decided to retrace his footsteps by visiting war cemeteries between Cumbria, England, and the Gallipoli peninsula in Turkey.

Before Aug. 15, 2045 — the centennial anniversary of V-J Day, which marked the end of the Second World War — Whitty plans to visit all 25,630 cemeteries maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

Biking over the border from Moosomin, Sask., Whitty arrived in Manitoba powered by gas station coffee and a campfire-cooked can of Tim Hortons potato bacon soup. He was heading to Winnipeg after stops in Brandon, Carberry and several Manitoban towns.

When he picked up the phone Monday, he was en route to a cemetery in Portage la Prairie.

“Most days, I don’t really know where I’m going to stop,” Whitty said. “It’s just this continual outlook that it will all work out.”

On Tuesday, Whitty’s Facebook profile sports a photo of the long-bearded man in blue-tinted sunglasses posing in front of a Welcome to Winnipeg sign.

It’s a ritual he repeats at every cemetery visit. Occasionally, he’ll take photos of specific headstones to send to people who wish to see an ancestor’s grave.

“Just the other day, someone messaged me saying that he was researching his relative’s (First World War) service in France, and he thanked me for taking the photograph of (the headstone),” Whitty said.

His Canadian leg of the journey commenced June 1, after dipping his bicycle tire in the Pacific Ocean at Horseshoe Bay, B.C. He plans to finish in St. John’s, before jetting off to New Zealand in November.

The spark for what is now an eight-year journey, came in late 2015, in England, when he rediscovered a 1916 pocketbook Lt. Ian Whitty had written in while fighting on the Western Front.

Earlier that year, Whitty had been homeless for 10 months, living in the English woods.

Whitty never met his grandfather, who died 20 years before he was born, but became determined to find a way to honour his memory.

Ahead of the diary’s centennial anniversary, he decided to start retracing his grandfather’s tracks. In 2016, he travelled by bike to Gallipoli from Cumbria.

“I left England with £19, around $30, and a friend gave me his secondhand bicycle,” he said.

Between 2016 and 2018, Whitty adjusted the length of his travels several times. After reaching the Western Front in April 2016, he veered off from the diary’s original schedule, now targeting visits to 440 First World War cemeteries between the Belgian coast and Sweden.

By 2017, he decided to extend his goal even further, revamping his trip plan to visit all 2,000 or so CWGC cemeteries in France, Belgium, Netherlands and Germany.

A final itinerary adjustment came a year later.

“Coming up to the end of 2018, I was wondering again, ‘What am I going to do when this trip stops?’” he said. “So, a bit like Forrest Gump, I kept going.

“I am now on a cycle trip that’s 30 years long. I’m travelling to every cemetery where a Commonwealth soldier from the First or the Second World War is (buried).”

After wrapping up a three-month U.S. tour, he travelled north to begin his five-month journey across Canada. For his Canadian leg of the trip, he plans to visit every war cemetery within 10 kilometres of the Trans-Canada Highway.

After spending a period of his life sleeping in the woods, Whitty is used to not knowing where he’ll find himself next or with what amenities. “An hour of being homeless sitting on a park bench is an incredibly long time, whereas the last eight years have gone by in a flash.”

Kindness is a currency for Whitty, who has been able to continue his journey thanks to the generosity of strangers. No matter where his bike takes him, he’s found there are always people willing to lend a hand.

“People have been very generous on this trip. I’ve just been talking to people at gas stations. I’ve never asked for donations, but people open up their wallets.”

During his short stop in Winnipeg, he plans to see Oppenheimer in a theatre (“I allow myself one movie”) in between cemetery visits.

Though he has few possessions, Whitty has accumulated a wealth of memories, photographs and acts of kindness.

“I’m never short. That’s the magic of it,” he said.

cierra.bettens@freepress.mb.ca