A few days after turning seventeen, I left Quesnel, a timber town in British Columbia, and hitchhiked whenever I could alone around the world in 1972.

I returned after fifteen months and twenty-five countries later. I had faced life-threatening situations, witnessed human misery, met people who broadened my spirit and mind, experienced beauty beyond words, and encountered timeless ideas that would shape my life.

At the time, I had no idea that I was the youngest person known to have hitchhiked around the world. Eventually, Guinness World Records said it would not establish such a category because the record could not be challenged. But the trip was not about records; it was about survival. I thought leaving would help me escape my demons, but they came with me.

I began reviewing passports, vaccination records, letters, photographs, and documents. However, they could not answer the most critical question: what prepared me so young to undertake that epic journey alone?

I am one of eleven children born and raised in Canada's most violent town. But it wasn't just the place or the era that shaped me; it was also my family.

I hated, feared, and loved my father at fluctuating degrees. He was tall, suave, and sharp, a ladies' man and proven to be tough. As a leading millwright in town, he was respected by those who never truly knew him.

Dad told me one day when I was thirteen that he had to go north to work. ‘A man I fired might try to get into the house or set a fire. Keep the rifle by your bed, and if he comes, scare him off.'

With that instruction, my father grabbed his bag, got into his old truck, and drove north to a remote mill where he was staying.

I placed the .303 rifle beside the bed with the clip inserted. On the second night, I heard boots on snow and loaded a shell into the chamber. Ahead of me, a man was testing windows. Levelling the gun, I placed my finger on the trigger and shouted. He ran off through the deep snow.

A wave of relief flooded through me. I had stepped out into a moonless winter night and realised that I could, and would, shoot someone to protect my family.

Our home sat at the end of a dirt track lined with simple wooden houses. On one side, the Quesnel River rumbled past, and trains thundered at the edge of our yard.

Our house was built from three salvaged cabins. It had a tiny bathroom, and our water supply came from a well, which sometimes ran dry. When the septic pits contaminated the water, we developed large boils whose hard white cores burst out in a rush of blood.

Dad used the kitchen table to repair Mum's false teeth with pliers, glue, and wire. While skating on the pond, an older boy remarked on what a fantastic job Mum did fixing his old clothes, which were my Christmas gift.
My father worked in sawmills, where he was hit on the head by a board. I was shocked by the huge white bandage and seeing him in a hospital bed. We nearly lost him.

Then, our once-happy home began to spiral into chaos and pain. Whether the head injury caused it or if a dark pathos from his upbringing had been unleashed, we never knew.

Nightmares reveal the pain is present, ready to destroy because once released, that energy must feed. Dad's negative pathos burned out my emotions, hardening me from the inside out.
Dad dug an acre of garden from a weed-infested field beside the house. As a family, we spent days canning, freezing, and storing food. Then, we picked gallons of wild berries for jam. Food also came from a store worker who gave Dad what was being thrown out for pig feed.

Our meat came from the forest. I was eight when at my first kill. The squeamish feeling from watching an animal run for its life through a silent forest quickly faded.

Dad wrapped spruce boughs around my arms before placing the steaming liver of the bull moose into my care. I was soon carrying meat on my shoulder to the truck, while plucking huckleberries from shrubs with my hands covered in blood.

Then it was my turn to kill. The wounded moose lay in tall, brown grass, thrashing. I was handed the rifle, but my shot missed the brain. When I was told to cut a deer's throat, I pulled the head back before starting the cut. My ten-year-old arm was strong, but the knife got stuck. 'You have to learn to do these things,' he barked every time I failed.

After being gutted, skinned, and quartered, the quarters were hung in the backyard. Once the skin thickened, they were carried into the basement where I slept. The smell became a mixture of sawdust on the dirt floor and freshly butchered meat.

I learned a lot about the bush and how to survive on hunting trips. Dad's lessons focused on survival psychology, like being prepared to do anything and eat anything, especially maggots on fly-blown meat, which were full of goodness.

My brother and I squeezed into our old car with the dipping net to poach salmon at night. 'If the game warden comes, I'll hide in the forest; you collect me in the morning in time for work.' If caught, Dad could end up in prison.

When we reached the top of a steep hill, Dad turned off the engine and the lights. We bounced down the rough track using the handbrake. When we stopped, we heard men dipping off the rocks into the raging river and saw their large fire.

Dad quickly explained his plan. He fired, and a burst of flame shot from the rifle barrel. Then he shouted, 'This is the game warden. Stay where you are.'

The men dropped their nets and raced into the forest. We grabbed every line secured to the bank with their salmon on it. The lines were so heavy I could barely carry mine.

The old car bounced up the rough track without the lights on while the fish slopped about. There were at least forty. Dad and my brother gutted and scaled the fish in the tub. Many of us helped cut and place the pieces in jars. When the sun rose, Dad washed at the kitchen sink, changed clothes, and went to work.

Coming home from school, I mentioned seeing grouse on the trail. Mum said, 'We could eat them tonight.' She knew I would be poaching. I shot six, gutted them in the bushes, and carried their warm bodies home under my jacket. That night, we dined on grouse filled with lead shot.

Another time, I mentioned the fruit on a neighbour's tree. Mum said, 'I could make pies if we had apples.' I belly-crawled under their fence and stole a bag full when I heard a voice. 'I lived through the war in Europe. If your family needs food, just take what you need.'

That's when I realised that the law was irrelevant when it came to feeding your family, and parents did what they must to keep food on the table.
It was hard to stay still, so I began collecting beer bottles. Each bottle was worth a few pence. The local drinking spots reeked of stale beer, urine, and vomit. Often, men were passed out in their trucks. Cigarette butts, used condoms, and sometimes underwear littered the ground. I couldn't understand how anyone could leave such expensive ladies' panties.
Whatever was happening in our house changed the day my brother Michael died. I knew that a soul cannot reach heaven unless baptised, which Michael had not been. Some turned to the church we attended every Sunday; I decided that a cruel old man ran heaven.

Ours was not the only death along that short dirt road. On a summer's day, vehicles with flashing lights stopped beside our house. Two men carrying a black bag came up the riverbank. The shape of a lifeless body was unmistakable, silhouetted when swaying. I heard the men say, 'The boy was playing on the logs.'

Often, when out walking, a logging truck sounded its horn in a musical sequence. One of the neighbour's sons would wave and yell, 'Johnnyyyyy.' I had seen him convert old cars into hot rods and lift a gearbox by himself; he was that powerful. That summer, a log crushed him.

More deaths happened while I was looking after a newly qualified doctor's children. Late at night, the couple was killed in a head-on crash by a drunk driver.

The Grim Reaper could snatch babies and young, vigorous adults in an instant, and he was stalking me.
Death wasn’t the only thing to worry about. Violence was everywhere and began eroding my natural sensitivity. It also helped push away fear. I was knocked out three times before I finished primary school, and once by Dad.

To survive in life, I had to learn how to fight. My sister's boyfriend was a skilled warrior and showed me the basics. One day, I managed to throw him to the ground. He looked stunned, claiming that I was the only one to bring him down in thirty fights. Then, he emphasised that in a real fight, I should kick him in the head.

I continued to lose many times, but always learnt something, except when drunk, which was happening more often.

Gradually, I learnt the true cost of being an outlaw. A friend was sent to reform school, then another, and the list kept growing. One ended up in prison before becoming a Hells Angel. Years later, he sent word that if I were in California, I could call on any Hells Angel for backup by mentioning his name.
My world wasn't just about death, violence, killing animals, and friends going to reform school. I loved wildflowers, which grew abundantly around Quesnel. When I went hunting alone, I returned with my shotgun loaded, dead rabbits over my shoulder, and a handful of wildflowers. No one bothered me in a town where rednecks were seen as southern pussies.

At twelve, I started walking along the river with friends to build log cabins. After several weeks, my calluses had grown thick.

That made being strapped at school almost amusing. The principal did his best but had spent his life working in soft jobs. He told me that if I did not improve, he would tell my father. I never re-engaged in primary school.

At thirteen, I began hitchhiking to the mountains. Their vast slopes were blanketed with countless flowers, trees draped in golden moss, and orchids hiding in crevices.

I imagined my great-great-uncle Neil walking along the same wagon road to Barkerville. I tended to his grave. On the other side of the mountain was an intersection of dirt roads with vintage log cabins where my great-grandfather settled after seeking treasure in the Pacific. Those two ancestors sparked my love for adventure.
My parents' parties were renowned, despite the house having little money. We children sat on the staircase, watching in awe. The parties gave Dad the chance to showcase his moonshine. The dirt basement smelled of fermenting pumpkins and potatoes. I started stealing sips, and my tolerance and thirst grew.
Dad was a senior millwright and mill foreman. When I was thirteen, he woke me and said, 'Get dressed. You are old enough to work evenings, weekends, and school holidays.'

The mill was a very old, corrugated steel building that converted trees into planks. Although I was told to lie about my age, I calculated. Someone noticed, and I was pulled until the office believed I was sixteen when I was actually fourteen.

In the millwright's room, the walls were covered in foldouts of nude women, with their legs spread high. Apart from frenetic encounters at the back of dance halls, I was unprepared.

What fascinated me was the complex, multi-layered structure and the black, blond, red, brown, and even pink hair. One was shaved. 'Be careful. That one bites.' A millwright called out, and everyone laughed.

Then, on Sunday, I sat behind those suddenly devout men, cleanly shaved, sitting with their families, and heard them pray fervently to their God.

I enjoyed working and was good at it. My father told me, 'I got you a job at the new mill. If the old one closes, one of us will be working. But you will have to stand up for yourself.'

The first day I stepped into the gleaming new mill, a large prairie fellow came forward aggressively. My uppercut knocked him down, and his teeth went flying. He leapt up and, upon seeing my face, started laughing.

'They are false teeth and fall out all the time,' he declared as if he had just won the confrontation. I helped him pick up the teeth before he reinserted them into a homemade frame. Several men saw the encounter; no one bothered me after that.

I stacked the boards that came down a conveyor faster and better than anyone else. The shift supervisor assigned me to the green chain, where endless planks dropped onto a deck of moving chains. Many were twelve inches wide and twenty-four feet long. My muscles became lean, and my endurance grew to incredible levels.

I did my first double shift at fourteen. Walking the few kilometres home through fields late at night, I appreciated the silence and the wildflowers relaxing in the moonlight.

Because I worked well alone, the supervisor assigned me to clean up. One regular job was emptying the shaft beneath the mill. I moved along on my knees, using a short-handled shovel. The sound of metal dragging across metal was amplified by the machines above. The lighting was poor, and even in summer, it was cold and smelt of grease and sap.

The supervisor wanted it cleared quickly; another worker, aged seventeen, was sent with me. He attempted to cross the conveyor shaft that ran along the floor. I heard his screams when his boot became caught on a lug, dragging him towards the revolving drum. I tried frantically to free his boot while he clung to my jacket.

Despite exerting all my strength, his boot refused to come loose. Sliding off my jacket to break free from his grip, I hurried to the cutoff switch. His screams turned animalistic before stopping.

I slammed the lever down. As intended, every machine stopped. Now able to stand, I hurried up the stairs and pulled the whistle four times, signalling a major incident. The first-aid man went down the shaft, returned, and vomited.

Everyone gathered around until Leo, a scruffy, overweight English millwright who smelled of whiskey, looked and said, 'I need blankets and bandages. Quickly.' Then he descended the shaft. Hans, a quiet, fit, hardworking German, also went down.

They had been opposing warriors; now, they were crammed into a frozen mill shaft trying to save a kid. 'We need another pair of hands,' Leo called. No one moved until my father descended without hesitation.

Everyone heard my father say, 'We have to cut the chain.' The massive chain stretched out before snapping tight. The brace held. The rescue team rigged a lift. He was unconscious but alive, with a leg broken in seven places and his pelvis fractured, but he had not yet been torn apart.

After my shift, I walked to the bar, where I sat in the corner. Someone from the mill stated with genuine sincerity, 'You saved that guy's life.'

My nightmares would last for thirty years, unfolding like a slow-motion film. If I hadn't wasted time trying to free his boot, he would have been alright. At fifteen, I was caught in a cycle, and a rage grew inside me.
I grew my first beard in year eight. One afternoon, I spontaneously walked into the bar, even though the minimum age was twenty-one. The room was large and dimly lit. A man approached. 'How old are you?' he asked tiredly.

'He works at the mill with us,' someone declared. With that rite of passage, I was in. Syd, the bartender, and I became mates until he died from an infection caused by a knife wound, suffered while breaking up a bar fight.

Whenever I could, I drank with the long-haired youth from back east. They moved into empty cabins around town and believed they were living in the wild frontier. My interest in the world grew, and I let my hair grow.

With my money, I ordered records by mail, which arrived at the post office. Despite my grade six report card saying, "Johnny has completed elementary school without acquiring a single primary school ability," the complex structure of classical music fascinated me.
People from India arrived in our town suddenly and in large numbers. One day, when I went to the mill, ten men wearing turbans were waiting to get a shift. Locals were confident they were taking jobs by working for less.

A protest turned into a riot. The police arrived, I was pushed into the police van, and then into a cell. The police must have been unsure of my age because they called Dad.

I was expecting him to be furious. He said, 'I was the first supervisor to give men from India a job. Being French Canadian, I always give migrants work because I know the prejudice they face.'

Suddenly, the riot felt wrong. My day came to face charges. The judge looked at me. 'You are not off to a good start, showing up here at fourteen. If I ever see you again, I will deal with you harshly.'

At home, I couldn't settle. My mind was filled with nightmares fighting for attention. Everyone was drinking, but mine was turning into a sedative.

Despite my troubles, the mill supervisor appointed me to oversee the paper wrapper with a crew of two. Other workers teased me about how I was heading towards becoming the big boss. I was nearly sixteen.

A guy at the mill asked me to go to Trinidad. At the post office, I applied for a passport. The woman helping me with the paperwork signed as my guardian, saying, 'I know your parents.' The trip lasted two weeks. When I returned, school expelled me. I didn’t mind; I had finished year nine and thought that was sufficient.

I got a full-time job at the mill and explained my plan: 'I am going to save money, and hitchhike to South America.' Having heard from the long hairs that cocaine was cooked in the streets, the revolutionary Che Guevara had been executed and buried in remote Bolivia, and First Nations were performing ancient rituals, I wanted to see it all.

When I stepped off the porch, there was no need to look back; I had already said my goodbyes. I left wearing my work boots. I thought I was leaving my demons behind, but they came with me.


In Haight-Ashbury, bikers had replaced the hippies, and the songs and flowers were gone. I did find one café serving lentil soup, with tie-dyed tablecloths.

My plans changed when the woman I was staying with insisted I call the Mexican Consulate to check if they would allow an underage minor to enter; they said no.

The only country willing to let me in was Spain. From there, I hitched a ride in a battered van along the back roads of Morocco.

That's where I met Jane, a sophisticated woman living in a rock-and-mud hut she built herself. A retired teacher from London, she insisted, despite my poor writing and reading, that 'You can become whatever you want.' On her insistence, I began reading and writing, which now shapes my recollection of the trip.

The van sped across southern Europe, pausing only at the party scenes to drink large amounts of strange cheap alcohol.

Less than four weeks after arriving in Spain, I was running out of money. Other travellers said Eilat, in Israel, was the best place to work, but that it was a tough place. I laughed.

Due to my age, it was difficult to get in, but Israel was desperate for workers. Eventually, I hitched a ride helping a driver deliver fuel drums to makeshift roadside stops. We passed Jericho and swam in the Dead Sea. I felt alive in a barren landscape, with few trees and even fewer rivers.

I took on a construction job sharing a bunkhouse with ten different nationalities. We were building a tourist resort with bomb shelters in the sand, by hand, without modern equipment.

I worked alongside Gil, a retired Coldstream Guard officer who was lean, always tidy, and alert. When he discovered I was seventeen, he said, 'I’m guessing your childhood was not so good. But John, a man can never be the best version of himself with a chip on his shoulder.'

Tensions often flared between different crews on-site. Jack, a scruffy, aggressive veteran with a dishonourable discharge who had walked around the Dead Sea and ridden a horse to Afghanistan, saw me fighting a much larger man. He stepped in to stop me from hitting the guy with a shovel. 'You have a bad rage inside you, Johnny,' he commented.

When my nightmares came and I kicked and screamed, which was not good in a bunkhouse, Jack woke me. The other workers kept their distance. After I helped Jack through one of his mental flip-outs, the site boss, Jerome, a veteran of Israel's wars, said, 'Look after Jack, he has war trauma.'

Gil and Jack tried to mould me into their different visions of a better man.

At night, armed militia raided the bunkhouses with bright lights and guns, seeking Palestinian sympathisers using mirrors to signal Aqaba in Jordan.

Seeking solace, I took long walks in the desert, a wind-swept landscape devoid of soil, with stark, beautiful rock formations. Once, I saw flowers with tiny bees gathering pollen and realised there can be life even in a seemingly lifeless landscape.

Determined to reach the legendary St. Catherine's Monastery, I borrowed a motorbike to ride with Gil through the Sinai Peninsula. Along the way, we met the Bedouin, and I sampled their honey from an orchard near Mt. Sinai.

At that time, the only way to reach St Catherine's was from the west. We wandered through the burnt remains of war and came across abandoned villages with ports full of boats. The Israeli army turned us away at the Suez Canal.

Distressed after being refused entry to Egypt, I navigated the volatile streets of Beirut, where everyone I met warned me of the real dangers facing foreigners. Despite the risk, I endured a brutal winter hitchhiking across the Middle East and nearly froze.

The irony of dying from hypothermia in a desert made me laugh despite my predicament.

Ali gave me a lift in his worn-out truck. Through broken English, I learnt he was conserving the seeds of ancient fruit and nut trees at risk of being lost. I was inspired by how losing half a leg, many fingers on one hand, and enduring significant disfigurement as a child did not stop his passion.

Exploring Damascus and Baghdad wore out my boots. I discovered coffee shops and markets from another world. I also handled my first flintlock rifle but couldn't figure out how to get it home.

Boarding a rust-streaked freighter in Kuwait with a fifth-class ticket, I shared the open deck with hundreds of people returning to India. When the toilets became blocked, the excrement piled up on the floor until the crew hosed it into the sea at night.

Bibin, who sat beside me, pointed out five high-caste men. He said they would pack rape girls near us, whose families would be killed if they resisted. I watched the men openly survey their prey.

Realising I couldn't watch pubescent girls being dragged away to be pack raped, I prepared to fight when the predators arrived. I was nervous about facing five of them. Turning around, they left. I never knew if my presence had any impact.

In Mumbai, I encountered the hippie trail with travellers dressed in their most fashionable outfits. They sounded so enlightened and in sync as they smoked hashish and sipped chai from clay cups. I decided most were tourists in fancy dress.

Goa was the last true embodiment of the hippie movement. I built a bamboo hut by the beach, tried acid at full moon parties, and met older women into free love. A spiritual seeker believed I was an old soul in a young body and tried to guide me towards enlightenment.

I attended the funeral of a Westerner. The seeker's words stirred buried grief over my brother's death. I fell apart on the beach, alone in paradise.

Wandering, I visited Mother Teresa's hospice and admired India's spiritual wealth, which did nothing to ease destitution. I saw the cremation of the dead on log piles covered with cloth and marigold flowers in Varanasi, performed by people too poor to burn their loved ones' bodies into ash. The partially burnt remains were then discarded into the holy river.

The writings of a guru in Shidri unearthed more of my suppressed trauma. I felt naked in a strange land with no way back or forward. Then I remembered one of Dad's lessons: the ones who survive when lost didn’t give up.

In Nepal, I lived with a local family. Raj, the son, sold hash to foreigners to prevent the family plunging into abject poverty. A gang tried to stop him. I smacked their leader on the head and was called a greaser in the hippie pie café. I didn't mind, but I did love pie.

After a holy man ended his self-imposed isolation to touch my arm, a Buddhist monk urged me to continue my soul's pursuit of Nirvana. His passion was unsettling.

Inspired to undertake an epic walk, I endeavoured to reach Bhutan along the timeless Himalayan footpaths but was struck down by illness. Alone in a deserted hut, violently vomiting for days, I believed I might die. Amid a raging fever, my innermost willpower emerged. I got up, stumbling forward.

Finally, I returned to Kathmandu, where my passport was stolen. The British Embassy threatened to detain me because of my age. Thankfully, the Canadian Embassy in New Delhi allowed me to keep travelling.

Deciding I couldn’t ask my family for money and nearly broke, I flew to Bangkok. The city was full of Americans on leave from Vietnam, indulging themselves in every possible way. The bleakness of Bangkok's sex industry was evident everywhere.

My only option was to hitchhike to Singapore, where the border guards agreed to cut my hair, allowing me to enter. They missed hash, which I didn’t realise was hidden under the thick bottom seam. A small amount could have been a death sentence. Recognising my stupidity was the lowest point of the trip.

Australia almost refused me entry as an underage traveller. I found work in a steel factory, alongside members of the Socialist Workers' Party, who declared I was a true member of the proletariat, exposed me to radical political ideas and tried to recruit me.

At the same time, I was sharing a flat with three middle-class Englishmen who were determined to improve their lot in life and decided I had to as well.

With money in my pocket, I hitchhiked through the outback. A remote Aussie copper stopped and took down my details before leaving me his sandwich and giving me instructions on staying hydrated while waiting for lifts. 'I don't want to find you dead on the side of the road,' he stated, then drove off.
I saw First Nations peoples who had just recently come out of the desert, but I had no way to communicate with the greatest bushmen remaining on Earth.

In far north Queensland, I worked on the Greenvale Train Line, which features in a Slim Dusty song 'The Three Rivers Hotel.' I concluded that Australians tend to exaggerate their experiences; working with modern equipment was not difficult, the camps were luxurious, and the food was excellent.

Curious to see what it was like, I hiked to the infamous Cedar Bay Commune in the topics and decided they were not hippies, but rather people seeking an alternative to the mainstream.

Hitching a ride with a First Nations woman, I stayed with her family and observed the racism in Australian society. There was a sign at the Townsville pool that read, 'No Abos Allowed.'

I turned eighteen in a cheap boarding house, alone, on a rundown street, where the signs on the beaches warned that many things could kill you.

Although I intended to work on a tanker to Panama, I saw a sign advertising British Columbia. In November 1973, I boarded a plane, hitchhiked to Quesnel, and then walked through the door. There were tears of joy and laughter.

Over the following weeks, the abrupt transition shattered me; I fell apart. Suddenly, I was among people I loved, but nothing made sense.

I found work in a remote railway camp, which gave me time to reflect and save money. In spring 1974, I began hitchhiking to Tierra del Fuego.
I travelled for seven more years before establishing a company in Australia. Despite starting work at thirteen, I became the chair of an international technology firm in London. I learned to enjoy studying and to appreciate art, writing, and sculpting. Most importantly, I found enduring love and profound happiness.

None of it would have been possible without recognising that trauma can be turned into personal strength.