Barry Coulter
One girl, one horse, one country — that could be Katelyn Stromgren’s motto, as well as the name of her blog.
Stromgren passed through Cranbrook Thursday afternoon, August 18, on her way to Kimberley and thence to Kelowna, her hometown. She’s in the process of returning home from Montreal, where she’s been living for the past while. And she’s doing it the long, organic way — by horseback.
“I love horses, I love travel, and I love Canada,” she said, while ambling down King Street on the way to Meadowbrook. Stromgren was in the company of Shayla Pukas, of Cranbrook, owner of Steeple View Horse Training in Cranbrook, who joined Stromgren for the Cranbrook-Meadowbrook leg of the journey.
“I loved Montreal — the people and culture,” Stromgren said. “But I decided to move back to Kelowna, and I thought ‘what better way to do it?’”
So she saddled up Whiskey, her 17-year-old Morgan quarter-horse cross, and headed west.
Stromgren is actually in the second summer of her odyssey. She spent last summer making it as far as Winnipeg, and so far this year she’s been on the road 89 days. She cited Wednesday, August 17, as a record travel day — 77 kilometres, where she and Whiskey usually make it half that distance in a day.
In the meantime, riding back to a “normal life,” her road sojourn “suits her fancy, and suits her wanderlust.”
You can follow Katelyn Stromgren’s adventures at onegirlonehorseonecountry.wordpress.com or on facebook (“One girl, one horse one country).