Anyone who hasn’t walked around Inland Lake had better watch out. “It’s magic. It’s better than drugs because there’s no side effects,” explained Jake Corbett. He should know. Despite two hip replacements he has walked the trail 868 times in the last 16 years. “But who’s counting?”
Since retiring 10 years ago, Jake does the walk on average two times a week, often with his sister, Kathy Corbett. He admitted he never thought he would come this far. “I got hooked,” he said. “It became a habit so I started keeping track.” Fifty turned into 100, turned into 500 and soon, Jake was aiming for 1,000.
Due to a couple of roadblocks, the 67-year-old admitted it will probably be a couple of years before he reaches that goal. “I’ve started going on winter vacation for three months a year, so that slows me down,” he explained.
What didn’t slow him down were his two major surgeries, both due to osteoarthritis. After his first hip replacement in 2008, he was back on the trail within two months. When he had his other hip replaced in 2009, it only took six weeks. “My surgeon was actually impressed,” added Jake, a knowing look in his eye.
Though a partial cause of osteoarthritis is wear and tear, Jake said he believes keeping active has hindered, not helped the disease. Strong muscles keep weight off the joint, he explained. “People with arthritis are basically told to keep moving.”
And keeping moving is what Jake has done. So far, he has clocked 11,284 kilometres, more than a quarter of the earth’s circumference.
“Every day’s different, you know?” he said, when asked if the walk ever gets boring. “You see different things, the weather’s different, you meet different people.”
Speaking of different weather, Jake can list off every month in the last seven years that the trail has been flooded. These include two months in 2006, four months in 2007 and four months in 2011.
Thankfully, the problem was fixed last year, Jake continued, but “I’ve heard some pretty loud screams in the winter when a jogger’s gone through that ice cold water.”
Despite the flooding, Jake said the only thing that has really changed over the years has been the amount of park resources. Six fishing piers have gone down to two and 13 outhouses have gone down to four. “But they have listened to my whining and snivelling from time to time,” said Jake, recounting how he tried to lobby a park official he ran into on the trail to prevent cabin three from being torn down. “That seemed to work because it’s still standing.”
Another thing that has changed is that Jake now has companionship on his daily walks, in the form of Kathy. “She’s been hooked too,” he joked. Both agreed it’s great brother and sister time, as Kathy hadn’t lived in Powell River for 40 years before she moved back four years ago. Kathy said she hasn’t started counting her rounds around the lake yet, but as Jake can attest, that’s how it is for the first hundred or so.
But what happens once Jake reaches 1,000? “I’ll walk it for as long as I can, just because I love it so much up there,” he said. “I just hope my health holds up so I can shoot for 1,500.”
