There are many paths in life and Hixon, B.C. native Tyler Waddell chose a fulfilling one.
He decided to bike from Victoria to Whitehorse, Yukon to raise money for mental health.
The decision to do the journey came on June 26 and officially began on July 4, starting in Victoria.
He was in Prince George Monday (July 22) and Tuesday (23) on his path.
It hasn't been an easy journey to date.
He's battled the elements, had his items stolen in Quesnel (including his beloved journal), and multiple bike and trailer tire repairs.
Tyler says bike shops and others told him it would be impossible, but that didn't deter him from his 2,600 km bike ride for mental health.
"Every single person that says I can't do it, well guess what... I can," he says. "Watch me."
Tyler gets frustrated at those who say he can't do things or what he should or shouldn't do, but his own personal struggles and journey have shown him what he says truly counts.
"The only person that matters is you," he adds. "That's it and nobody can tell you what you're supposed to be doing."
Tyler has had his own battles in life, hitting rock bottom before realizing how bad he needed help, saying on July 1, 2018, things really spiralled out of control, feeling there was nothing left to live for.
His girlfriend at the time noticed the changes in Tyler and recommended he get help.
"She started noticing the signs," he says. "She said 'wow, you're all over the map, you're like so high and so low, go talk to a doctor' kind of thing. She dealt with all of that herself and got the help she needed."
But things starting crumbling which left Tyler feeling depressed.
"We had broken up and everything was so, so low," he says. "My son had went away for the summer to his mom's house. I didn't really have anything. I didn't have a job. Canada Day a year ago (2018) I slept for three days. I don't even know what happened. I was sleeping out on a beach in an Indian reserve and lost, just completely lost."
That's when it hit him, he was in crisis and in despair. He would then go to work on a ranch, wanting to run away from his problems which ultimately didn't work out so well.
"You've got to work through them, right?" he says.
He then lost his job on the ranch. The problems he tried to run away from, never were worked through and he got even closer to the bottom of a very, very dark hole.
Tyler adds he felt his employer had ripped him off at the time, to the tune of roughly $6,000.
"I didn't have money, I didn't have anything," he says. "I had my son in a shelter and that's not a good life to be there with my kid."
The little money he did have left, he used to buy a bottle of spiced rum, which he says he pounded back. He then was about to take his own life.
"I ended up stepping in dog s--- with these shoes," he says. "And it shot out through the side of my shoes. I was about to walk across the road and I fell over and was balling my eyes out and I was like 'I can't tie open my shoes'."
Tyler was now truly at rock bottom, with nowhere to turn and having nothing, he realized the severity of his illness and knew that he needed to seek out the help he desperately needed.
He then walked into the Emergency Room at the hospital in Williams Lake, washed his s--- shoe off and began the journey he calls his pathway of hope. He ended up going to detox the day he went to the hospital.
"They got me into detox and I was in detox for a couple of days," he says. "Then I started going to AA and I got in with Canadian Mental Health and then I was like 'Okay, I have nothing more to lose' so I went to AA meetings, NA meetings, any type of meeting I could go to. I was so busy for three months just with meetings and stuff."
He then got a bed at the Phoenix Treatment Centre in Surrey.
"In the next three months, I got the help I was always too afraid to ask for," Tyler says in a social media post. "I can't thank them enough. So many life-changing things were offered. I found some of the most beautiful people I have ever met."
Sometimes, life will lead you on the path you're meant to be on.
