KENOSEE LAKE - Kevin Mills, his wife Heather and their then-18-month-old son were enjoying a family vacation in Cuba in February of 2009.
They had travelled to the island for Mills' sister’s wedding.
A few days before the special occasion, Mills – who hails from Newmarket, Ont., was in the ocean enjoying a leisurely swim when a rogue wave took his body and slammed him onto the ocean floor, changing his world forever.
Mills was instantly paralyzed with an injury to his C6 vertebrae.
Once family retrieved him from the water, it took another three days before he was airlifted by a military carrier back to Canada. He never made it to the wedding.
Mills was then transported by medivan to Toronto's Sunnybrook Hospital, where he would remain for three weeks and a further five-month stay in Lyndhurst.
Mills was 28 years old at the time. He is now 43 and his son Evan is 16 years old.
At first Mills felt he would get better if he got stronger, but soon reality set in, and he realized that this is the way his life would be.
Mills has use of his biceps and shoulders but does not have a lot of mobility in his hands.
Nikki Davenport became Mills' neuro trainer and Heather started a non-profit organization called Walk it Off to raise awareness for the injury. This program has been running for 12 years.
Davenport and Mills often biked in the park, and one day Davenport told Mills she had an important question to ask him: if he would be interested in biking across Canada. Mills said he almost crashed his manual chair. It did not take Mills long to give Davenport a reply.
Mills has a specialty bike that attaches to his modified wheel chair, and the training began.
On May 24 in Cape Spear, N.L., the trip began.
This adventure was to bring awareness about people in wheelchairs, how accessible places can be and most of all to show this could be done.
With Candance Wyns behind the wheel of the RV, the trio started to head west.
Along the way, they have dealt with some interesting weather. Still in Newfoundland, they had gale-force winds of 120 kilometres per hour and in New Brunswick they had torrential downpours.
In Quebec Mills bike was stolen off the back of his RV but these negatives did not stop them or slow them down.
“Northern Ontario had some crazy steep and long hills,” said Mills, which did slow them down a little, and some of the highways are not really wide up there.
They hit the highways of Saskatchewan with the hopes of doing 100-125 kilometres per day.
The group camped at Kenosee Lake on Aug. 25. Although they arrived late, they still took the opportunity to check out the lake and enjoy the view, and they stopped at the ice cream store, where they ran into the owner who donated to their cause.
“This was so kind, and the people here are kind," said Davenport.
The next day they travelled to Regina and met up with Mills' wife and son, and took a few days to relax before hitting the road again. Heather and Evan remained in Ontario through this trip.
With the mountains coming up they know it will be a little more treacherous, but the end goal is to reach Vancouver Island, touch the ocean and to bring awareness across Canada.
