A day standing still in Sidney, at the edge of the sea this route goes around

Sidney sits at the north end of the Saanich Peninsula, facing the water. It was incorporated in 1952, counted 12,318 residents at the 2021 census, and is widely known as Sidney-by-the-Sea. For a walk that has spent weeks tracing a coastline, it is an unusually literal place to stand still for a day.

On Sidney's waterfront is the Shaw Centre for the Salish Sea, a not-for-profit community aquarium and learning centre named for the body of water this route goes around. That name is newer than most people assume: British Columbia formally adopted Salish Sea in February 2010, for roughly 18,000 square kilometres of inland marine water — Juan de Fuca Strait, the Strait of Georgia, Puget Sound, and the connecting channels, passes and straits that join them.

A Bone Marrow Awareness Day means no miles and no schedule beyond being available. In Jeana's words: "I stay where I am to educate about donors, transplants, how and why they should join." That is the entire day. People stop, and she answers whatever they ask — what a donation actually involves, whether it hurts, how long it takes, whether they are too old.

In Sidney the answers are Canadian ones. Canada's national stem cell registry is run by Canadian Blood Services: you can join between the ages of 17 and 35 by completing an eligibility questionnaire and consent form online, after which a buccal (cheek) swab kit arrives in the mail within one to three weeks and is returned in a prepaid envelope for HLA typing. Fewer than 25 per cent of patients find a match inside their own family; the rest depend on an international network of registries — over 40 million donors across more than 80 participating countries. The Jada Bascom Foundation does not run that registry, mail those kits, or do the typing. It points people to the registry that serves where they live, and the registering itself happens later and elsewhere, through Canadian Blood Services.