September 22, 1999
Cycling Wideens wind their way back home
by Kelly Sinoski, staff reporter
Marvin and Loretta Wideen didn’t go bust. The retired Coquitlam couple has returned home from a 6,500 kilometre cycling tour across Canada to St. John’s Nfld., to raise awareness for schizophrenia. They travelled with a sign, “St. John’s or Bust,” attached to the backs of their bikes.
“It was eventful, a challenge and it’s actually hard to believe it’s over,” Loretta said earlier this month. “Suddenly we’re back in reality dealing with everything we had put at the backs of our minds, like bills.”
The Wideens, both 65, started their tour in mid-May with an aim to educate Canadians about schizophrenia, an incurable but treatable brain disease that strikes one in 100 people — 300,000 Canadians — mostly those in their young teens and early 20s. Throughout the cross-country trek, the couple handed out 600 cards on the disease and were featured in several newspapers and on TV and radio.
Despite a few glitches — 10 flat tires, sore bums and legs, earaches, one cheap itty-bitty motel room full of smoke in Saskatchewan and poor gravel shoulders on Ontario roads — the Wideens say the trip was everything they hoped it would be. They don’t know how much they raised for schizophrenia as each chapter across the country will be taking donations.
“The highlight of it was the people, talking to them about schizophrenia … and feeling like we touched a few people,” Loretta said. “I think it was pretty successful in promoting awareness.”
She added she was surprised at how little is known about schizophrenia, calling it a “neglected disease.” She said one woman they met in Newfoundland was so ashamed of her illness she didn’t even tell her mother until five years after she was diagnosed, while another woman whose brother had the disease didn’t know where to go for help.
“It affects so many people. The impact on the family members is really profound,” Loretta said. “There seems to be quite a shame with it that’s unwarranted… there’s no one to blame. It was really a humbling experience for us.”
The Wideens returned home at least 10 pounds lighter with stronger, leaner legs and happy to leave the hills and wind behind. Loretta maintains the wind was the couple’s worse enemy, forcing her to put tissues in her ears in Newfoundland because she kept getting earaches.
“You could never get a break when you’re going against the wind,” she said. “It gets on your nerves, it’s this constant howling in your ears. It was nice to get up the last couple of mornings and see they sky and the clouds and the wind and think it doesn’t matter.”
The Wideens have no intention of repeating the journey but say they are considering writing a book.
“It was fun in a totally different way,” Loretta said. “The fun was in the reward, the achievement at the end of the day.”
by Hannah Diamond, staff reporter
photo by Paul vanPeenen
It would be fair to say that most people dream of retirement as a time to slack off.
But at 65, Loretta and Marvin Wideen aren’t like most people. They’re combining a desire to be healthy and fit with a keen social conscience by cycling across Canada.
Marv retires this year from the Faculty of Education at Simon Fraser University. Loretta was a psychiatric clinician at Royal Columbian Hospital for 28 years, running several different programs until she retired five years ago. “It’s there and it’s doable,” Loretta says. “It shows retirement isn’t the end of everything.”
Adds Marv: “Both of our jobs involved a lot of thinking. This is routine, physical – you might say it’s totally senseless.”
The Wideens have cycled through all of the islands off the west coast, in France, Prince Edward Island, and almost rode from Kingston to Toronto, but Loretta’s bike was stolen en route. “It’s a wonderful way to meet people and feel the land,” she says. “Food never tastes so good, a bath never feels so wonderful at the end of the day.”
The Wideens started by wanting to cross Canada because they feel safe here and because they are patriots. “We were upset about cuts at the CBC and the loss of post offices. I was thinking we need more linkages,” Loretta says.
At the last minute, Loretta thought, “we’re doing this anyway, why shouldn’t we offer somebody the chance to make money off of us.”
She chose schizophrenia because of “my sentiments for the struggle and the courage for people and their families dealing with this disease. I feel passionate about it. When you see people coming to the hospital they’re usually young and have had a great future. Suddenly it’s cut off. The experience for the family is devastating and for a nurse it’s heartbreaking. I just care.”
If it’s money that can help educate the public, the Wideens say, then they’ll ride for money. “There’s so much fear and avoidance of people with schizophrenia,” Loretta says.
The disease is surrounded by too much mystery, she continues. “Even when you work in psychiatry, you don’t come home with details — it’s confidential. Mental illness, even as progressive as we think we are, remains in the closet.”
Two weeks ago, they rode from Mile 0 in Victoria home, walking over the Pattullo Bridge. “There’s no pride involved here,” Loretta says. “We’d rather walk than be nervous.”
They’ve done some training, Loretta at a gym and Marv on a stationary bike “watching the Stanley Cup.”
A daughter and her children have moved in to take care of their home for the summer, so there’s no turning back.
The couple planned to leave this morning (Wednesday), stopping in Agassiz tonight. They’ll follow the Yellowhead pass through Jasper, from city to city, limiting what they carry to 20 lbs each — a couple of changes of clothes, toiletries and suntan lotion, first aid and tool kits, a palm-sized computer and a cell phone.
“Our family (four children and six grandchildren) think we should be checking in every day,” Loretta says.
Marv thinks the trip will take three months, Loretta says four, but they agree they’ll average 50 km a day, staying in motels and with family in Saskatchewan, and then flying back.
Loretta and Marv Wideen will be easy to spot. A friend attached a small sign to the back of Loretta’s bike that says “Newfoundland or bust.”
Loretta’s offer to the Schizophrenia Society of Canada was welcomed by executive director Barry Boyek. “We’re not going to burden the Wideens to collect money on the way or have to do any bookkeeping,” he said.
However, cheques or money orders may be mailed to Wideen Ride, c/o Schizophrenia Society of Canada, 75 The Donway West, Suite 814, Don Mills, Ont., M3C 2E9.