On July 6, Chris was hanging around at his home in the southern Alberta farming and ranching community of Nanton when he started to feel bored, so he pulled out a map of Canada and took a look at it. That’s when a very surprising idea came to him.

“And I said I would try to get to St. John’s,” he said. “If I could get four or five hours down the road each day, I knew I could make it. And if I didn’t get out of Alberta, that was OK, too.”

Chris first got the idea three years ago when a friend travelled across Canada, “and I thought it would be a kind of neat thing to do.”

“In the back of my mind, I knew how I wanted to do it. So I decided to just wing it,” he continued.

Until seven years ago, Chris used prosthetic legs, but he then found that he could get a lot further faster without them.

“That longboard is essentially my legs,” he said.

Chris is able to run his farm himself, as he has no issues operating tractors and other machines.

“I’m very self-sufficient,” Chris explained.

This attitude has led to Chris traveling to 18 countries on five continents and helped him to complete five marathons, with his fastest time being 4 hours, 2 minutes and 2 seconds.

Chris decided that for this journey, he wanted to rely solely on the kindness of strangers.

“At no point did I ever ask people for a ride,” he said. “I didn’t want people to pull over and think I needed something. I wanted to give people the opportunity to shine. And they did.”

Chris set out with his board and his backpack on July 8, and when he reached the outside of Calgary, “a family drove by me and the dad told me later he said, ‘Did you see the guy on the skateboard? I don’t think he has legs.’” They drove back, picked him up, and gave him a ride to Medicine Hat. He boarded another 18 kilometers before a trucker pulled over and gave him a ride.

Things went on like that from there!

Chris said that he posted daily on Facebook, “And people would share the posts and tag friends and it gathered steam right away.” Before long, people were messaging him offering rides, accommodations, and meals.

Chris managed to make the 6,338-km trip in 18 days and after 31 rides.

“Life is full of challenges,” he wrote on Facebook right before leaving on his journey. He added that many have told him that they could never adapt to not having arms or legs.

“Truth is, yes they could,” Chris wrote. “Anybody could, because necessity is the mother of invention. We all have the ability to cope with and overcome any situation we’re thrust into.”