30 years and still going: historic Freedom Walk comes to Windsor-Essex

The visit marked the end of a 750-mile trek that began in Maryland on May 4.

Thirty years after retracing the footsteps of freedom seekers on the Underground Railroad, American historian Anthony Cohen returned to Windsor-Essex on Saturday to finish the same journey once again — a reminder, he says, that the pursuit of freedom remains as relevant today as it was centuries ago. The Maryland author, explorer and educator completed the final stop of his Freedom Walk 2026 tour at the Amherstburg Freedom Museum, where dozens gathered to welcome him and the travelling Harriet Tubman Journey to Freedom bronze sculpture that accompanied him across Ontario.

The visit marked the end of a 1,200 kilometre trek that began in Maryland on May 4 and followed the path taken by enslaved people seeking freedom in Canada. Cohen and fellow walkers travelled on foot, by boat and by rail before crossing into Canada at Niagara Falls on July 1. A smaller group then continued through nine Ontario communities before arriving in Amherstburg.

For Cohen, the return carried both historical and deeply personal meaning. His original 1996 Freedom Walk eventually led to a discovery that reshaped his understanding of his own family’s history. While researching after that journey, Cohen found an 1855 interview with a man who had escaped slavery in Savannah, Georgia, and settled in Canada.

“Within six months, I realized that his name was a name on my family tree,” Cohen said. “He was my long-lost great-great-grand uncle, and I had actually followed part of his route on my first walk and crossed into Canada at the same place he did before I ever knew his story.” That ancestor later left Canada during the American Civil War, joined a Union regiment and marched with Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman to the sea — inspiring another of Cohen’s historical walking expeditions in 2014.

Now in his early 60s, Cohen said returning to the road required months of preparation but proved every bit as rewarding as his first journey. He averaged roughly 12 miles a day throughout, although some days stretched considerably longer. One overnight walk along New York’s Erie Canal covered 27 miles from dusk until dawn, recreating an experiment he first undertook in 1996 to better understand how far an escaping freedom seeker might have travelled in a single night.

This year’s journey also brought unexpected reunions. Cohen said he was struck by how many people remembered his first walk three decades ago, including organizers in Amherstburg who welcomed him back exactly 30 years to the day after his original visit. One museum volunteer even uncovered one of Cohen’s daily