The founder · Phil Asplin · Nova Scotia

For his kids.Still walking.

Steady Mile didn't begin on a whiteboard. It began with a dad who wanted to be there for his kids, and a walk small enough to take again tomorrow. Years on, he's still taking it.

His kids
Why he started: Years, not a program
How long it took: Nova Scotia
Home for six years, and where he walks now

A sidewalk beside a two-lane road under an overcast sky, trees and power lines ahead — The everyday mile, close to home.

01 · Why he started

He wanted to keep up with his kids. So he went for a walk.

Phil Asplin didn't set out to build a brand, and he wasn't out to become anyone's success story. He wanted to be there for his kids — properly, and for a long time — and walking was the one thing he could start that day. No programme, no gadget, no announcement. A pair of shoes, the road outside the door and a promise to himself to come back tomorrow. That first walk wasn't far and it wasn't fast. It counted because he took the next one.

A packed-dirt trail climbing through summer hardwoods, roots across the path — The hill. There's always a hill.

02 · The years

Every route has a hill. His came in two kinds.

Nothing about it was quick. The change came gradually, over years — one walk, then another, through the stretches where progress slowed and the weather turned. There were the hills in the woods, roots across the path, and the ones that show up in your head. Phil learned to treat both the same way: shorten the stride, look at the next tree, keep moving. Over the years it added up to more than a hundred pounds, though that was never the point. The point was his kids, and the walking. He doesn't claim every day was easy. He claims he kept going, and that turned out to be enough.

Red mudflats at low tide with the water and a treed far shore under a pale sky — Low tide. One step, then the next.

03 · Home

Nova Scotia is home. These are the roads he walks now.

The walking started long before Phil moved to Nova Scotia. Nova Scotia has been home for the past six years, and it is home: the long road down to the water, the flats at low tide, the trail that climbs through the hardwoods. These are the roads he walks now, and the ones this gear is made for — cut for Atlantic weather and for the people who go out in it anyway. Out on the flats the far shore doesn't get closer in a hurry, and neither does anything worth doing. One step, then the next. That's the whole method.

Every photograph is Phil's own, taken on his walks around Nova Scotia.

“I started walking so I could keep up with my kids. I haven't stopped.”
Phil Asplin · Founder

Your mile

The path's open. Walk with us.

Steady Mile is the apparel and walking company Phil built for people who keep going — in Nova Scotia, across Canada, anywhere there's a road. You don't need a reason as good as his to start. You need a walk today, and another tomorrow. We'll bring the hoodie and the company.

Shop the Drop Peer walks