Jesse's Journey: A Canadian Story

Norman P. Goldman is a retired Civil Law Notaire (Notary) who also
specializes in Montreal history and culture.

The most common of more than 20 of the muscular dystrophies is Duchenne
muscular dystrophy (DMD), a gender-related disease that affects only
boys. What is DMD? Simply stated, most of us are born with a mutation in
the gene that produces an important muscle protein called dystrophin. In
a person with DMD, no dystrophin is produced and the muscle cells
gradually die. People with DMD rarely live beyond their 30s.

Jesse’s Journey is the inspirational story of Jesse Davidson, a boy
who was born with DMD, and his father John. To raise funds for research
in finding a cure for DMD, John pushed his son Jesse in a wheelchair
across Ontario, traveling a distance of 3300 kilometres over a
four-month period. In this book, he describes the many hardships—the
extreme heat, the forest fires, the steep hills, the rain and the cold,
and frequent fatigue—he and his son had to endure. He also introduces
us to the generous people residing in small communities throughout
Ontario and Canada who contributed their time and energy in organizing
this venture.

After completing the initial journey, 51-year-old John decided that he
was going to walk across Canada alone in order to create an endowment
fund that would eventually generate a million dollars every year to fund
genetic research. By the time he completed this second 286-day walk over
a distance of 8272 kilometres, he had raised two million dollars for the
Jesse Davidson Endowment fund.