EDMONTON - For the family of Margrit Gahlinger, it's a little bit like Christmas in reverse.
While Santa's getting ready to bring presents south, they're heading north from London, Ont., with their own special parcel.
Gahlinger's daughter and grandson stopped off in Edmonton on Monday with a tiny pine tree that Gahlinger received as a gift last year during palliative cancer care.
The 89-year-old woman told family before she died that she wanted the little tree to live near a metre of the Trans Canada Trail she had sponsored.
"She said, 'why don't we have it there,' and I said, 'OK.' And she said, 'well then, it's your challenge,' " recalled her daughter, Rosemary Gahlinger-Beaune.
But her mother, starting to feel ill from the cancer, couldn't remember exactly where her section of the trail was.
Gahlinger-Beaune looked it up, and returned to ask her mother what would possess her to choose a section near Tuktoyaktuk, N.W.T., far above the point where trees can survive.
Her mother said that perhaps it was the end of the trail.
"She was 89 years old, and that was her end, she couldn't walk anymore, she couldn't do it anymore.
"So she said, the challenge is on for you to take my little tree to Tuktoyaktuk."
Gahlinger-Beaune contacted the Trans Canada Trail association, and the trip is being sponsored by the group's board members.
"Their hearts were warmed by the story and by one person's dedication to the trail, and the vision that she actually shared with the rest of us who are working on the trail across Canada," said Linda Strong-Watson, executive director of Alberta TrailNet.
Gahlinger-Beaune found a councillor, Maureen Gruben, in the northern community who will look after the tree inside.
"She will safely keep it, and then she'll take it to community events throughout the year."
Gahlinger-Beaune and her son will present the tree Friday during the community's winter solstice celebration.
Calen Gahlinger-Beaune, 16, said he and his father originally thought the idea was nuts.
"We both giggled a little bit, because Tuktoyaktuk is about seven degrees north above the Arctic Circle, and that's above where trees grow," he said.
"So her idea was first to plant it, which can't work, and then to build a little greenhouse, which can't work either.
"But we found our way around it."
For Gahlinger-Beaune, having the tree near her mother's section of trail is a fitting tribute.
"It's very symbolic of who she was. She believed in nature, but more importantly, the trail meant to her a connection of Canadians," she said.
"There was no option not to do this. We had to do it."
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