The philosopher Immanuel Kant lead a life of immutable rituals, walking a particular route around his home city of Königsberg for an hour at exactly 3 p.m. every day for 40 years. The city was unexceptional and mundane—his walk was too; not a sublime connection with nature but a short and plodding reminder of the outside world, his neighbours and his surroundings in this life.
This feat of eccentric discipline is a little off-putting to us now, a little depressing. But walking around Galt on a frigid Saturday in January, I feel some connection to this ritual.
When my partner comes down to Galt for work, I try to carve out time to accompany them. I like Galt. More than the other townships in Cambridge it gives the impression of being a place, a location with some indelible character. I could imagine a thinker like Kant living here, its steady character complimenting their discipline. Today, despite the billowing snow and my snotty nose, I’ve settled to walk around the town and take it in for all I can.
A lot of this character comes from the heritage buildings, their modest identity of endurance. The red-brick apartments on main street, embellished with subtle little cornices and circular windows. The original Bank of Toronto and Montreal buildings, no longer banks at all but hollowed-out monoliths holding dentists and attorney offices.
It all still holds a certain gravitas. The businesses have changed, but the main strip seems as it would have in the mid-20th century. I walk through slowly, trying to admire the buildings without looking up and catching the wind’s edge.
The Grand River runs through the centre of the town. In the fall the surrounding trees are roaring beacons of red and brown, beckoning from the hill above the town and around the river. Today the river is completely frozen over and the trees just twiddly husks.
I stand on the bridge and watch the snowflakes, little ornate ghosts, disappear past me. How many people over the centuries have looked out on the Grand River and felt feeble before nature, as I do now?
I sneeze and start walking again.
I pass by the University of Waterloo School of Architecture next, an imposing former factory-turned-studio on the Grand River. It does not feel like it, but Galt is a grad-school town—some 350 students live here, mulling about, finishing off their theses.
For a moment, I watch from outside the students hunched over their projects, a little envious of their warm, intentional world, before turning back—in need of shelter and a bagel.
Every Saturday at 7 a.m, the Cambridge Farmers’ Market opens its stalls. When I pop by at midday it is still bustling. Children bounce around chasing each other, elderly couples sit in comfortable silence over coffee, vendors grin at me hopefully.
I don’t mean to romanticise, but the market feels like a community idyll, a gentle reprieve of modernity. It has endured nearly 200 years, and since 1887 in the current building. At this rate, it may well outlive the mall.
I pick up some fresh groceries for dinner.
To truly understand my fondness for Galt, you must recognize what it is up against: Hespeler Rd, the concrete strip linking Galt to the neighbouring townships. This is a grotesque expanse of strip malls, fluorescent signs and condos, an incessant prairie of consumption. It is impossible to imagine what it looked like in any other time-period, it seems only to exist in the endless present.
I’m not trying to be dramatic, but my weak-willed European mind feels bruised every time I pass through this un-walkable road. To me, it highlights the worst of North America, and Galt seems an oasis of resilient, unpretentious heritage compared.
Despite the surplus architecture students, there isn’t a recognisable ‘nightlife’ in Galt. The Black Badger, an uncanny replication of a cosy British pub, almost fills this gap. My partner and I end our day here, sipping Guinness. It’s not busy, a few grizzled men sit apart, eyes glued to the TV.
I’m tired and a little unsatisfied, finally up against the walls of possibility in a town like Galt. Despite my respect for it as a place, there just aren’t that many things to do, finite activities for young people.
As much as I appreciate my walks, I’m a little apprehensive at the idea of being anchored to Galt for years. Would I just stagnate if I stayed here, lose my zeal, waste my time away without intention?
This is the trade-off of town life: to be rooted in community, historical continuity and nature, while giving yourself up to often monotonous routines.
I think about Kant’s mundane Königsberg walks, and how the comfort of repetition in a modest environment can leave room for unexpected clarity.
In the face of our cities chasing unremitting expansion above all, Galt reminds me how important an enduring space can be.
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