Ellis' book about his trek, WALKING THE TRAIL, ONE MAN'S JOURNEY ALONG THE CHEROKEE TRAIL OF TEARS, was published by Random House and nominated by the publisher for a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award. They were buried in shallow unmarked graves. He was the first person in the modern world to walk the 900 mile route of the Cherokee Trail of Tears, where 4,000 of his ancestors died in 1838: Seven thousand armed US Soldiers marched them from their homes in the SE to present day Oklahoma in the heart of winter. Jerry Ellis, Cherokee and Scottish, graduated from the University of Alabama. Embarking on a journey that is spiritual and historical, Ellis reveals the wonders of an ancient trek through modern England toward the ultimate enlightenment. Carrying everything he needs on his back, Ellis stops at pubs and taverns for food and shelter and trades tales with the truly captivating people he meets along the way, just as the pilgrims from the twelfth century would have done. Filled with incredible details about medieval life, Ellis’s tale strikingly juxtaposes the contemporary world he passes through on his long hike with the history that peeks out from behind an ancient stone wall or a church. Walking to Canterbury is Jerry Ellis’s moving and fascinating account of his own modern pilgrimage along that famous path. Power, politics, friendship, betrayal, martyrdom, miracles, and stories all had a place on the sixty mile path from London to Canterbury, known as the Pilgrim’s Way. Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, one of the greatest, most enduring works of English literature, is a bigger-than-life drama based on the experience of the medieval pilgrim. They came seeking healing, penance, or a sign from God. The number of pilgrims visiting his shrine in the Middle Ages was so massive that the stone floor wore thin where they knelt to pray. Before the Archbishop’s blood dried on the Cathedral floor, the miracles began. More than six hundred years ago, the Archbishop of Canterbury was murdered by King Henry II’s knights.

Walking to Canterbury by Jerry Ellis