The small things we pick up along the way—and what we leave behind.

“The life he’s lived—of service, of sacrifice, of standing just outside the spotlight—has always been defined not by scale, but by intention.”

Dr. Darrell Menard in Russell, Ontario

On a quiet street in Russell, Ontario, the night before the recycling trucks rattle through, a man walks with purpose. He wears a black backpack, filled with cans set out by neighbours for recycling. One hand grips a leash tied to a brown dog while the other sifts through blue bins for empties. The neighbours call him “the Can Man”—some with curiosity, some with reverence, none with the full story. 

Dr. Darrell Menard doesn’t correct them. 

 He’s spent forty years saving lives in the Canadian Armed Forces. He’s run marathons, guided Paralympic champions, and advocated for Indigenous youth from podiums and clinics across the country. His medals are tucked away in drawers. His accolades are framed but not flaunted. 

His trophy case includes being named the 2016 Community Sport & Exercise Medicine Physician of the Year by the Canadian Academy of Sport & Exercise Medicine. He was also inducted into the University of Alberta’s Sports Wall of Fame in 2011.   

He and his wife, Janet, have raised three children in Russell, Ontario. Beyond his family life, he’s been the town’s go-to physician and a community cheerleader, volunteering for groups like the Kin Club, Curling Club, and Knights of Columbus. In 2024, the Township of Russell threw a Citizen Recognition Award his way, probably because they ran out of bigger trophies. 

 These days, his victories come quieter: one can, one bottle, one small act at a time. 

 To the casual observer, it looks like a retired man’s quirky habit. But beneath the surface, it’s something else entirely—an expression of legacy not defined by honours, but by humility. A man who’s spent a lifetime giving back, still finding ways to give—even if it’s five cents at a time. 

 Why does a man with medals in a drawer and a medical degree on the wall spend his evenings plucking discarded cans from curbs and ditches? 

 The official answer doesn’t exist—at least not publicly. There’s no grand declaration, no social media campaign, no GoFundMe link tied to this ritual. Just a man walking with a bag, the quiet clang of metal keeping time. 

 So, naturally, speculation creeps in. 

 Some locals think it’s environmental—a lifelong runner turned recycler, making laps through the town he’s served in more ways than one. He talks about “doing something useful,” and for someone who’s spent his life in high-stakes medicine and international missions, maybe useful doesn’t always mean dramatic. 

Others wonder if he’s collecting for charity. A grassroots fundraiser, the proceeds funnelled to youth sports or Métis health programs. It would fit—quiet service layered over quiet service, generosity without announcement. 

Then there’s the theory that this is movement therapy—an athlete’s impulse to keep moving. Not training, not competing—just sustaining. The simplest kind of endurance: one foot in front of the other. One can, one bottle, one tiny win. 

It might even be a personal act of memory. A ritual for something he’s lost. A way to stay grounded in routine when the rest of life has sped past. 

No one really knows. And he’s not offering a monologue. He smiles, waves to neighbours, picks up another can. Keeps walking. 

It’s easy to underestimate the man in the Canada jacket and iconic curling pants. 

In his younger years, Dr. Darrell Menard ran beside Paralympian Jacques Pilon as his guide, helping him take gold in the 1980 Games. Side by side, step for step, he made himself invisible so someone else could shine. That’s always been his specialty—serving in a way that centres others. Whether he’s guiding athletes, writing columns on injury prevention, or working with Indigenous youth in sport, his legacy is built from the quiet scaffolding beneath other people’s success. 

On weekends, he volunteers to teach local youth how to curl at the Russell Curling Club—including the grandchildren from his ‘adoptive’ family.  

Even his book, Diary of a Deployed Doc, is less memoir than mission report—his account of seven months in Bosnia as the Canadian Forces’ medical advisor to NATO’s Stabilizing Force. It’s frank, humble, and human, full of dry humour and understated grit. Just like the man himself. 

So maybe the cans are a footnote. Or maybe they’re the whole story. 

A former elite athlete now walks for recyclables. A decorated doctor still shows up for the daily grind. A man whose legacy could fill a stage chooses instead to walk the curb—quietly, deliberately, with a dog at his side and a bag that clinks with other people’s empties. 

Maybe it’s not a habit. Maybe it’s a philosophy. 

The life he’s lived—of service, of sacrifice, of standing just outside the spotlight—has always been defined not by scale, but by intention. He didn’t run beside a Paralympic gold medallist to be seen. He ran so someone else could see the finish line. He didn’t write a book to relive his own heroism. He wrote it so others might understand what duty looks like in the margins, in the makeshift clinics and sleepless nights and moral complexity of war zones. 

And now, years later, he continues to move through the world the same way—quietly absorbing the overlooked, gathering the discarded, doing something useful with what others leave behind. 

Because legacy isn’t made in ceremony. It’s made in repetition. In returnable bottles and midnight walks. In showing up again and again—not for applause, but because it’s what you do when nobody’s watching. 

There’s a theory in behavioral economics called the “accumulated advantage” principle. It’s the idea that small actions, repeated over time, produce exponential outcomes. A few cans here and there? Meaningless. But over a year? You’ve cleared hundreds. You’ve earned enough to donate. You’ve stayed mobile. You’ve interacted with your neighbors. You’ve modeled something for your community without saying a word.

We usually apply this to money or productivity. But what if we applied it to service? What if the legacy you leave behind isn’t the sum of your achievements, but the sum of your smallest, most consistent acts of contribution?

So maybe the cans are just aluminum. But maybe they’re something else: tiny containers of intention, of practice, of persistence. And maybe, just maybe, when we look at someone like Dr. Menard—out walking the quiet streets of Russell—we’re not seeing the remnants of a life lived. We’re seeing the essence of it. 

Because for Dr. Menard, legacy was never about the spotlight. It was always about the small things we pick up along the way—and what we leave behind.