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FEATURE RESIDENT
Brian Bell by KRISTA TURCASSO WHEN I moved back to Fernie, I was hired to teach Entrepreneurship at the College of the Rockies as part of the Mountain Adventure Skills Training (MAST) program. It was the first I had heard of MAST, but over the next five years I discovered and appreciated the diversity and adventure of this program, its students and the master mind behind it, Brian Bell who has been sharing his passions through MAST as an instructor or program coordinator the last 25 years. Brian is originally from Ontario. “I learned to ski at a tiny hill called Sky High, with two t-bars and two rope tows,” he tells me. I think, sounds familiar as it reminds me of the 80’s in Fernie but I quickly learn the difference between these ‘mountains.’ “It was so fast and so short we could do 100 runs every night!” After graduating from high school, Brian attended Lakehead University in Thunder Bay admitting he had no specific career in mind. “I went there because they had three ski hills and the outdoor program sounded fun.” What is interesting is Brian didn’t grow up in and outdoorsy family. “We did some camping when I was little, but not adventurous stuff. My parents were golfers! I was exposed to so much in that first year that I would have never been exposed to otherwise… things I’ve been doing ever since. Rock climbing, paddling… I was introduced to all of it.” After completing the program, Brian began teaching and guiding white water canoeing in Ontario, where he met his future wife, Andrea and had the opportunity to travel. “I did expedition guiding in the Arctic, sea kayak guiding in Belize with Andrea for a number of years… we visited places we may have not spent time in otherwise. I feel
Henry Georgi Photo super lucky that way. I spent a year of my life on the Nahanni River!”Yes, I had to look that up.
Heiko and pay him!” Working for Heiko was Brian’s first job. “He hired me as a lifty, and made me cut my long hair.”
In 1993, the couple were interested in spending a winter in a mountain town. They learned about Fernie from a friend who knew Blair Craig, a fellow paddler who said they had to go check it out. So they did.
When Brian heard that the College was developing an outdoor program, he applied to develop and run the white water program and was hired. “I also taught skiing and rock climbing through the program.” It was 1995, and they recognized Fernie was where they wanted to be so they decided to get into the house market. “It was the smartest thing we ever did,” he shares, adding that the mortgage broker worked her magic to make two ski and paddler
“We were living out of a camper van,” Brian tells me. “It was $10 a night to plug in at the hill and have access to the shower. We would run all over the ski hill to find
