Mountain Life – Coast Mountains - Summer 2022 by Mountain Life Media

Let the Good Times Roll…

SUMMER 2022 // FREE

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Nathalie White of Squamish Search & Rescue trusts her abilities, her gear and her team to have her back. Even in the most challenging rescues, she knows the mountain is where she belongs.

TO GET OUTFITTED FOR ALL YOUR SUMMER ADVENTURES, VISIT OUR STORES IN VANCOUVER AND WHISTLER SQUAMISH SEARCH AND RESCUE

When Specialized Bicycle Components was looking to move into Squamish, they wanted to celebrate what makes the area exceptional and sacred to mountain bikers worldwide. Our design-build firm was thrilled to be chosen to transform this space into everything the Specialized branding team envisioned.

We loved that Specialized prioritized local materials, designers, and builders to create a sense of place everyone recognizes, undeniably, as Squamish. The most evident salute to the local landscape is the 28-foot Tantalus Range topographical monument that stretches from floor to ceiling, conceptualized by Lead Designer, Erin Scott. Specialized Squamish is a tribute to the remarkable landscape and ecosystem that draws people to the place we are fortunate to call home, on the unceded territory of the Skwxwú7mesh Nation.

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Mike Van Capelle Owner + Founder

FINDING

Awesome

Before you head out explore the region online and download our Touring App.

Boutique shops and inspired cuisine will satisfy your cravings.

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Endless attractions and the Kootenay Lake Road Trip App will keep you entertained.

photo: Dustin Lalik

Down low or up high we cater to all levels of adventure.

BUILT TO COMFORTABLY GET YOU TO UNCOMFORTABLE PLACES

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Please make no attempt to imitate the illustrated riding scenes, always wear protective clothing and observe the applicable provisions of the road traffic regulations! The illustrated vehicles may vary in selected details from the production models and some illustrations feature optional equipment available at additional cost.

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As long as you are on planet Earth, you’re not lost. Trust in the north.

N o r d e n

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the entire globe is a playground just waiting for you to explore. inspired by the north and built for the world, the norden 901 is a rugged travel machine ready to face the unknown.

DOWNHILL HELI-BIKING IN WHISTLER, BC Experience incredible downhill/enduro biking on Whistler’s only heli-biking trail this summer. The trail, located between Whistler and Pemberton, is the culmination of several years of dreaming, planning, and building. Combining glacier views, alpine tundra, and old growth forest with both downhill singletrack and bike-park inspired sections, we are proud to share our specially built trail with intermediate to expert level riders.

TABLE OF CONTENTS Let the Good Times Roll...

ON THIS PAGE Taz Barrett night climbing Majestic, V6. Howe Sound. ON THE COVER Benny Marr, Skookumchuck Narrows.

CHRISTIAN CORE

DANIEL STEWART

UPFRONTS

FEATURES

P.19 EDITOR’S MESSAGE Feet First

P.42 WISDOM OF THE WATCHMEN Indigenous Guardianship in Gwaii Haanas

P.20 JUST THE TIP Brett Tippie

P.54 ENJOY THE RIDE Ladies Love Bike Trips

P.33 FLOWRIDERS Adaptive Bike Retreat

P.102 SYMBIOSIS Kayak Circumnavigation of Vancouver Island

DEPARTMENTS P.37 CLIMATE Finding Common Ground

P. 96 BEYOND Jon Turk

P. 67 BACKYARD Hiking with Kids

P. 112 GALLERY Here Comes the Sun

P. 73 OCEAN Freediving & Flow

P. 125 GEAR SHED The Right Stuff

PUBLISHERS JON BURAK TODD LAWSON GLEN HARRIS

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CREATIVE & PRODUCTION DIRECTOR, DESIGNER AMÉLIE LÉGARÉ

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CONTRIBUTORS Leslie Anthony, Ilanna Barkusky, Marie-Michèle Blais, Kieran Brownie, Chris Christie, Christian Core, Nikkey Dawn, Hailey Elise, Tim Emmett, Lani Imre, Joel Jacques, Tristan Jenkin, Jeremy Koreski, Reuben Krabbe, Andrew Lawrence, Mark McKay, Daisy Maddinson, Jimmy Martinello, Mason Mashon, Paul Morrison, Ronia Nash, Robin O’Neill, Marcus Paladino, Ryan Reggie Robinson, Lenny Rubenovitch, Sierra Roth, Scott Serfas, Reannan Shay, Kyle Smith, Michael Sousa, Daniel Stewart, Tempei Takeuchi, Brett Tippie, Jon Turk, Anatole Tuzlak, Frank Wolf SALES & MARKETING JON BURAK TODD LAWSON GLEN HARRIS

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Published by Mountain Life Media, Copyright ©2022. All rights reserved. Reproduction without permission is prohibited. Publications Mail Agreement Number 40026703. Return undeliverable Canadian addresses to: Mountain Life Magazine, PO Box 2433 Garibaldi Highlands BC, V0N 1T0. Tel: 604 815 1900. To send feedback or for contributors guidelines email feet@mountainlifemedia.ca. Mountain Life Coast Mountains is published every February, June and November by Mountain Life Media Inc. and circulated throughout Whistler and the Sea to Sky corridor from Pemberton to Vancouver. Reproduction in whole or in part is strictly prohibited. Views expressed herein are those of the author exclusively. To learn more about Mountain Life, visit mountainlifemedia.ca. To distribute Mountain Life in your store please call 604 815 1900. OUR COMMITMENT TO THE ENVIRONMENT

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YOUR FULL-SERVICE MOUNTAIN BIKE SHOP Before hitting the Whistler trails, drop into evo Village Sports and we’ll get you ready to ride. We’re stocked with bikes from top brands including Specialized, Santa Cruz, Orbea, and Trek.

We’ve got rentals, too. Check out our fleet of both downhill and trail bikes. Fully inspected, serviced and ready to roll.

From basic tunes to full-service overhauls, our shop turnarounds are among the quickest in the Village.

evo Village Sports 4341 Village Ln #110 Whistler, BC V8E1M9 1-604-932-3327 Photo by David Kenworthy

It’s time to unplug S C A N D I N AV E .CO M

EDITOR'S MESSAGE

FEET FIRST

Rollin' on a higher frequency. Jessy Braidwood (left) and Névé Petersen started the Rollababes, a Sea to Sky skating club, in 2019. Anyone with wheels can join. Paradise Valley, Squamish. REANNAN SHAY

Simple machines are all underappreciated these days, but none is taken more for granted than the wheel. The wheel has to be the greatest invention in history. The first wheels seem to date back to the Copper Age circa 4500-3300 BCE. And while the majority of wheel-artifact discoveries from that era are potter’s wheels, archeologists have found two-wheeled vehicles as well (mostly carts to be pushed or pulled—the bicycle wasn’t invented until 1817 or so). To a scientist, the magic of the wheel (and axel) is not magic at all. They call it the mechanical advantage, which is the ratio of output force to input force when blah blah blah…whatever, it’s magic. And what makes wheels magic, is that they roll. The ability to roll can change the world. Wheels roll, but so do waves…and kayakers can roll too, especially up north. And weather—it rolls in and it rolls out again, while Old Man River, apparently, just keeps on rollin’. You can be on a roll, or you can be rock’n’roll (and if you have teenage kids you can get “Rick Rolled” as well). Rolled oats make a filling breakfast but a cinnamon roll tastes better (except we call it a “bun” around here). A Portuguese roll is perfect for a sandwich you’re gonna put in a hiking backpack (better than California rolls) but if you want anything much more gourmet, these days you better be rolling in cash, with a nice thick bankroll. Sometimes you gotta roll with the punches, other times you gotta roll the dice, and here out West you better also know how to roll a fat one, because rollin’ with your posse is the only way to go. Roll up to Whistler and they’ll roll out the red carpet. Après parties are how we roll around here, and if your game rolls off the tongue just right you may have people rolling in the aisles (or joining you for a roll in the hay). Use your manners though, or heads will roll. Eyes can roll too, and so can balls—but only once you get them rolling (same with adventures, so be ready to roll). They say a rolling stone gathers no moss, but with the price of fuel this summer it’s probably wise to roll back the travel plans and just roll with it right here in the Coast Mountains. So, roll up your sleeves and let’s do this—it’s the best time of the year in one of the best places on earth. Let the good times roll… –Feet Banks 19

JUST THE TIP

Old Bike Day With Brett Tippie

With almost 50 years of riding bicycles under my belt (and 40 years of mountain biking) I can safely say when I just hop on and start givin’r it feels much like an 'autopilot' or 'cruise control' of stoke. But…I recently had a moment that hit my turbo fun button and kicked my stoke into another gear. It happened unexpectedly, when I was cast as a PVS delivery driver in a Pit Viper/IFHT Films rock video called New Bike Day. After getting into costume and weaving through the tripods, lights, reflectors, audio equipment, cameras, and fellow actors I suddenly saw it...the source and primal object of my bike lust from way back in formulative years… A red and black motocross-inspired, full-suspension bicycle complete with fake plastic gas tank, fender, hi-rise handlebars, moto grips, and knobby tires. Oh, how I coveted this bike as a seven-year-old, back in the 70's and here it was, just randomly sitting there with the other props! My vision immediately tunneled, the audio in my ears turned into crashing waves, the hair stood up on my arms, my palms got sweaty, and my heart started racing. It felt like an out of body experience as my hands curled around the grips and I sat down on the bike’s extended, padded seat. I had yearned for this bike so badly as a kid that it hurt. I never got one, but I did get the model below the full suspension that had everything but the shocks. In hindsight, it was probably a good move because the full shocker was actually a heavy tank. To see one now in great shape though, made me flashback to those days of extreme bike love, jumping garbage cans, doing skids, exploring new areas block by block and expanding my knowledge of the world—those bikes we had as kids offered our first taste of freedom and mobility. Back on the video set, I pulled myself together and laughed at the idea of what it would be like if little, garbagecan jumping me back in “the good old days” of 1976 had somehow seen the high-tech, full-suspension YT carbon mountain bikes filling my bike room right now in 2022. (This is where I was going to slip in a time-travel joke...but you didn't like it.) Would my back-then mind be blown by a bike with today’s space-age tech? Or would I be disappointed that there’s no plastic replica gas tank? After returning home from the New Bike Day shoot I checked out my current bikes with a newfound appreciation. I grabbed the closest sweet bike and hit the trails into the forest at the end of the block. Magically, the fog parted, and God-beams of sunshine began poking through the mist. My stoke definitely kicked into overdrive at that moment, and as I let the good times roll down the trail I said to myself, "These...ARE the good ol' days!" So let the good times roll… New Bike Day can be found on YouTube.

INSET The much-coveted 1970s, dual suspension MotoBMX.

BRETT TIPPIE. ABOVE: Here comes the sun, Deep Cove.

ANDREW LAWRENCE

2021

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LET THE GOOD TIMES ROLL YOU RIGHT ON HOME

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KRISTEN DILLON Squamish REALTOR®

UPFRONT

The Flybrary ABOVE Jundai Nakashio, tossing a fly into the Squamish River. TEMPEI TAKEUCHI INSET Sharing is caring. Squamish's original flybrary. FEET BANKS

Need one? Take one? Got one? Leave one Fly fishing is a fairly hermitic pursuit, best enjoyed alone or with a select group of trusted companions. It’s a culture of secret spots mentioned primarily in hushed tones and purposely exaggerated facts designed to keep everyone guessing. Fish are a limited resource, and so is peace and quiet. As such, fly fishing is not a generally known for sharing, especially with strangers. So, when Adam Raymakers installed a “flybrary” at the trailhead to a popular fishing spot on the Squamish River, he didn’t know what to expect. “I wasn’t sure how the community would feel. I expected negative feedback,” he says. “But I was pleasantly surprised. I wanted to put it somewhere everyone goes. This is not a secret spot, you can almost see it from the road.” Modelled on the “little free library,” a movement to make books freely accessible that saw more than 125,000 tiny, free-to-anyone bookshelves pop up in neighbourhoods around the globe, the idea behind the flybrary is to provide fly fishers—locals or guests—with season, location, and species-appropriate fishing flies available to anyone who visits and fishes a spot. “The idea started in Florida by Larry Littrell,” explains Raymakers. “There was a strip of foam attached to a gas pump that fishermen always put stickers on. He left some flies, and a few days later, his were gone and someone else had added some more and the flybrary project was born. You can order an official Flybrary Project foam strip but it’s like 60 bucks for shipping. I sent Larry a message and he said ‘Just make your own,’ so I grabbed some scrap wood, bought a wood burning tool and stuck it up.” Raymakers populated Squamish’s first flybrary in the fall of 2021 with “a bunch of extra pink flies I had because we’d just gotten a puppy and I wasn’t fishing as much. I put up a couple of Coho flies too. I came back a few days later, and people had obviously understood the concept.”

Raymakers, who grew up fishing in Nova Scotia but has been in the Sea to Sky off and on since 2004, recently threw up a second flybrary on the Cheakamus River. Currently working with BC Cancer, he says tying flies is a nice break from the computer. “Same with fishing, it’s a great way to unplug and relax by the river. I don’t really care if I catch a fish, I just like it.” Raymakers says that while the whole idea of the flybrary is to help novice or visiting anglers feel more accepted and in tune with an area, he hopes that the community vibe will extend to protecting and preserving local rivers as well. “The rivers are getting busier. My girlfriend and I walk to the river every night and we’re seeing more garbage, lots of fire sites. There’s a lot of pressure on the riverbanks locally and maybe a flybrary will help people realize that we are all in this together and it’s on us to take care of these places. That would be the best outcome really.” Seems those lessons we learned in primary school still apply, even to a culture as insular as fly fishing—sharing really is about caring. Check the squamish flybrary on Instagram @squamish_flybrary or check the larger movement @flybraryproject – Feet Banks

DESIGN

If it Rolls… First boards then bikes, Landyachtz is literally on a roll

The pen might be mighter than the sword but the steel is more fun to ride than the paper.

“Bikes were always on the radar, it just took 19 years to pull it off.” Blake Startup says this while pedalling to work at Landyatchz, a skateboard company founded in 1997 by Mike Perreten and Thomas Edstrand as a fun way to travel around campus at the University of Victoria. Then they started bombing hills, tinkering with their designs, and finding a community of skaters looking for durable boards that could handle high speeds. In the more than two decades since, Landyatchz has grown into one of Canada’s premier skate brands with a factory in the Kootenay region, a Vancouver warehouse shipping boards around the world, and storefronts in LA County and Union Street in East Vancouver.

LUCAS GREENHOUGH

To expand into the bike industry, the roots once again all come from the desire to have more fun travelling around, but instead of on campus—now it’s the entire city. “I got into road biking for a bit,” Perreten explains. “Nothing too serious, but I started loving that morning commute. Being able to get that sense of speed every day to and from work…suddenly I’m really into biking.” “The skate side of things was well established by then and we were looking at opening a new storefront,” says Startup, the general manager of Landyachtz bike division. “So, we found a space on the busiest bike route in Canada, which was also two blocks from our head office. At the same time, Mike took the 25

Paul Brodie bike building course and built the first Landyachtz—an aggressive, steel road bike. Then we called Brodie in to help us build up the shop.” Brodie, a homegrown frame building legend and Mountain Bike Hall of Famer, mentored Landyachtz pro skateboarder and master tinkerer Kyle Wein on the art of building the kinds of bike frames Perreten and the crew were looking for—performance rides for commuting and recreation. “Commuting to work is a really time-effective way to mix transport and fitness,” Startup says. “So, we leaned into that and let it naturally evolve. The tires got a bit bigger and the rides to work were not always just paved bike routes. We mixed in some trails, ripping through neighbourhoods—some adventure.” The evolution and design tinkering continued for the next six years—cycle cross bikes built for obstacles and urban features, and gravel bikes—essentially road bikes that can fit a fat tire designed for exploring BC’s storied network of forest service roads. (Perreten also innovated a heat-molded bike saddle based on the customized boot shells of his ski racing background. Why shouldn’t your bike seat be molded exactly to fit your backside?) “The heat-molded saddle is revolutionary,” Startup says, “but the frames just come from our love and passion for riding. Biking is part of our heritage—Mike grew up in Whistler in the late '80s and '90s, and I grew up in Deep Cove. Wade Simmons was my bike mechanic when I was 12 years old.” Landyachtz has been hand building custom-order, made-to-measure steel or titanium frames in the Union Street shop since early 2017 and also offers a line of frames built overseas—steel or aluminum. Startup says custom orders take about six months from design to delivery, adding that pandemic supply chain issues that saw a shortage of bikes imported in recent years was beneficial to helping launch a locally-made alternative. “People are excited about the bikes and so are we. We are a skateboard company but we also live in a rainforest. With the bikes, we can ride 12 months of the year. We do a shop gravel ride every week and we joke that the only thing that can stop us is black ice, public holidays, and (Provincial Health Officer/COVID rule maker) Dr. Bonnie Henry. Otherwise, if it rolls, and we can have fun on it, we’re in.” – Feet Banks

Check out the LY Bikes (and a local gravel route ride guide) at landyachtzbikes.com

TOP Performance recreation. Nate Clause and George Baily ride their 'yachtz in Port Mellon. BOTTOM Jackson Lovett, Landyachtz frame finisher, in the East Van shop. LUCAS GREENHOUGH

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PERSPECTIVE

The Big Blue Squalls, doldrums, dolphins, and a 16-day jaunt across the Pacific

Sixteen days at sea.

JOEL JACQUES

The way normal people cross the Pacific Ocean in a 37-foot sailboat from Hawaii to San Francisco, explains my neighbour Joel Jacques, is to crew up the boat with six to seven sailors, set the autopilot at 90-degrees straight east, wave to your buddies on the dock, and head for North America. That is not how Joel and the crew of the Spindrift V did it though. “We essentially had no autopilot. With even the slightest breeze you could hear the old girl strain, then she would get blown off course,” he says. “And there were only four of us—working in pairs, pulling four-hour shifts, swapping off hand steering and managing the sails for 2,600 miles without stopping. I was on the 4:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. shift. The nights were crazy beautiful at times, with stars filling the sky in every direction. Other times were intensely gripping with clouds blocking out all light as we barrelled through complete blackness with no point of reference—just staring at the compass and steering, trying to keep the boat straight. The first light of each new day was usually pretty emotional with a huge sense of relief that we’d made it through another night.” The crew were tasked with returning the Spindrift V home after the 2021 Transpac race (one of the longest and oldest classic ocean races, running from San Pedro, California to Oahu, Hawaii). “The boat has to get back

You can see them coming during the day: a dark cloud going all the way to the horizon line, and you know you’re sailing right into it.

somehow,” Jacques explains. “And one of the crew that was supposed to do the crossing was unable, so I got the call super last minute.” Captained by skipper/owner Andy Schwenk, the Spindrift V already had a mechanic and a cook on board for the journey. As an engineer, Jacques’ job was to learn the navigation software on the fly and get everyone “home safely.” “We had electronic instruments,” he explains, “telling us windspeed, direction, GPS…they failed on day three. We had a satellite phone for weather updates and the compass worked, but we couldn’t see any other ships or boats so we were completely blind from that perspective. At least our 12-volt cooler worked, so we had food for about ten days until we ran out. After that, we caught fish—two dorado and two bluefin tuna. Sashimi.” 29

“It seemed it was either blowing a gale, or dead calm,” Jacques recalls. When calm weather and flat seas (the dreaded “doldrums” of sailing lore) descended, the crew relied on a 40-gallon diesel tank with an extra pair of 50-gallon drums lashed off the back to motor them through calm waters. “The motor broke down twice but Mike, the mechanic, got us back up and going. On day 13 we ran out of fuel.”

We’re supposed to be sleeping, but we could hear the water rushing past the hull with a quarter inch of fiberglass separating our heads from the sea.

If that sounds bad, on day 14 they ran out of water. “That was the crux, but we knew we weren’t that far out and could make it with what we had left in our water bottles.” Eventually, after 16 days at sea, San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge loomed through the mist and the adventure was over. For Joel, a lifelong Sea to Sky local with a number of multi-day ski trips under his belt, the tight crew camaraderie and the no-looking-back plunge into the unknown made for an incredible experience. “Some sailors don’t want to sail in 30-knot winds, and it was blowing that when we left. But these guys weren’t scared, they were stoked. We battled some pretty serious

squalls. You can see them coming during the day: a dark cloud going all the way to the horizon line, and you know you’re sailing right into it. At night it’s a bit different—you just get slammed with rain, wind, and steep, sharp waves. Without proper storm sails, it can get pretty exciting— you’re constantly managing the boat to keep it upright. Then, we’d finish our watch and go lie in the bunk. We’d wedge ourselves between the spare sails to avoid getting thrown across the cabin when the boat heeled during the next puff. We’re supposed to be sleeping, but we could hear the water rushing past the hull with a quarter inch of fiberglass separating our heads from the sea—all the while knowing we’re back on deck in less than four hours…” Jacques says the excitement was tempered with moments of extreme peace, such as sailing at night with the stars of the Milky Way stretching from horizon to horizon. He said it reminded him of an 11-day ski trip he once did in the Yukon’s Tombstone range with temperatures well below minus 20 degrees Celcius and northern lights filling the sky. “That was comparable, but also completely different. We talk a lot about getting out into nature, and being out in the middle of the ocean, thousands of miles from anything, is as immersive as it gets. When you are in the mountains, you are usually at most only a day or so away from being able to get somewhere warm and safe. The ocean is constantly changing, nothing is predictable, there’s no air support, no rescue. It is true wilderness out there, with a really strong mental component to it—when you’re that far out at sea you’re completely alone, and you certainly can’t decide you’ve had enough and turn around and go home. That state of self-reliance is like nothing I’ve ever experienced. No matter what’s going on—you, the boat, and the crew need to work through it. That’s what I liked the most.” – Feet Banks

The next Transpac race is set for 2023. In the meantime, the Squamish Yacht Club hosts their annual open regatta July 20-24, 2022.

JOEL JACQUES

BRANDONSEMENUK

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UPFRONT

Thanks to the advancement of technology in the disability space, adaptive bikes are taking riders to places they always dreamed of returning to, or dreamed of visiting.

FLOW Riders Kootenay Adaptive and Arc’teryx host Squamish’s first FLOW women’s adaptive mountain bike retreat.

A flowy strip of singletrack snaking through the Squamish rainforest, Half Nelson is one of the most celebrated mountain bike trails in the world. So, as instructors of the first ever FLOW women’s adaptive mountain bike retreat, it is our goal to get as many of our riders up there as possible to experience the magic. For most riders, ripping Half Nelson is just another day down the mountain. To us, it’s an escape from wheelchairs and mobility devices, disabilities, and a world that isn’t built for us. Is the trail intentionally built for

us? No. Can our adaptive bikes handle it? Beautifully. And so, despite having lost the ability to walk, I’m sitting at the top of a mountain surrounded by other women, with and without disabilities, taking in views I never thought I would see again. I was 16 when a motocross accident left me with a spinal cord injury. I was told I would never walk again. That was irrelevant to me—what I cared about most was how, or if, I would get back outside, onto the trails, and into the wild independently. It wasn’t

HAILEY ELISE

looking so promising from my hospital bed. What I didn’t know at the time was that there were others just like me—women with only one hand to hold onto the handlebars, women who couldn’t see, women with limited hand function who were paralyzed from the chest down—but all of us itching to get outside onto terrain that wasn’t built for us and felt unavailable to us. Women learning skills, empowering each other, and finding innovative ways to make these dreams a reality. Fast forward nine years after my accident; I’m a mountain bike instructor for Kootenay Adaptive, a BC-based non-profit and global leader in adaptive mountain bike programs, instruction, and sport development. In this moment though, my role doesn’t matter. What matters is that we have 11 women with various disabilities including spinal cord injuries, cerebral palsy, visual impairments, and leg and arm amputations, 33

out exploring Squamish trails for three days. And five of them are here with me, dropping into one of the most classic trails on the planet, leap frogging down the mountain as one big group, hooting and hollering with excitement. With various bike styles and rider abilities in our group, each feature of Half Nelson brings different challenges. We have our fair share of crashes and good laughs, but each hurdle is overcome with support from volunteers and each other, and with each rider’s willingness to stay open minded. From tight bridges to high consequence sections, to uneven terrain and tight corners, we are working together. Creating community. Creating something bigger than ourselves. Creating freedom. – Sierra Roth

TOP And you thought the bridges felt narrow on two tires? Threading the needle. BOTTOM Another fine day in the mountains with friends. HAILEY ELISE

These experiences wouldn’t be possible without the help of Kootenay Adaptive Sport Association and their sponsors, who are changing the game for the adaptive community. kootenayadaptive.com

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CLIMATE

Tony Mclane on Daily Universe.

KIERAN BROWNIE

Finding Common Ground Is climate breakdown causing increased rockfall on the Stawamus Chief?

Nestled in the UNESCO biosphere region of Howe Sound, the iconic granite monolith, Siám’ Smánit, towers 700 metres above the water and surrounding town of Squamish. Also known as the Stawamus Chief, the landmark holds special significance for the local Skwxwú7mesh nation, whose traditions say it was once a longhouse that was transformed to stone by Xáays, the spirit-beings known as the Transformer Brothers in this area. Since the 1950s, local and visiting rock climbers have come to value Siám’ Smánit for its seemingly endless, high-quality climbing potential and ease of access. For climbers, the mountain is Canada’s answer to California’s famous Yosemite National Park. However, throughout 2021, an unprecedented number of rockfalls tumbled from the face of Siám’ Smánit, rattling the nerves of the Squamish community and closing a number of popular climbing routes. The year was also punctuated by severe weather events and periods of extreme temperatures. July saw Canada’s hottest recorded daytime temperature in Lytton BC, followed by severe rainfall,

flooding and landslides across the southern province in October, and extended cold snaps this past winter. Question is, are these extremes linked to the rockfalls on the Chief? Geologically formed by volcanic activity and glacial erosion, Siám’ Smánit is constantly battered by wind, rain, snow and weather funnelling up the Sound. According to Wesley Ashwood—a geotechnical engineer who often works on the Chief—rockfall is common under such conditions. However, the rate of significant change is traditionally so slow that we wouldn’t notice it. But as climate change appears to be fast-forwarding through extreme weather events and rapid temperature variability, it’s not a giant leap to assume these environmental factors are also impacting rock features more quickly than previously seen. Researchers in Yosemite (which is similar in setting and formation to Siám’ Smánit) studying thermal changes in the rock have confirmed that cracks expand and propagate into more significant fractures during heatwaves. Engineering geologist Sergio Sepúlveda says 37

processes like this are what make the Chief highly susceptible to rockfall, with the acceleration of the natural process of expansion and contraction causing cracks to widen and flakes to come loose. “The trigger factors that lead to rockfalls are usually earthquakes,” he explains, “but climate factors like intense rainfall, freeze-thaw during cold snaps, and thermal effects during warmer months also have a big impact.” If climate breakdown is indeed playing a role, what can the climbing community—who already mostly subscribe to a “leave no trace” ethos of environmental stewardship—do in the face of increased rockfall danger to help preserve the places we respect and recreate on?

Squamish Access Society board member (and frequent Mountain Life contributor) Kieran Brownie says the answer lies not only on a personal level—voting with our politics and purchases—but also in the collaboration among climbers, the Skwxwú7mesh nation, and the community at large to foster a strength-in-numbers approach for more effective management and climate justice. As Kieran says, a community is founded on common ground. So, what if Siám’ Smánit can provide the literal and figurative common ground for us to rally behind? If the root cause of the rockfalls is related to the global climate crisis, then the stakes for the Squamish community couldn’t be higher. It’s time we cultivate meaningful action—together. – Daisy Maddinson

"Climate factors like intense rainfall, freeze-thaw during cold snaps, and thermal effects during warmer months also have a big impact.”

Colin Moorehead and Mathew Waring on a re-cleaned Ron Zalko Workout, Grade 12a. North Walls, Siám’ Smánit with debris from a recent rockslide in the distance below. CHRIS CHRISTIE

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PARKS CANADA

Know Before You Go Six paddleboarders re-examine a botched adventure in hopes you don’t make the same mistakes they did. There’s no doubt everyone had good intentions, but our first problem was maybe a bit too much enthusiasm. This is back in 2021, late spring. The ski hill was closin early for the second season in a row, and the COVID pandemic continued to grind on—we were all a bit worn down. Jobs postponed, staff shortages, business closures, homeschooling…we were doing a lot better than some, but each of us felt the brewing urge to get off grid, find ourselves some pristine empty natural spaces, and unplug to recharge. The idea to paddleboard and surf the west Coast of Vancouver Island had always been a dream, and with a lull in our work schedules the timing seemed right. We bought gas and groceries in our own community, loaded enough gear to survive for a week, and took off— the best way to avoid a pandemic is to avoid people altogether, right? A 30-kilometre stretch of crashing waves on the western edge of the continent with the towering rainforests as a backdrop seemed as good a place as any. The plan was to launch our paddleboards into the Klanawa River, start the trip with some whitewater paddling, then arrive at what— according to Google Earth—looked like a nice beach break with perfect West coast waves. After two glorious days of no human contact, (save the occasional boat motoring by offshore) we turned to the south and set off down the coastline. Enjoying a sturdy ten to 12-kilometre paddle day, we made shore near the mouth of the Cheewhat River. The map we had purchased depicted a triangular section called “Cheewhat 4A”—First Nations land—so we set up our tents to the north of that region and well below the massive logs and debris marking the storm line/high tide line. We had no intentions to camp in the Pacific Rim National Park so we made sure not to venture off the sand, believing that the park boundary ended at the tide line. Turns out that is not the case—as we would soon discover. The way the tides and swell worked out, our ideal safe departure time from Cheewhat River came at 4:00 am, so we packed up in the dark and started paddling. Nearing Carmanah Walbran Provincial Park in the late morning, we were met by two Parks Canada boats and

informed that we had camped illegally within national park reserve boundaries at Cheewhat River, and further entered into a restricted area without a permit. Everyone needs to have a permit to access any portion of the West Coast Trail for camping purposes. At this point we were shuttled to Port Renfrew where we were debriefed by Parks officials. Our boards were confiscated, and we were released to return home and wait for a letter with our court dates. There’s no denying we made mistakes, and one purpose of this article is to help ensure others don’t do the same. The other purpose—the main one—is to offer our sincere and utmost apologies to the Huu-ay-aht and Ditidaht First Nations. While we did not mean to camp specifically in their marked-off land, we did, and we accessed their unceded territory without permission, and did so during pandemic times, which carry extra health risks for the nation members. As adventurers, we always strive to respect and learn from the Indigenous peoples, lands, and histories of regions we travel though. In this instance we failed, and we are sorry. We also want to apologize to Parks Canada and their staff for the extra time and effort (and human contact) they put in while dealing with this matter. There is a valuable lesson here for all outdoor enthusiasts to double and triple check where you will be going and what is and isn’t allowed. Maps can be fallible, information from the internet even more so, and when it comes to the coastline of the Pacific Rim National Park Reserve. The National Park Reserve boundary reaches out to the 20-metre isobath of the Pacific Ocean as shown on the Canadian Hydrographic Service (C.H.S.) chart. We are seasoned adventurers who have paddled, hiked, skied, and climbed all over the world, but that doesn’t mean we are immune from errors, bad decisions. The only comforts we can take from this experience is that no one was harmed due to our mistakes, and that we can share these words so others can learn from us and adventure more respectfully and responsibly in their own journeys. With respect, Tim Emmett, Jake Humphrey, Jon Burak, Todd Lawson, Dennis Flett, Jim Martinello.

EPIC TRIP

WISDOM OF THE

WATCHMEN If you want to understand the value of Indigenous guardianship there’s no better way than a sailing trip through Gwaii Haanas words :: Leslie Anthony photos :: Paul Morrison

PREVIOUS PAGE The Island Solitude sailing off of Juan Perez Sound. THIS PAGE Nature has its own watchmen; the sea lions at Garcin Rocks have something to say to anyone who passes.

Breakfast is over as the Island Solitude anchors on a falling tide. Scrambling into Zodiacs, we head for a cove of barnacle-constellated boulders and tie up. We bushwhack across a forested isthmus, crawl under a tangle of blowdown and emerge onto a grassy bench palisaded in fir. Beyond lies a half-moon beach exposed to the full force of the North Pacific, its tideline piled high with massive logs. Tracks of otter and deer crisscross the black sand while ravens and eagles peer from Hemlock aeries; the only human footprints on this strand are ours, the first in over a year. Like we’ve found a treasure. Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve and Haida Heritage Site provides a rare opportunity to explore the kind of pristine coastal wilderness before us, as well as the history and culture of those who’ve called its islands home for millennia. This crown jewel of Canadian coastal parks comprises the southern tier of the Haida Gwaii archipelago off BC’s north coast. Its isolation requires watercraft to explore, and we’re happy to sail with venerable Bluewater Adventures, renowned for its low-impact approach to coastal ecotourism and its close work with First Nations stewards. But after several days of tracking archipelagic scenery, photographing whales and visiting key Haida cultural sites, we haven’t clambered onto a hidden beach to notch another touristic superlative. Instead, we’re here to give back—by taking away, so to speak. Brandishing burlap sacks, we fan out to collect a winter’s worth of washed-up trash—the myriad jetsam of an ever-shrinking world. Fittingly, the detail takes on the air of a treasure-hunt, as we fish water bottles from between logs and yank buried rope from the sand. During a final tideline sweep I spot something distinctly different from my armload of plastic shards—a mouth-blown, blue-

green, glass fishing-net float from Japan, the only place this art is still practiced. I head back to the boat clutching not only my cleanup effort, but a prize plucked from the trash heap of humanity. Days before, we’d boarded Island Solitude at historic Moresby Camp, anchoring for the night in a cove ringed by towering mountains. It was early June, and with the sun aloft until 11:00 p.m. at this latitude, we were watching the sunset wash snow-spotted peaks with our new companions. In addition to 11 adventurers from the US, Canada, Germany and Singapore, there was Tyler the barefoot captain, mate Gaelen and crew Leo, cook Carmen and naturalist Anne. The Island Solitude itself already felt like a friend—spacious and comfortable, custom-designed based on lessons inculcated from decades sailing the north coast.

I spot something distinctly different from my armload of plastic—a mouth-blown glass fishing-net float from Japan, the only place this art is still practiced. Next day we headed south, rounding Louise Island and anchoring near the old village of K’uuna. Here, we were greeted by legendary Haida Watchman Gitin Jaad (Deedee Crosby). Meeting members of the groundbreaking Watchmen program is a memorable part of any trip to Haida Gwaii (see sidebar: The Foresight of Indigenous Guardianship). The trio of figures traditionally carved atop monumental poles to stand sentinel over Haida villages now form the symbol for a program that provides seasonal employment 45

OPPOSITE PAGE AND ABOVE Jellyfishes, gooseneck barnacles and humpback whales speak to the range and abundance of sea life on display in Gwaii Haanas.

for Haida aged 16 to 80. In addition to being eyes on the ground with a stewardship mission, Watchmen share Haida knowledge of the land and sea in stories, song and dance. Gitin Jaad not only skillfully unpacked waypoints—trees sprouting from old plank-house corner posts, mortuary poles immortalized in a painting by Emily Carr—but connected them to stories of her grandfather, who hailed from K’uuna. We departed steeped in the main lesson of the archipelago’s human history—yahguudang, the act of paying respect. Off K’uuna, flights of pigeon guillemots whirred over the waves with a handful of marbled murrelets and the occasional black oystercatcher. We learned more about area wildlife at our next destination, East Limestone Island, where the Laskeek Bay Conservation Society has conducted decades-long studies on

chicks past cameras. Observing the gauntlet of roots, logs and clifffaces these tiny avia must surmount to reach the sea was testament to the life-or-death nature of their journey. After Limestone, we circled T’aanuu Island as sun began to dominate what had previously been undetermined skies. As clouds fled, the San Christoval Range abruptly appeared on the western horizon, thick peaks with snowy helmets, stern faces and wellmuscled ridges—a hulking football team to oversee our night at Anna Inlet spent kayaking at their feet. We motored away next morning along the north side of Lyell Island, bound for Windy Bay. With rain stilling the air and water, it was an hour before we felt the slow, tectonic surge of oceanic swell pulling us seaward. At Windy Bay, Watchmen recounted the positive impact on the Haida Nation of the 1985 logging protests staged here, then led us to the base of a tree preserved by that action, a Sitka spruce so large that a dozen of us failed to encircle it. Retiring early that night, Tyler promised to wake us for a surprise. The knock came after midnight, as the wind of a rising storm howled through the rigging. Topside, the scene was surreal: Stirred by ocean chop, scallops of purple phosphorescence swarmed the surface as ancient murrelets cried through the wind, their frantic chicks constellating the water. When Tyler trained a light on one it bolted away like a torpedo, trailing strings of mauve. Eventually we made our way to historic Rose Harbour, once owned by industrial whaling conglomerates. Stepping ashore here channeled the haunting feel of any abandoned outpost born of resource exploitation. Near a slipway where whales were once hauled up by steam-powered winches stood a sienna mound.

Stirred by ocean chop, purple phosphorescence swarmed the surface as ancient murrelets cried through the wind, their frantic chicks constellating the water. everything from whales to deer. The station’s main study focus is the ancient murrelet, a small seabird widespread throughout the North Pacific. With the unique habit of nesting colonially in burrows, it’s also the only bird to raise its young entirely at sea. Within a few days of hatching, parents abandon the precocious chicks and fly to the water; the young emerge from their burrows by night and follow suit overland, identifying their imprinted parents’ offshore voices among rafts of other ancient murrelets. To study this behavior, researchers created a fence at the edge of the forest that funneled the peripatetic

ABOVE At Windy Bay, Watchmen like Walter recount the story of how Haida logging protests ensured that massive, culturally modified trees like this western red cedar still stand in Gwaii Haanas.

Here, hooks, flensers, harpoons and cables had once been tossed in an unceremonious pile to eventually coalesce into a rusting singularity. Along with glass, whalebone and copper artifacts it formed a sombre bricolage of hubris and destruction. In stark counterpoint, a short walk into the forest revealed an ancient, unfinished Haida canoe that had withstood the area’s century-long whaling history without being disturbed. The stonetool-felled cedar lay on a downward angle attached to its stump, ensuring drainage that kept it from rotting into the forest floor. The bow was obvious, and the canoe’s crafters had begun to hollow it out from either end with the expectation of meeting in the middle; they’d never finished, and the providence of this preservation stunned us into silence. Next morning we conducted the plastic-hunting mission that opens this tale. Motoring back to the Island Solitude we see a humpback whale spouting. On board, Tyler raises the mainsail just as a whirl of birds appears to port; manoeuvring toward them, we’re treated to a squall of gulls, cormorants, guillemots and eagles dive-bombing a knot of fish boiling the surface. As we scan past the action for the whale’s tell-tale spout, it suddenly surfaces 20 metres away, mouth open, roiling the fish, slapping the water with its fins. It resurfaces for a few more mouthfuls, watching us intently with a single Argus eye, then disappears as we head toward Anthony Island and the village of SGang Gwaii under a blue sky streaming puffball clouds. It’s quick passage in heavy swell. On shore, David—an animated Watchman dressed summer-wise in shorts, flip-flops and traditional cedar hat—enthuses over everything, including the sunny weather. 48

The Foresight of Indigenous Guardianship An effective way to generate both immediate impact and broad transformation is through the kind of Indigenous stewardship of protected areas offered by the Haida Watchmen model. The Haida Nation pioneered the idea decades ago, and the model has spread to every corner of Canada. Indigenous guardians are experts trained to manage lands, monitor water quality, help restore fish and wildlife, disseminate cultural information and oversee development projects. These programs deliver obvious local benefits while helping Canada meet its commitments to conserve nature, address climate change and advance reconciliation. Research in Australia has shown that for every dollar invested in Indigenous guardian programs, $2.50 is returned in health, social and economic benefit. The sustainable Indigenous economies based on land protections in Haida Gwaii and the Great Bear Rainforest have alone drawn investments of close to $300 million, contributed to upwards of 100 businesses, created over 1,000 permanent jobs, and established 14 regional monitoring and guardian programs covering 2.5 million hectares annually. Currently, some 60 Indigenous guardian programs exist across Canada, drawing international recognition. As an example, east of Yellowknife, Łutsël K’e Dene First Nation co-manages 26,575 square kilometres of wetlands for migratory birds under a 2019 agreement with Parks Canada and the NWT government that created the Thaidene Nëné National Park Reserve. The program employs people summer and winter, sustains families, reduces public assistance costs and injects money directly into the community. The UN Development Program awarded its annual Equator Prize to the Łutsël K’e as an example to be replicated globally—the first time the prize was awarded in Canada.

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ABOVE In Haida Gwaii, nature rises up admirably to meet the challenge of life in a North Pacific archipelago—even in reclaiming its own.

Worthy of his efforts, it’s hard to describe the feeling of SGang ringing tideline with its house foundations and weathered poles being reclaimed by forest. You can’t help but conjure the scene as it once existed: dozens of carved mortuary and ceremonial poles, oceangoing canoes pulled up on the sand, fish racks dotting the shore, garden plots behind majestic plank houses, kids playing everywhere. SGang Gwaii is a UNESCO World Heritage Site of great archaeological importance: there’s Machu Picchu, remnant of the Inca empire; the great Mayan and Aztec temples and pyramids;

of steep, treeless rocks marking the archipelago’s terminus. Surging on the tidal bore through a gap between the Kerouards and Cape St. James, site of an old lighthouse, we pass a colony of Stellar sea lions and nesting grounds of tufted puffin, pelagic cormorant and glaucous gull. On the far side we’re treated to a pair of sea otters recumbent on kelp mats, munching sea urchins. Extirpated in Haida Gwaii in the early 1900s, the return of sea otters raises hope for natural control of an urchin overabundance that’s currently destroying kelp forests. All in all, an informative and magical day. A few days later, clouds sag seaward as we kayak through drizzle in Burnaby Narrows, the tide draining against us at this famous portal to the near-shore world. Naturalist Anne points to decorative bat stars in red, fuchsia, mauve and blue; elsewhere are anemones, urchins, sea cucumbers, chitons and moon snails whose sand-fashioned egg collars resemble clay jars. Above water, a multi-coloured seaweed salad hosts crabs of every description, a bald eagle hunting fish from a rock and mating oystercatchers engaged in animated dance while deer graze the grassy flats above them. Backgrounding it all, clams squirt random, metre-high fountains from mud pockmarked with the burrows of ghost shrimp. After a long kayak back, the wildlife parade continues. We’ve just hauled anchor when Anne clocks a large bear on a distant beach, rolling logs, sniffing plants, turning an occasional rock. Heading out of the sound, Leo spots a pair of Risso’s dolphins—a rare inshore sighting of an offshore animal that resembles a small, grey beluga laced with scars from battling the squid on which it feeds. When squid are spawning in the shallows as now, the Risso’s follow them in.

A short walk revealed an ancient, unfinished Haida canoe that had withstood the area’s whaling history without being disturbed. and then there’s this lonely outpost in the North Pacific—the only remaining “constructed” artifact of North American Indigenous peoples. As we gaze from the chief’s house toward the idyllic lagoon, a large river otter lopes down the beach, slipping effortlessly into the ocean as if the tide were rising to meet it. With David’s blessing we disperse along the beachfront to sit council with our thoughts, allowing the power of this place to sink in; when we rise to leave only minutes have passed, but my thoughts have raced through centuries. Back on Island Solitude we sail into the groundswell of open ocean, tracking another humpback trailed by a few wheeling albatross. Hours later we finally spot the Kerouard Islands, a sprinkle 50

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Over our final few days we see more critters, pristine forests and those ravaged by invasive deer, old mines, sunken ships, ancient fish weirs and the cultural sites of Hotspring Island, T’aanuu and Cumshewa, assembling a growing bit-map of knowledge about the area’s human and biological history. Our gratitude is huge—to the Haida and to Parks Canada for their pioneering partnership, and to Bluewater Adventures for its low-impact practices, support for local communities, promotion of conservation, and high-level knowledge of wildlife, Indigenous culture and the environment. Sailing Gwaii Haanas has been one-of-a-kind experience filled with opportunities for both learning and action—like the plastic cleanup, which payed immediate dividends by inspiring us to double down. A few days after our first cleanup, we anchored in expansive Luxana Bay with the intention of going ashore for a leisurely beach walk. Before long, however, we all reflexively started picking up plastic, stacking a literal ton onto the tidal flats over the course of two hours: ropes and nets, floats and buoys, Taiwanese bottles and Russian toothpaste. A Zodiac-load to drop at the warden’s cabin in Rose Harbour, adding to a growing stockpile of cleanup efforts that would eventually be barged out of the park. It wasn’t hard to understand our behavior. After voyaging into the blue, it seemed only fitting to leave things a little bluer than we’d found them. ABOVE A final night campfire jam in Cumshewa Inlet. BELOW A low-tide sunset above Anna Inlet.

COMMUNITY

Enjoy the Ride… Sometimes you gotta get outta town, just to get together

words :: Feet Banks photography :: Robin O’Neill

he old saying, paraphrased, is “The first casualty of war is the truth,” but in the war against the ticking clock of life past age 40, the first thing tossed on the chopping block might be spontaneity. And while very few Sea to Sky locals originally moved here with a clearly defined plan of putting down roots, starting families, throwing themselves into careers, taking out mortgages, and generally harnessing themselves into any number of other endeavours that cut into their shred time (on ski, bike, board or whatever), it definitely happens to a lot of us. “I have it pretty easy,” says Whistler local, professional photographer, and long-time Mountain Lifer Robin O’Neill. “Living a life with no kids, no grind, no real routine at all (except coffee), I can keep life pretty loose and I do. Not all of my friends have it so easy though… sometimes if I want to see you, we need to do a trip together.” Ask and you shall receive, Robin. One benefit of the COVID pandemic was how it effectively cleared almost everyone’s travel

schedules while simultaneously forcing us to take a closer look at in-province adventures. “Like a lot of us, I felt stuck in a pandemic vortex,” says Rebecca Ritz, marketing manager at Whistler’s famed Chromag bikes. “Time seemed to be flying by at a rapid pace, but no one seemed to be enjoying it.” The solution was not difficult to dream up—an all-women’s mountain bike trip to the renowned forests and heli-accessed alpine of Retallack Lodge. A BC destination close enough to get to but far enough away to offer adventure, and a break. “Most of us are moms or busy professionals,” Ritz explains. “It’s a lot of shuttling kids, juggling work, meal planning (the worst) and all the while trying to fit in time for ourselves. A trip to a lodge just erases all of that. Now we’re the ones being looked after!” So, with long-time Whistler bike legend Sylvie Allen and enduro queen Emily Slaco stepping in as guides and coaches, a dozen Sea to Sky women signed up, drove across the province, and made a run for the hills. Here’s what they had to say about it.

The Pre-Game Jitters Robin O’Neill: The trip anticipation is part of it—something to look forward to helps get through all the mundane tasks of tying up loose ends before a trip. And it forces you to stay strong on your bike. The fear of not being able to keep up with your friends is real. Meredith Kemp: It’s always hectic leading up to a trip. But going deeper into our own extended backyards in BC seemed like the perfect idea. I’m always excited to explore a new zone.

Emma-Jane Hetherington: I hope I don’t forget something, that is what I was thinking—helmet, shoes, etc. It would not be the first time I forgot something critical. It took a few work/life manoeuvres to pull off but there was no way I’d miss this trip. Rebecca Ritz: The key to success with these group trips is having guides and taking all the group decision making out of the equation. We all know the itinerary and can plan around that, plus we usually have to commit months in advance, so everyone has their stuff dialled in.

Linda Glenday: After a year of COVID, I was taking nothing for granted. Just super excited to ride and enjoy the area, the lodge, and the guaranteed shenanigans at après. One thing about these trips is there’s always so much laughing. Jeannette Nadon: I was excited, but nervous. This was my first women’s trip and my life partner of 23 years died of aggressive prostate cancer in July of 2020. I’d only ever vacationed with him, but a few weeks before he passed, he told me he knew it would be difficult without him but that I had lots of friends who loved me and would support me. He knew my tendency would be to isolate myself and he made me promise to “just say yes” when people invited me to do stuff. This trip, my first instinct was to say “hell no—I’m no downhiller” but I remembered that conversation with D'Arcy and said “yes”. I’m really glad I did.

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An infamous catskiing destination, Retallack biking is lesser known, but equally kickass. Riders are treated to freeride, all-mountain, and downhill singletrack lines with long flowy descents with endless berms and jumps. All accessed by the Unimog—an open-air retrofitted military vehicle that’s also the coolest shuttle vehicle in the province. And of course, there’s also the heli…

Game On! Linda: I remember looking up at the heli taking off above us with bikes on its racks and thinking, “This is so amazing. These women, this group…we are so amazing.” But I loved the Unimog too, our driver Mara taking us up these narrow, kinda steep, kinda scary, bumpy roads with Cindy Lauper blaring and all of us singing along at top volume: “Girls just wanna have fun”—it’s almost a cliché but there’s nothing cliché about 14 women, all friends, charging on their mountain bikes and hitting beautiful, amazing alpine laps all day. Rebecca: Shuttling meant we didn’t have to train as hard or be as fit—not usually a problem for most Sea to Sky riders but it was nice not to have to stress about that. Having Sylvie and Emily from Sweet Skills was incredible. Having guides is great, but adding in coaching makes it even more worthwhile. We all came home feeling like we pushed ourselves in new ways. We are still practicing skills we learned on that trip.

Emma-Jane: The best was getting dropped at the top of that mountain (Reco Peak, Elevation 2,506m/8,22ft.) in the clouds and having to wait it out, not being able to see even a few feet in front of us, trying to stay warm. But with time and patience the weather cleared, and it was the best riding…coming across those slopes, looking down at the meadows, some steep descents to keep you on your toes. And then at the bottom you give a little yelp because you are still on your bike. It was one of those days, we were all on our A-Game.

Post-Game Comments Meredith: My scariest moment of the trip was when I crashed off a jump at the end of the first day and broke a bone in my shoulder, and that was the end of riding for me—for the trip and the season. That sucked, but it also brought out the best part of the trip which is how the incredible women in my life jumped in to support me…the first on the scene, the two ER nurses and physio friends that sped into action. The guides and staff, Sylvie and Emily, the friends comforting me with stories of blown knees on day one of a ski trip or the ones who cut my food for me at dinner. And everyone who made me laugh at après playing giant Jenga. I ate good food, had such a good time and had a lot of laughs—that is what these trips are all about, even when things don’t go as planned.

Rebecca: We need to go on adventures with our friends to remind us that life is good, and we are so lucky to be able to do this. It’s more about gratitude than anything. We’ll conquer our fears and learn something about ourselves and each other in the process. And at the end of the day we all just want to ride bikes and have fun.

Emma-Jane: I’m 50 years old, is that anyone’s target market in the outdoor industry? But it’s nice to see more women featured in mountain biking media. It’s nice to see women doing more tech articles and trip reports and trail reviews. We talk about our bikes, we know how to fix them on the side of a trail on an unsupported adventure. We pack them and rebuild them for trips overseas.

Robin: Singing at the top of our lungs in the shuttle rig, endless party trains, top-to-bottom laps followed by après cocktails down by the river…trips like this offer a special connection to youthfulness. We may not be young, but we are definitely youthful. We still crave the sports, adventure, progression and freedom that we first moved to the mountains for. That doesn’t go away. To embark on a large group trip like this is never easy, but it’s never not worth it either. Especially as we get older. Linda: Looking around at the group on this trip and what these women managed or battled through to get here: loss, injury, illness, kids, careers, partners, busy lives… The determination to make it happen together and support each other—the love overwhelmed me. My life is so good and it’s because of the friends that are in it.

Jeannette: Robin took a great photo of me with a few of the others all wearing our Chromag Burke shirts, named after my late husband D’Arcy Burke. That’s my favourite photo from the trip because for me, that’s what this whole trip was about. Shortly before he died, D’Arcy said “life is short and precious. Follow your heart, love your friends, enjoy the ride.”

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Elise and Indy Kelly, the misty mountain hop.

Suffering Builds Character A guide to hiking with children words :: Feet Banks photos :: Todd Lawson

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times… To a rational person, hiking with your children makes sense for a lot of reasons—to share and instill a love of nature and adventure, to

promote physical activity, and to enjoy some quality and undistracted time together away from screens and devices…it’s a healthy list. To a child, however (perhaps not all children, but most…and certainly mine), that’s crazy talk. “Why would we spend all day walking up a mountain to look at more mountains I can see from right here?” Stay calm! It’s important to recognize that these heart-piercing arrows of juvenile perspective come from a place of innocence—to a seven-year-old, the entire world is fresh and new. Watching a van lifer urinating on a dumpster behind the 7-Eleven holds just as much visual stimuli and impact as a slowly receding glacier or a partially revitalized ocean fjord with a fresh, new government-subsidized liquified natural gas export facility tumour-ing itself into existence on the far shore. Try as you might to explain that “Life is a journey, not a destination” (or whatever other lifestyle influencer platitudes you had to scroll through that morning on the toilet), the truth is, kids don’t think about the future, they aren’t interested in building character, and they can be a real pain in the ass on hikes—both day or overnight. Fear not, we’re here to help. So, in what looks like a headline ripped from those crapfest clickbait internet content amalgamation sites, Mountain Life is proud to present our first ever:

Guide to Hiking with Children BRING CANDY

DITCH THE

Sure, sure. As responsible, outdoorsy parents we ought to be teaching our kids that sugar is a terribly addictive substance that’s been pushed on us by the same evil social geniuses that got kicked out of the tobacco industry in the 1960s. We can point out the well-documented and devastating health effects sugar has had on almost every global Indigenous culture exposed to it in the past 150 years and explain to them that the “energy” we think we feel after a bag of candy is quickly offset by a crash that stresses our organs in almost the same way as riding a BMX into a concrete wall…but a quinoa biscuit with carob bites never inspired anyone to do anything, so pack the largest bag of Sour Patch Kids you can find, throw some chocolate in for good measure (milk, not dark…you heartless beast) and let the magic of addiction and a culture built on sugary rewards do its thing.

SIBLINGS Oh, you say you want quality time with your kids? Time to walk the talk, separate the siblings, and take your kids hiking one at a time, especially on overnighters. This isolates the whining to just a single source and chances are the kid will appreciate the break from being annoyed or abused by their sibling, and have more fun. (This also cuts down on the amount of candy you have to pack. Unless you let your kid bring a friend, which doubles the candy again, but gives you more quality time—with yourself.)

GET THE RIGHT GEAR This goes beyond ensuring the little menace has decent rain/warm layers and footwear (ask me about the time the sole on my son’s New Balance sneaker totally delaminated on day two of the 30-kilometre Howe Sound Crest Trail). Proper gear is especially helpful on those first hikes with your new baby—that baby backpack from the 90s might look like a good deal on marketplace, but the vintage nylon might also chafe all the skin off your child’s chin as they bounce/cry/bleed down the trail while you wonder what the hell could be wrong back there (this happened to me). The new backpacks have sheepskin chin pads, sun shades, and a hip pocket mirror you can use to see what’s going on in the back. Five out of five stars recommend.

GO BIG Kids love sleeping in tents (who doesn’t?), so an overnighter holds more appeal than a day hike. Kids also love danger—fires are always a hit (let your kid light it) and so are pocketknives (get a lockable blade and always cut away from yourself!), axes (legs wide, both hands on the axe) and camping on the edge of a big cliff (maybe avoid this…). If you make your adventure an actual adventure, chances are the kid will have more fun. (And nothing piques a kid’s interest like watching you strap a 12-gauge shotgun to your backpack in the garage.)

Good. Beta. Best. Climbers know that progress comes from community knowledge. The hidden seam you can follow the whole way up. The counter-intuitive hold that’ll get you past the crux. The purpose-built gear perfected over five-plus decades on the rock. When you know, you know. B:7.625" T:7.375" S:6.875"

T:4.78"

S:4.28"

EDUCATE Kids get sick of you telling them what kind of bark and needles each species of tree has, but tossing some information cards or a book about local plants, animals, and birds into their backpack is not a bad way to sneakily get your kid to learn about wilderness without realizing it.

LITTLE BEASTS OF BURDEN

How much gear you expect your kid to pack is up to you, but there’s a pretty basic weight-to-whining ratio. For kids under eight, a small pack with a water bladder and some snacks is probably good enough for longer treks. After that, see what your kid can handle, we’re pushovers here at Mountain Life and we like to carry as much of the load as possible to keep the kids going. (And if you can’t muscle a 60-pound pack over 8-12 kilometres of mountainous terrain can you really even call yourself a provider?) Regardless of how much your kid carries, make sure to leave extra space in your pack because odds are you will end up transferring some of it over eventually.

PHONE ETIQUETTE This one is tough because we all know half the reason half the people even take their kids anywhere is to get an epic photo for Instagram so they can underhandedly (or subconsciously) boast about their perfect outdoor lives and offspring to their (not real) friends and followers. Nothing wrong with taking photos, it’s the immediate urge to post that sucks. Because the truth is, your kids are in your life to serve a higher purpose than just “prop” so if you can disconnect from all the bullshit on your phone for even two days it goes a long way towards showing them what is important in life (i.e. being together). HAVING SAID THAT…kids generally need to go to bed earlier than adults, and they wake up earlier too. Having a video or some simple games on your phone can be a good way to wind kids down at night or occupy them in the early hours when they pop up raring to go and you are still battling last night’s fireside whiskeys. This is personal preference however, for some kids a book and a headlamp work just as well.

ENJOY IT WHILE YOU CAN The sad truth is, by the time your kid truly appreciates hiking, they’ll probably want to do it on their own with their friends (everyone knows ‘camping’ to teens just means escaping parental supervision to go French kiss [or worse] in the bush). So, cherish these childhood hikes and outdoor adventures as much as you can, even if they are a challenge. Because guess what? When you run out of water and your kid uses their superior hearing to locate a tiny stream of snowmelt coursing through the scree that’s deep enough to slide the water filter hose into so you can fill your water bottles and ‘save’ your lives…the kid will remember that forever. Hiking with children can test your limits (and theirs) but patience is a virtue—and remember: our kids are not here to give us what we want, they’re here to give us what we need to grow and evolve as people. So, lace ‘em up and get going! And if you think it’s hard getting a kid to walk up a mountain, wait till you try to get ‘em to pedal up one… Stefanie and Sierra.

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OCEAN

Focus, Flow & Fish? Maybe you need more freediving in your life?

Kar Morgan in Broughton Archipelago.

words :: Tim Emmett Holding my nose between my thumb and index finger, I increase the pressure in my nasal cavity by pushing the back of my tongue upwards. My left ear pops as I equalize, then the right. I’m upside down and finning hard with straight legs, pushing headfirst into the liquid darkness below. I equalize again, then again, and then once more. The only part of my body where skin is exposed to the water is around my mouth—I can feel the temperature dropping. The mask presses against my face, gripping onto me like a suction cup on the tentacle of a giant Pacific octopus. As the pressure increases, I equalize my mask by blowing in small amounts of air from my nostrils. The octopus relaxes, helping me to relieve any tension in my mind and body. It’s been a long time since my last breath of air.

JIMMY MARTINELLO

The water temperature continues to drop as I suddenly start sinking. I’m past the point of neutral buoyancy and no longer need to move my fins to get propulsion. Motionless, I free fall into the depths as the disappearing light reminds me of dusk, then darkness. A small speck of light—a flashlight attached to the end of the line—offers my only point of reference in the surrounding space. I equalize my ears and mask one more time. It’s like being on a vertical conveyer belt and the longer I stay on, the greater the pressure and the further I am from my next breath. At 30 metres, the volume of air in my lungs is one quarter of that on the surface. I keep sinking…now I am in a different world, I feel like I’m in space. Unable to see the top or bottom, I am surrounded by the same thing in every direction. This is my happy place, a world I can only visit and appreciate for a matter of seconds before I must return to the surface. 73

When I started freediving in Indonesia more than a decade ago, the water was warm and clear. Unlike scuba diving, equalizing with your head down at the lowest point is preferred because it allows you to descend more quickly and efficiently. Back then, going past the point of neutral buoyancy was terrifying to me and accelerating away from the next breath set my alarm bells ringing. I’d always stop and turn around, swimming quickly to the surface to fill my lungs with oxygen and safety. These days, I enjoy the free fall and look forward to getting on that vertical conveyer belt. Now when I free dive, I close my eyes for the whole descent and only open them at the bottom of the line. This helps me to relax and focus on the subtle body control required to equalize efficiently. It’s more like Zen meditation than an adventure sport. I studied marine zoology at university and was fascinated by the Davids (Suzuki and Attenborough). My curiosity with the underwater world enticed me into scuba diving but, being an athlete, I wanted to play around more with the limits of human performance and soon immersed myself into the freediving world. I didn’t truly find my groove, however, until I heard about Sea to Sky Freediving and particularly Luca Malaguti. Luca is an effervescent and likeable character who runs freediving courses all summer in Howe Sound. He also happens to hold the Canadian freediving record of 84 metres on a single breath! “Freediving, much like high-altitude mountaineering, is about understanding your body and mind in the critical environment you find yourself in,” says

I reach my maximum depth, the deepest I’ve ever gone with one breath. Now it’s 35 metres (or 11 storeys) back to the surface, back to the air. Luca, who started Sea to Sky Freediving in 2018. “The concepts of flow-state—staying mentally and emotionally in the moment—and 'letting go' are key lessons we learn in freediving. Letting go to the ocean, letting yourself flow deep down on one breath, trusting yourself, your adaptations, your very biological evolution. There’s no better way to connect with your breath, with your breathing, than to hold your breath. And there is no greater place to hold your breath, test your mind, your will, your presence and awareness, than underwater.” Howe Sound has several marine parks ideal for finding that flow and exploring the underwater realm. One breath, one fish. Chris Adair from Bottom Dwellers Freediving, Nimmo Bay Lodge. JEREMY KORESKI Porteau Cove, perhaps the most popular, hosts three artificial reefs sitting in less than 50 feet of water. But the Southern BC coastline is home to eight artificial wrecks created specifically for divers. Two of the most notable are a Boeing 737 near Chemainus on Vancouver Island. Originally part of the Canadian Airlines fleet, the aircraft was decommissioned by Air Canada due to age and structural problems. No longer airworthy, the plane was stripped of all usable components and the airframe donated to the Artificial Reef Society of BC. Closer to home in Halkett Bay off Gambier Island is the HMCS Annapolis—a giant 113 metre warship that served in the Second World War. Sitting in 100 feet of water, the wreck makes for an exciting free dive. Getting down there to explore the boat on a single breath is a good challenge, but diving in these waters also reveals a plethora of marine species. Star fish, sea cucumbers, crabs, plumose anemones, ling cod, and rockfish are the most common, as well as marine mammals like seals, sea lions, dolphins, and even orcas. 74

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As my hand touches the weight at the bottom of the line, I reach my maximum depth, the deepest I’ve ever gone with one breath. Now it’s 35 metres (or 11 storeys) back to the surface, back to the air. I pull on the rope and kick hard with my fins. The negative buoyancy puts up a good fight (the deeper you are, the more effort is required to ascend). I count my kicks to stay focused and relaxed.

The concepts of flow-state—staying mentally and emotionally in the moment—and "letting go" are key lessons we learn in freediving. Watching the line in front of my face, I push away thoughts of how deep I am, how far I have to go—panicking here would be a big mistake. I shut my eyes, focus on each kick, and count. It feels like forever, but soon the water warms on my face and I know I’m getting close… Then I break through, exhale hard and suck in a huge, deep breath, then three more. I feel reborn, the mind purged by the depth and the darkness and the singularity of intense focus on the right now, and the right here. “I’m okay.” I say this to Luca who has been buddying me on the dive, but it feels a bit like I’m trying to convince myself too. Next time, I think I can go deeper.

TOP Tim Emmett, self portrait on the way back up. ABOVE Divers Down. Britannia Beach.

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ARTIST

Russell Wallace Listening to: Unceded Tongues

Russell reaching for the high notes with Tia Taurere Clearsky.

With his album Unceded Tongues, an award-winning Lil’wat Nation composer blends his ancestral language with modern genres. words:: Nikkey Dawn I catch Russell Wallace on a Friday afternoon as he’s starting to think about dinner. I’ve called him on his landline (his only phone). It feels nostalgic in the era of Zoom and constant digital connection—I imagine us with tin cans up to our ears, a string of yarn connecting us across the Salish Sea from Sooke to Vancouver. Wallace, a composer from the Lil’wat Nation, released his latest album Unceded Tongues last January in the thick of the pandemic. It’s the first jazz, blues, and what Wallace calls “Indigi-pop,” album in the language St’át’imcets. That should be a feat worthy of celebration, however a string of devastating losses after its release forced Wallace, 57, to take time off from promoting the album in order to grieve and be with family. His album took off on its own, partly due to his reputation as an award-winning composter with 30 years in the business. After a year of airplay across Canada, Wallace finds himself ready to return to Unceded Tongues.

Mountain Life: Can you tell me about the title of the album? Russel Wallace: Unceded means giving up something not on purpose, it is taken away, so I thought, “Well, land is unceded, land can be taken away, and you know, I think of my mom and dad who went to residential school—our language was taken away there, we never intentionally wanted to give up our language or our lands but they were both taken away. So Unceded Tongues refers to the language that was taken away from us. But you know, there’s such a strong connection between land and language. If you’re going to talk about unceded lands, you’re going to have to talk about unceded language as well. My mom always talked about the music, that music comes from the land. So, the land is going to remember, you’ll hear the echoes coming back.

ML: Did you grow up singing, knowing you wanted to be a musician? Wallace: I loved music as a kid. My mom tells me that I would sing with her, I guess I was like four or five and just singing with her in the community. And, you know, the first two albums I bought were Steely Dan, Aja, and the soundtrack to Saturday Night Fever. I think I was 12 79

I think of the song Tequila—an old song from the ‘60s— and it just has one word in it, not even an English word, and it’s still a big hit. So, you know, why not? If Tequila can do it why can’t Climb the Mountain?

and those both really had a big influence on me. Growing up in the ‘80s, New Wave, for me, was such a cool thing. You know, the B-52s and OMD and The Cure and Joy Division, that was another part of me as well. Also, Sheila Chandra and Fateh Ali Khan and Yellow Magic Orchestra. Brian Eno played a big part in my listening and recording life. It’s really dating me, but those were the big influences as a teenager and young adult My dream job was working at a radio station. I wanted to be a DJ, and I ended up working in radio at age 16, it was co-op radio. This was in the early ‘80s so there wasn’t a lot of access to Indigenous music. We didn’t have computers to look up artists. And that made me realize well, there’s a real gap or a lack of Indigenous content.

ML: Does the St’át’imcets language lend itself to the genres you were working in? Wallace: No! Actually, it was quite a resistance. There are a lot of consonants in Salish languages that are not in English. So that’s the other thing, making sure I’m pronouncing everything correctly. My cousin helped me with that because I’m not fluent. I’d take random phrases and string them together, My Lil’wat Love is like that. Everyday language became a love song when I strung it together. My cousin Rosalin passed away this past year. I’m proud of what I was able to accomplish with her help. It’s a testament to her knowledge and her conveying that knowledge. We have to take what we learn and pass on whatever we can.

ML: Is there a song on the album that stands out to you the most? Wallace: I guess Moon of Open Hands was the easiest, it came to me. The other ones I had to work with. It was so weird, I was teaching singing, and singing with the group, and this other song popped into my head. Which is a testament to singing these songs over and over for years, your body kind of takes over and your mind can go elsewhere. That song came to me on the equinox, a couple of years back, that’s why I call it Moon of Open Hands—which refers to the Salish moon of March/April when the blossoms are coming out. Tony Wilson who’s the guitar player did the arrangements for a number of these songs, he took that one and yeah, it’s very jazzy. I have amazing players on a lot of these songs and I’m so fortunate that I can call upon them. 80

Another song, Please Come Back to Me, actually my mom sang it a lot and she talked about it… I just took the words from that song and put new music to it. And the words, basically, the translation is, “You know, my heart really aches for you. Please come back to me.” My Great Aunt Edith, my mom’s aunt, wrote that song. And, I realized last year it was about 1918 and the pandemic that was going on—there was a lot of death in our community back then. Also, the soldiers coming back from war and it affected my family and affected my aunt. She was really young at the time and she lost a lot of cousins and relatives. I think she also lost her love interest and so that’s where the words come from. I realized that and I was like, wow, like I’m releasing it during this pandemic and losing a lot of family as well and like so it’s kind of, you know, coming around again.

ML: You mentioned knowing that the majority of people who listen to this record won’t be St’át’imcets speakers. Wallace: Yeah. When I thought about it like, there’s only a small group of people who will understand what I’m singing. But you know I think of the song Tequila—an old song from the ‘60s— and it just has one word in it, not even an English word, and it’s still a big hit. So, you know, why not? If Tequila can do it why can’t Climb the Mountain?

ML: I wanted to ask you about Climb the Mountain because this magazine is Mountain Life. Can you tell me a bit about the lyrics? Wallace: Yeah, it’s kind of saying, “Hey it’s time to get up!” Like, “Rise up and let’s go out,” and “Let’s go climb that mountain. Take my hand, I’m coming with you we’ll climb it together.” It’s kind of everyday language but it can fit into so many meanings. Climbing a mountain—it’s important to reach out to other people and let them know they’re not alone. We don’t have to be alone.

Watch for Russell throughout the summer performing with the Spiritual Warriors in Whistler, Lillooet, and Kamloops. He’ll also perform in concert at the Annex in Vancouver on May 21 with his family group Tzo’kam and Sawagi Taiko. Wallace’s composition, Journey, will also be featured at the 66th International Festival of Contemporary Music at the Venice Biennale until November. russellwallace.bandcamp.com

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CULTURE

Reawakened, the 40-foot Xaays canoe is reunited with the waters of Howe Sound.

MASON MASHON

The Great Canoe Much more than a mode of transportation, cedar canoes provide an integral and tangible link to culture, history,community, and homelands for local Indigenous Nations.

words :: Feet Banks

“Canoes helped build this country.” As young Canadian children, this was drilled into us in school. The idea of French Voyageurs paddling up and down the rivers and lakes of the vast new land, exploring and “discovering” Canada from east to west. I recall there were at least a few pages of history books dedicated to the fact that the canoes themselves were either built by or based on First Nations craftsmen—birch bark stretched over a frame usually—but, looking back, it’s both sad and shocking to realize how much we weren’t taught, and how many thousands of years of canoe history had been glossed over in our textbooks. Thankfully, here on the Pacific Coast at least, a traditional canoe-culture revolution has been brewing for almost 40 years, with numerous Tribal Canoe Journeys connecting nations that had long been isolated from each other and introducing young people to ancient practices and traditions.

And those traditions are on full display down on the waterfront launch of the Skwxwú7mesh Nation. The Xaays canoe, a 40-foot ocean-going cedar canoe carved by Master Carver Chief Ses Siyam Ray Natraoro is about to feel the waters of Howe Sound for the first time since 2014. Since Xaays spends most of its time featured in the great hall of Whistler’s Squamish Lil’wat Cultural Centre (SLCC), it is important to re-awaken the canoe before putting it back in the water. “A canoe is a living thing, with a spirit,” explains a Skwxwú7mesh Elder overseeing the ceremony. “It remembers the life as a tree before it was transformed by the carvers. It remembers the animals and birds that lived in its boughs, that passed by or rested in its shade.” Amidst drummers and singing, and under the watchful eyes of Elders and official witnesses (and a few guests like myself), a team of traditionally blanketed women cleanse the canoe with cedar boughs while the paddlers drum and sing. Everyone seems grateful that things are being done the old way. “If you take care of the canoe,” Natraoro says. “The canoe will take care of you.”

To begin to understand the significance of the canoe to the local Skwxwú7mesh and Lil’wat nations, a good place to start is where the canoe comes from—an ancient cedar tree that’s between 400-800 years old. “The cedar is the tree of life,” explains Mixalhítṡa7 Alison Pascal, a weaver and curator at the SLCC. “And all the properties of the tree and how we transform it into baskets, houses, canoes and artwork— that is all tied together. In each stage, we show appreciation to the tree for what it offers us and how useful it is in our lives.” While the cedar still plays many of these key roles in the lives of Indigenous peoples, one of the major tragedies of colonialization and contact with settler culture is how few of these ancient giants remain after centuries of logging—and of those that do, how many are close enough to a village or waterway that they could be harvested, carved, and transported in the traditional ways? With every challenge comes an opportunity to adapt, and when the SLCC and Natraoro began looking for logs to start a new cedar canoe project this spring, they were directed to a local resource: the longhouse structure in Whistler’s Rebagliati Park. “That longhouse frame was there to give visitors a sense of what a traditional house would look like,” says Pascal, “but it had been there for a long time and some of the cedar had started to go back to the earth. The Municipality of Whistler called the Squamish Nation in to see if any of the cedar could be salvaged. Ray went to look at the pieces. He has worked with cedar for a long time, that is his specialty. He sensed that there were some logs there that could be canoes.”

“A canoe is a living thing, with a spirit, it remembers the life as a tree before it was transformed by the carvers. It remembers the animals and birds that lived in its boughs, that passed by or rested in its shade.” – Skwxwú7mesh Elder

And one of them will be by the end of this summer. The Community Reconciliation Canoe project was conceived as an invitation to build bridges between guests to the Sea to Sky, the locals living here, and the Nations who have stewarded the area since time immemorial. With cedar salvaged from the Rebagliati Park structure, Natraoro will mentor SLCC Cultural Ambassadors Brandon Hall of Squamish Nation and Q̓ áwam̓ Redmond Andrews, whose father is the late master carver Lhalqw Bruce Edmonds of Lil’wat Nation, in the art of canoe carving. Visitors to the centre, including a number of school groups, will have the opportunity to watch the carving firsthand, ask questions, and even contribute to transforming the ancient cedar into an ocean-going canoe carved in the traditional Skwxwú7mesh style. “Ray has been very generous to take on our ambassadors as apprentices and spark this knowledge in them,” says Pascal. “There is no institution to attend and learn how to carve a canoe, so it’s very important to share this knowledge with young people. I think Nations around the world saw that with the COVID pandemic, if we had lost someone that was the sole person left with special skill or knowledge, it might take generations to get that back.”

TO CARVE A PADDLE The most important thing to know about a paddle is to never put it down with the blade touching the ground. The other thing is to learn how to carve your own, because a paddle you put your own time, effort, and love into will always treat you better than one purchased at Canadian Tire. To make that easier, Squamish artist/woodworker Lenny Rubenovitch started the Portage Paddle Workshop with Skwxwú7mesh carver Art Harry. Working with experts from the Squamish Men’s Shed craftsmen, and funded by the Squamish Arts Council with wood donated by Van Urban Timber and AJ Forest Products, the workshop’s goal is to guide participants as they transform a block of red cedar into a functional paddle, or an art paddle, or whatever kind of paddle they want. And any paddle you make yourself will be worth the price of admission (which is donated to local Skwxwú7mesh youth programs). Time spent focused on and learning about anything new and hands-on is the best, particularly for people trapped at a desk typing all day. After three weeks, you come out with new friends, a deeper respect and understanding of the techniques and history of working with cedar, and a kickass paddle. – Feet Banks

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Graduates of the 2020 Portage Paddle Workshop.

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Back on the waters of Howe Sound, the protocol has ended and the Xaays canoe is awake and cruising through waters it hasn’t touched in eight years. At the back, Natraoro leads the paddlers in song as they rhythmically pull the ancient being forward. As a guest, I am forbidden from paddling, but have been given a seat up front with the wind in my face and unbroken views of the shoreline and towering walls of Siy’ám’ Smánit. Beneath me, the canoe feels smooth and powerful—a piece of living art doing exactly what it was built for. These great cedar canoes are much more than just a means of transport or hunting. They are a link to an ancient history, to living beings that predate settler contact on this continent by centuries. They are vessels of knowledge and craftsmanship stretching back for generations, but also symbols of hope for a future, for the healing and rebirth of a culture that came very close to being stolen away. And mostly, these canoes are a metaphor for community—they perform best when everyone works together. After a few brief laps in the only window of sun Squamish had seen in weeks, the Xaays canoe was reloaded onto its trailer to return to the SLCC, where another ancient cedar—one that had already been transformed into a long house—was set to be given yet another life carrying, teaching, and building a stronger community.

ABOVE Blessing the pole with cedar bows is an important step before carving begins. RYAN REGGIE ROBINSON BELOW Skwxwú7mesh Nation carving apprentice Brandon Hall digs into the Community Reconciliation Canoe. SQUAMISH LIL'WAT CULTURAL CENTRE

Community Reconciliation Canoe carving will feature in guided tours at the Squamish Lil’wat Cultural Centre each Wednesday through Sunday until September 4, 2022. slcc.ca

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COMIN' UP

DOUBLE TROUBLE Eight-year-old twin rippers Lars & Axel Zeilberger ride it all

LEFT Axel (left) and Lars, ready to shred. TOP Axel, double overhead rock drop.

words :: Todd Lawson These days, most four-year-old kids are watching Paw Patrol and learning how to roll on a runbike. When Whistler twins Lars and Axel Zeilberger were four, they were studying videos of top-tier Red Bull athletes Fabio Wibmer and Brandon Semenuk while eating their breakfast cereal. Then, they’d put in an eight-hour shift on the dirt jumps and ride wooden bridges and technical features—day after day after day. Riding a bike became as much a part of their daily routine as brushing their teeth and taking a bath. Soon after discovering the Whistler Mountain Bike Park, the boys’ riding flourished, especially under the guidance of DFX bike camp coaches Bernat Pou and Diego Herrera. Lars and Axel’s parents, longtime Sea to Sky locals Dr. Teresa Wood and dad Alfie Zeilberger, have watched their babies progress from flat-out toddler run-biking maniacs into parental-nerve-wracking eight-year-olds who drop rock slabs and shred gnarly alpine lines before ending their days cranking out umpteen laps at the pump track.

MICHAEL SOUSA. BOTTOM Lars (age six) boosts the bike park while his brother looks on.

RONIA NASH

“I attribute their progression to their non-stop passion and drive to ride all day long,” says Teresa, who started riding when her sons learned to walk. The kids have long surpassed her abilities. “Uphill, downhill, XC, dirt jumps, pump track, bmx track, skate park—they love doing it all.” Each twin brings his own style and flair to the shared passion. Lars likes jumps and whips and anything that gives him airtime. Axel is more into being the “guinea pig” on technical features like rock rolls and step lines. “Lars likes flips,” says Axel. “I like picking a sketchy line and riding it.” And of course, the two share a love of speed. Going downhill has become a part of their being and the boys list marquis events like Crankworx Joyride and Red Bull Rampage as future goals…as well as “Doing double backflips and Supermans on the Crabapple hits,” says Axel, and “Going down Goat’s Gully, dropping every rock roll that is droppable,” says Lars. “If they stick with it and if they feel the same way about mountain biking in a few years as they do now, they’re gonna get there,” says coach and filmmaker Michael Sousa, who spent most 91

of summer 2021 filming the boys for RASCAL2, a short-film that features the boys charging through forest trails and catching airtime with calculated abandon. “Their drive is outta this world,” he adds. “They recognize, even at their young age, that they have quite a talent and they’re breaking the standard of what we understand young Whistler local athletes to be. Kids their size and age aren’t really supposed to be doing what they’re doing—it’s incredible to watch.” Sitting at their kitchen table in Whistler, I ask the twins, “If you guys could pick one person to ride with every day, who would it be?”

“Lars likes flips, I like picking a sketchy line and riding it.” – Axel Zeilberger Without hesitation, Axel says, “Lars. Because he’s the only one who wants to do everything that I do. And he’s also a really good friend, I know him better than anybody.” Lars chimes in quickly with his own answer. “I’d ride every day with Axel because he’s just fun to ride with. I just wanna ride, ride, ride.”

Check ‘em out on YouTube—RASCAL2 Rockin' and Rollin.' Axel takes the lead.

Lars on 4th Drop.

RONIA NASH

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BEYOND

Let the Good Times Roll words :: Jon Turk illustration :: Lani Imre

Last week I was skiing my favourite backcountry lines. But, by the time this magazine reaches your hands, I will be on my mountain bike, on dry ground. I write about snow for the summer issue because every pedal stroke I take this summer, and every morning coffee watching the sunrise, will reflect those thoughts formed on skis. Twenty-five years ago, when I was 51, I stood on my favourite ridge one winter afternoon as the sun was descending behind the peaks. One more run. My companion suggested we drop a steep line on the backside. “The backside?” I asked. “It’s late in the day and it will be dark by the time we climb back up.” My body agreed with this logical assessment and told my think-too-much-know-it-all brain, “I’m old, I’m tired. I’ve done enough for you already. Don’t be greedy. Time to go home.” But my friend insisted, so I told my body: “Shut up. Toughen up. Stop whining. Give’r. Let the good times roll.” I knew it was going to sluff. So, I cut a hard arc on the first turn, and when everything seemed under control, I dropped a couple more. But the sluff was building, and I didn’t like the idea of pin-balling through the neck in the hourglass below, late in the day, when rescue would be complicated by darkness, so I pulled out to let it go. The snow washed past me, stepped down a little, and then a little more, and 96

then, whoosh, it exposed a small vertical band of dark, ominous rock. Voice from the ridgetop. “You okay? Good. Give’r.” “What do you mean, give’r? I’m standing on top of an exposed rock cliff.” Laughter from the ridgetop: “Jump!” Body to think-too-much-know-it-all brain: “See, listen up. I told you this was a dumb idea.” Brain to body, “Time to shut up. Give’r.” So, I launched, got my speed under control, had a glorious run, and, of course, was home late for dinner. No big deal. et the good times roll. Last week, I’m 76 and climbing the same ridge again. When we reach the bench below the crest, I can’t oxygenate well enough. I’m dizzy, disoriented, seeing double. Feeling unstable on my feet. Age is winning over determination. And today, the last steep rise is composed of ugly wind-slab. Body to brain, “We’ve been through this before. You’re old, dude. This is stupid. Time to turn back and ski a mellow tree-line.” Think-too-much-know-it-all brain to lazy, whining, no-good-fornothing body. “Yes, I agree, we’ve been through this before. Too many times. But I’m the boss around here. Listen up. Shake it off.”

I take control of the dizziness and the double vision and with slow determination kick steps up the wind-slab to a limestone outcrop, where I get a solid stance. The snow above me is bulletproof for three steps before I can reach that thank-God, gnarled, stunted, windswept, grandmother, subalpine fir, rooted firmly into the thin, frozen soil. A fall here would be ugly. Body and brain are lockstep in agreement on this one. As long as we’re going to do this, we may as well not die. I kick, and kick, and just manage the tiniest indent. “Enough to stand on?” I ask myself. “Enough, I guess.” “No! ‘I guess’ isn’t good enough. Once more with feeling. Good enough to stand on? Or go home.” I step up. Now comes the hard part. With one foot hanging on by my toenails, I kick the next step. You guessed it. I made it to the grandmother tree. Gained the ridge. Didn’t die. I basked in the glow of the Devonian limestone peaks, compressed into folds by the heat and motion of the Earth; basked in the chill wind scuttling clouds across the sky; basked in the companionship of my pals and the anticipation of yet another glorious ski run in the mountains I love so much. The good times rolled on. I’ve lived this fairy tale for a long time. And I still believe in it. To a point. The problem is that I also remember that fateful time when my body won the argument. It was the day after the Ellesmere expedition with Erik Boomer, in 2011. We had been going as hard as we could for 104 days, and had skied, walked, crawled, and paddled 1,500 miles across the ice and the storm-tossed Arctic Ocean. We had completed the expedition. Mission accomplished. Brain had repeatedly prevailed

over that lazy, whining, no-good-for-nothing body. After reaching the village of Grise Fiord, we had a shower, ate a big meal, and went to sleep. And while I was snuggled up in a soft bed in a warm house; when my think-too-much-know-it-all brain had gone off guard duty, my much maligned, very pissed-off body snuck across the moat and stormed the castle. It shut the system down. Stopped working. I’m not exaggerating. When I was in the Medevac Learjet, approaching Ottawa International Airport, the flight nurse radioed in my vitals to the trauma doctor, who then ordered the flight controllers to hold all passenger and commercial aircraft and give us priority landing, because by that time every minute counted. Jump forward to today. Nina and I are about to pack the van and head south, to start biking. When I study my maps and plan our routes, that dizzy, disoriented feeling on the ridge runs through my memory. So, I’m finally thinking that it’s high time to listen to my body. We don’t have to fight all the time, dominate, jockey for position. We can work together as a team. As any good marriage counselor will tell a couple of squabbling partners: “Time to stop arguing. You must see the situation from the other’s point of view. Learn to cooperate.” “Cooperate?” I ask. “I’m not familiar with that concept.” “Yeah, well listen up. Time to relax, old man. Time to ride simply for the joy of each pedal stroke, each rock you bounce over, each glorious turn flowing along in harmony with your center of gravity, each languid lunch in the shadow of a pinyon pine. The good times can roll in more ways than one.” And so they will.

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WELLNESS

Aiyansh Hot Springs in the Nass Valley, Nisga'a Memorial Lava Bed Provincial Park.

MIKE SEEHAGEL/NORTHERN BC TOURISM

HOT & COLD The Sea to Sky is a hot/cold-plunge paradise, and it always has been

words :: Tristan Jenkin Despite what your Instagram influencer friends might lead you to believe, hot/cold therapy has been around long before cold plunges were popularized by Wim Hof and destination thermal spas and barrel saunas dotted your social feeds. And while pairing a sauna with a hole in the ice is the hottest (or is it coolest?) trend in the wellness space, the hot/cold combo is actually an ancient wellness ritual that has been practiced for thousands of years by many cultures around the world, including right here in the Coast Mountains. From Korean hanjeungmak saunas to Japanese mushi-buro sweat baths to the El Temazcal ceremonies of Central America, ancient cultures have long embraced exposure to hot and cold temperatures with a common purpose: to relax, cleanse and purify the mind, body, and spirit, and to foster deeper levels of connection within the community. Closer to home, the nupika wu’u (hot mineral waters) at Ainsworth hot springs near Creston, BC, have always been a

therapeutic joy to the Ktunaxa peoples, while to the north, in the Nisga’a territory of the Nass Valley, Hlgu Isgwit /Aiyansh hot springs are recognized as a culturally significant, designated heritage site. Known as the dwelling place of Sbi Naxnok, a supernatural being, the strong sulfur odour emitted from the pools is said to be the scent of this spirit. The hot waters of Hlgu Isgwit vent from 55 to 58 degrees Celsius with plenty of chilly water options to facilitate a hot/cold cycle. And that hot/cold cycle is where the magic happens. Undertaken as a four-step ritual, the cycle can be practiced alone or with others, at home, in nature, or in a spa built specifically for the experience. When practiced during a gathering of friends, family, or co-workers, a hot/cold cycle serves as a healthy social lubricant stimulating conversation and connection without the need for alcohol, drugs, or canned EDM music that sounds like someone put two and a half pairs of tennis shoes in the clothes dryer. It’s a new take on social gatherings with an emphasis on healthy vibes, that will leave you feeling great and totally blissed out. 99

HOT Begin with 10-20 minutes in a sauna, hot tub, hot spring, or steam room. Allow the heat and humidity to penetrate deeply, awakening the mind and body, and invoking an adaptive physiological response. COLD Transition out of the heat and into the cold. Breathing deeply and with intention, following the cadence of your breath, immerse yourself slowly up to your neck, in a calm and controlled environment. This can be done using a cold shower or by plunging into a safe body of water. Research shows the transition from hot to cold delivers the most benefits around the three-minute mark, however, the duration of time spent in the cold is based entirely on personal preference and experience. A quick dip is still very beneficial (and you may choose to challenge yourself to stay longer next time). REST After the exhilaration of the hot and cold, you will feel a sense of euphoria and deep relaxation. This is a time for stillness, conscious breath, and a push towards a deeper human connection—with yourself or others. Spend ten to 15 minutes and then… REPEAT Repeating the cycle three or four times will maximize health benefits and leave your mind and body feeling fresh and reinvigorated. “Hot and cold therapy is a simple yet profound form of medicine,” says Squamish-based naturopath Dr. Lyndsey Zigar. “It reconnects us with our breath and activates our innate healing abilities. These practices have transformed my energy, recovery, vitality, and overall resilience.” In multiple studies collected in the National Library of Medicine in Bethesda, Maryland, researchers have found hot/cold therapy beneficial for a number of maladies that often plague highly active, stressed, or overwhelmed individuals. These benefits include a boost to the immune system, improved heart health, increased cardiovascular performance, improved sleep, reduced muscular pain, and an enhanced ability to manage stress. And these are only the benefits scientists and doctors can quantify—anecdotal evidence from long-time practitioners offers a much longer list. Here in Sea to Sky, there are plenty of options to unlock the benefits of hot/cold therapy. It can be as simple as turning the knob on your morning shower to cold for 30 seconds, or as intentional as having a private mobile spa show up for your birthday. There are also a number of natural hot springs in the Pemberton volcanic belt (Editor’s Note: we will not be naming any of them, nor giving their GPS locations. Sorry!). It is said that the In-SHUCK-ch and St’át’imc people used the hot and cold springs for healing and cleansing, and a place where elders trained men to be chiefs, watchmen, and other important roles. No matter where or how you practice hot/cold therapy, don’t forget the third step—rest, relax, and breathe in the essence of nature, allowing your mind and body to find balance in an ancient form of medicine that’s been practiced since time immemorial. Enjoy the journey. TOP Step one: Hot. Aika Spa, Squamish Valley. MIDDLE Step 2: Cold. Aika/Squamish. BOTTOM Step 3: Rest. Floating spa, Clayoquot Sound. TOFINO RESORT & MARINA

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Tristan Jenkin is founder of AIKA, the Sea to Sky's first and only private spa experience, and has been a devout practitioner of hot/cold therapy locally since 2009. aikaspa.ca

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A kayak circumnavigation of Vancouver Island to find connection with the sea, the mountains, and each other 102

A pause to explore a remote beach in Kyuquot

words & photography :: Frank Wolf

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Amber exits Raft Cove through the surf.

Dawn breaks over Burdwood Bay, the sun creeping over a towering Sitka forest as we shuttle our gear to the water’s edge. Dave Berrisford, Amber Blenkiron and I watch the surf roll in as we pack our kayaks, eager to get going after being held back for two nights by a gale. Our journey began 22 days ago from Whytecliff Park in West Vancouver with the goal of paddling 1,360 kilometres around the entirety of Vancouver Island. On that first day, it took just a few paddle strokes to pull us from the mainland and slip us away from the isolating constraints of civilization. We were seeking a different, very simple experience—one that embodies hishuk’ish tsawalk, a Nuu-chah-nulth phrase that means “everything is one; we are all connected.” Out on the big saltchuck, our life would boil down to essential elements: three people, the ocean, and the mountains—all inextricably linked via the ancient pulse of the Pacific. Back at Burdwood, we sit on the beach in our kayaks, timing our exit between the closing sets. Amber gets out just fine, gliding over the peaking waves just before they break, but Dave gets nailed by a curler that blows his hat clear off his head. Shooting photos from shore, I slosh over into the surf zone to retrieve his cap before it becomes yet another piece of detritus drifting endlessly in the sea. At our lunch stop on a beach by Kains Point a few days earlier, we’d played an impromptu game of soccer with a KBA (Korean Basketball Association) ball that had floated across from Asia. I see no need to send Dave’s Kokatat cap back across the pond as a trade—it wouldn’t be fair to our overburdened sea. Plus, Dave loves that hat. Leaving the relative shelter of Nootka Sound, our goal for the day is to make it the 45 kilometres around Hesquiat Peninsula, a remote promontory jutting from the centre of the Island’s outer west coast. With swell forecasted to be three metres with moderate winds, 104

the shallow waters along the peninsula are choked with boomers (random, isolated breaking waves over submerged rock outcrops). We stay well out from Estevan Point as we swing into the great wide open and head south. Amber runs into trouble first. We’d been paddling without incident along the north shore to the outermost stretch of the Hesquiat at Escalante Point. From there, we decided to sneak inside what looked like a protected line sheltered by a barrier of reef. Dave and I are slightly ahead and waiting for Amber in the lee of a bus-sized rock. We let a cycle of boomers pass through the gap in front of us before sprinting across to the next sheltered zone. Amber follows, but without stopping to time out her crossing. In the middle of the opening, a beastly wave rears up and breaks, flipping her into a kelp bed that heaves up and down with the breath of the sea. At first, Dave and I are oblivious, assuming she is right behind as we dash into the protected channel. A distant shout of surprise cuts through that illusion and I turn to see Amber capsized and trying to climb into her kayak in the boomer zone. “Is she okay?” Dave hasn’t turned to look, still focused on the water ahead. “Nope…she got flipped!” He spins quickly, waits for another set to roll by then darts across to her. I remain in the relative safety of the lee, keeping lookout. Dave helps Amber back into her boat and tows her in beside me. As she begins pumping water out of her kayak, we realize our

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position is still exposed to the big sets rolling in every five minutes or so. Powering our way to an islet 500 metres away, we pull up onto its sandy shores. With the brunt of the swell deflected, Amber empties the rest of the water from her cockpit as Dave and I stroll across the island to see what lies ahead. The name hesquiat is derived from the language of the local Indigenous Nuu-chah-nulth people, meaning ‘to tear with the teeth’. Though it refers to a technique for stripping herring spawn from eel grass, the name fits today’s conditions perfectly as exploding lines of white foam tear along the reefs of the peninsula as far as the eye can see. “We’re going to have to stay way the hell outside,” I state. “Yup…it’s going to be a long day.” After Amber finishes draining her kayak, we paddle straight out. Even as we reach what should be a safe distance, the swell amplifies again, forcing us ever outward. Bungalow-sized swells rise up so steeply, I’m certain they will break on us at any moment. With my bow teetering over a huge, watery peak, I hold tight, slap down, and zip away on the backside. I hear the thunderclap of the monster wave breaking behind me and glance back to see that the other two are okay and, thankfully, safely outside. I’m antsy to get around this exposed peninsula and into the south side lee as quickly as possible.

In the middle of the opening, a beastly wave rears up and breaks, flipping her into a kelp bed that heaves up and down with the breath of the sea. I paddle on and on, focused on the open sea for the rogue sets that seem to materialize out of nowhere. Suddenly, a warm fishy spray hits my nostrils, a mist of blowhole breath from a pilot whale that submerges in the trough of the swell just as I slide in. This is the connection to the sea we came looking for on this trip, but it’s harder to enjoy it with three-metre rollers rising into ten-metre black-backed behemoths as they crash over nearby Perey reefs with the sound and power of a falling building.

Eventually, I snap out of my trance and turn my kayak sideways to look back for Amber and Dave. There’s no one in sight. Are they hidden in the deep troughs of the swell? Did something happen? The distant Vancouver Island ranges taunt me with the promise of shelter from the liquid mountains rising and falling all around my kayak. “Where did they go?” I feel exposed and alone. “Where the f**k are they?” I don’t know the answer, so I wait. My only companions are groups of storm petrel—small birds floating and occasionally fluttering happily around me, exceedingly content in the turbulent waters. They are pelagic, spending all of their time out in the open ocean except when they go inland to breed. The wild sea is their home, yet they’re still dependent on the sanctuary of the shores for their survival. I envy their ease and comfort in the waves, but even they occasionally require the sanctuary of the land. Still no sign of Amber and Dave. I sit in the seesaw swell for another ten minutes, cursing my partners, cursing myself. I try to shake these negative thoughts and think rationally. Dave is the most expert kayaker I know, and Amber has handled herself admirably in all sorts of tumultuous conditions over the past weeks. They’re fine…and there’s nowhere for them to go but along my line. Anywhere on the inside and they’d be pulverized…I hope they didn’t go inside. Then I see the flash of a carbon paddle on the rolling horizon, and then another as they slowly bob toward me. “We thought we’d lost you,” Dave says with a hint of dismay. Amber rafts up with Dave, a smile on her face. No matter the conditions or how far she gets behind, she always maintains an unconquerable spirit. Earlier in the trip I’d become frustrated with her pace at times—I’m used to just flowing along in my own groove: not fast, but steady—and the day-to-day grind had affected Amber’s speed. Her hands had also fallen apart, blistered all around due to a combination of exposure and wear. But every morning, she diligently taped them up and paddled all day without complaint. I’d come to realize that I’m nowhere near as tough as her, and that I should follow her lead when it comes to attitude. My natural tendency is to separate myself, to isolate rather than be a member of a unit. On a journey like this, a team has to be symbiotic to be successful. It’s a lesson I’ve been too long in learning,

LEFT Dave 'The Bear' Berrisford eyes up one of his kin on the Sunshine Coast. MIDDLE Dave and Frank lounge at lunch on accidental chairs formed by these recently harvested driftwood Sitka spruce. RIGHT The three amigos: Amber, Dave and Frank raft up for a brief respite on day 27.

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stubbornly clinging to the myth of independent strength. Here, finally, all of that dissolves into the ether of the Hesquiat. The ocean around us morphs seamlessly into the temperate rainforests that carpet the mountains. Land and water are interdependent, even though they seem like two distinct worlds. It’s the same with us—we are part of, not apart from, the ecosystem here. Distinct yet intertwined…stronger together than alone. For the rest of the day we stay together, keeping an eye on each other as we creep around the peninsula and the final steamer-strewn reef at Matlahaw Point. I’m relaxed and happy to be working together to get around the seemingly endless outcrop of land. The deeper we move into the lee of the point, the more the seas calm, and soon we’re cruising over shallow, glassy waters past sea otters lolling casually on their backs. We pull into a broad, half-moon sand beach and make a kitchen area in the driftwood, setting up our tents in the snug shelter of the rainforest backdrop. Not far from camp, we find the intact skeletal remains of a sea lion washed up from the ocean and picked clean by terrestrial

scavengers like the lank, matted wolf we see trotting down our shoreline that misty evening. Death and life are connected here in the perpetual cycle between land and sea. All things come to an end, and this expedition with my two friends would soon be over.

Suddenly, a warm fishy spray hits my nostrils, a mist of blowhole breath from a pilot whale that submerges in the trough of the swell just as I slide in. That night around the fire, we savour the vastness of the ocean on one side and the dense forest on the other. We celebrate our 38day journey together out there in that fleeting dream—the wildness of it all— the energy and power that flows unimpeded through the mountains, the ocean, and every living being that calls the West Coast home.

ABOVE (L to R) Sea Lions at the mouth of Jervis Inlet. A chair washed ashore in Clayoquot Sound. Life (and death) on the edge of the continent. BELOW A serene evening on Bear Beach, Juan de Fuca trail.

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www.grangerscanada.ca

www.darntough.ca

GALLERY

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Dennis Beare and Max Bitel, Hope, BC.

REUBEN KRABBE

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Braeden Hitchcock, Denis Courchesne, Lucia Pastorekova and Greg Reynolds, Kamloops.

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MARK MCKAY

Logan Dobson, Squamish/Skwxwú7mesh.

ANATOLE TUZLAK

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Brett Rheeder, Squamish/Skwxwú7mesh.

MASON MASHON

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Stephanie Hart, on Flight of the Goomba 5.11, Squamish/Skwxwú7mesh.

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KYLE SMITH

Andrea Byrne, Duffey Lake Road.

lIanna Barkusky

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Michael Darling, Vancouver Island.

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MARCUS PALADINO

THE RAVEN SERIES Art by Stu MacKay-Smith

WWW.MOUNTAINLIFEMEDIA.CA/STORE

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1. Rain or shine, they call it the great outdoors for a reason. Zip up for trail and travel in the WOMEN’S BURTON VERIDRY 2.5L RAIN JACKET and prepare to take whatever Mother Nature delivers. Fully waterproof and breathable, this jacket is loaded with convenient features like a chest pocket to easily access the internal mesh pocket through the shell, and the whole jacket stuffs into its own pocket for easy packing. A jacket worthy of adventure that’s totally at ease in the city too. www.burton.com // 2. Keep it comfy and cozy around the campfire. Made in Canada from 100 per cent organic cotton, the white CAMP CREWNECK SWEATER is designed for lightweight warmth and breathability, with a relaxed unisex fit for comfort and ease on those summer night adventures. Comfort is key (but style counts too). www.camplifestyle.ca // 3. The magic of the YETI HOPPER M30 SOFT COOLER is in the magnets. Equipped with a super-strong magnetic strip, the M30 seals nice and tight to keep the cold in. Coolers are any summer’s must-have piece of gear, and the M30 ups the ante by making the toughest, most durable soft cooler on the planet. Take this bold new color (inspired by the mountaineering community) anywhere and keep your crew hydrated and happy. www.yeti.ca // 4. Tallboy, the featured artist for this TROY LEE ARTIST SERIES AIR GLOVE, is known for his bold, colorful graphics that have appeared on t-shirts, skateboards, murals and more. Tallboy’s wild graphic style integrated with this classic grippy, breathable glove made this collaboration a no-brainer. Functional and badass. www.troyleedesigns.ca // 5. Go hard, go fast, and go wherever you want on the 2023 HUSQVARNA MOTORCYCLES TE 300—a machine with a world championship-winning pedigree. This lightweight model features proven electronic fuel injection for smooth, controllable power and impressive torque. New dark blue and electric yellow graphics, inspired by the Swedish heritage of the brand, underline the continued evolution of the TE 300 and create a truly distinctive look on the trails. www.nolimitsmotorsports.com // 6. Heading to Pemby with your pals? Take a JACK WOLFSKIN LAKESIDE ROLL-UP SHIRT to ensure mosquitoes (or a sunburn) won’t spoil your paddle on the lake. Built from a kind-to-skin fabric with a velvety-soft feel, the roll-up sleeves on this shirt are key for those days when Pemby is eight degrees hotter than Whistler (aka: almost always). Available in Deep Sea and Sand colours. www.jackwolfskin.com

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Experience World Class Fly Fishing in SQUAMISH - WHISTLER - PEMBERTON

valleyfishingguides @valleyfishing valleyfishing

www.valleyfishing.com www.helifishing.com

ISHING G YF

ES UID

VALL E

BOOK NOW: 604-938-4458

CANADA

PROFESSIONAL GUIDES TOP QUALITY EQUIPMENT LOCALLY OWNED AND OPERATED SINCE 2000

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7. Shield yourself from the elements with the PRO CHANGE ROBE EVO FROM RED EQUIPMENT. Built for performance, the waterproof and breathable outer shell keeps rain out, whilst the super soft and cozy inner fleece lining locks warmth in and wicks moisture away. Dependable in all elements and perfect for adventures year-round. www.red-equipment.ca // 8. Take any lake, ocean or river and turn a day or two into an adventure with the VOYAGER TOURING PADDLEBOARDS FROM RED PADDLE CO. Stable, fast, light, and durable, the boards are available in three sizes to cover any paddler and any water for short or long trips. These paddleboards are the best exploring boards we’ve seen. Visit the Escape Route in Whistler or Squamish and check them out for yourself. www.escaperoute.ca // 9. Discover and map your next mountain adventure with FATMAP. Explore a detailed global 3D map to plan, track and share your adventures. Make informed decisions with gradient, aspect and elevation overlays and download maps to your phone for offline use. Get inspiration with local routes and guidebooks curated by mountain experts. FATMAP, the backup plan in your pocket. www.fatmap.com // 10. Stay comfortable and dry while paddling no matter what the weather in the MUSTANG SURVIVAL TAKU DRY SYSTEM. With 3L Marinespec SP fabric creating exceptional waterproof and breathable performance, the top features Velcro® adjustments on wrists and neoprene hem and an extended skirt for kayak compatibility. The bib is reinforced in the seat, knees, and socks with 500D Cordura for dependable durability. www.mustangsurvival.ca // 11. The RUX mission is to boost the flow and freedom of outdoor adventure by creating systems that make organizing, storing, and moving gear fun, fast, and cool. The RUX 70L is a compressible, weatherproof gear management solution with a wide rigid opening for easy access, a secure tri-fold lid, modular straps for easy carry, and a component-based design for a wide variety of adventures. www.rux.life // 12. Made for the trails or the town, the SALEWA WILDFIRE LEATHER SHOE offers supreme comfort, stability, and durability—all in one sleek suede leather design. Beyond exceptional performance, this hiker also meets ethical production and material standards to minimize environmental impact. Look good and feel good in your new everyday approach shoe. www.salewa.com

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13. Wearable 365 days a year, the PEAK PERFORMANCE VISLIGHT GORE-TEX PRO JACKET ensures long-lasting protection, even in the most extreme conditions. It’s light and breathable enough to use in the summertime, yet durable enough to handle climbing and skiing in cold weather. Packable into its hood, this is the ideal garment for overnight hikes. www.peakperformance.com // 14. The YETI TUNDRA COOLER is our pick for adventures big and small. These burly coolers are built to last, keeping ice frozen for days and handling the roughest conditions. We love the lockable lid, which makes it bearproof, and the tie-down points to easily attach it to a truck bed, trailer, or boat. Come check out the Tundra at the EVO shop in Whistler Village. www.evo.com // 15. The NORTH FACE FLIGHT VECTIV™ are light, fast, and responsive trail shoes made for high performance over long distances. Designed with input from our athlete team, these shoes are built to optimize energy return and reduce downhill tibial impact by ten per cent to propel you toward your running goals. Available at www.thenortheface.com // 16. The FOX RACING MAINFRAME MIPS™ HELMET gives you proven safety features combined with easy trail steez. Featuring extended coverage to protect more of your noggin', the proven MIPS™ impact protection will keep your brain safe in the event of a crash by absorbing and redirecting energies and forces that could otherwise cause damage. With a lightweight fit system, the helmet will also keep you cool, with a removable moisture-wicking liner you can whip out and wash. www.foxracing.ca // 17. Get out there for as long as you want, and bring (almost) whatever you want with the OSPREY STRATOS 50L EXPEDITION BACKPACK. Designed for serious hikers, with top-notch fit and ventilation in a rugged design, this pack also features torso length adjustments to help you dial in comfort. All the while, a tensioned mesh AirSpeed back panel keeps the sweat-fest away. This pack can handle it all, and more. www.osprey.com // 18. Adventure is calling, and one jacket will take you all the way. Versatile and durable, the HELLY HANSEN ODIN 9 WORLDS INFINITY SHELL brings a watershed tech upgrade to an award-winning three-layer shell jacket. Featuring an extremely waterproof/breathable LIFA INFINITY™ membrane engineered to give you everlasting water repellent performance without the use of chemicals—a win for the wearer and the environment. www.hellyhansen.com

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Injury Claims:

Immigration Law

Family Law

Minor/Major Injuries Slip and Falls Wrongful Death Claims

Business & Personal Law: Immigration Incorporations Real Estate Development Buying/Selling a Property Buying/Selling a Business Wills & Estates Family Law

Laura Schemitsch, B.A. (Hons.), M.A., J.D. (she/her)

Karin Emond, BHK, LLB, (she/her)

Race & Company LLP has been proudly serving the Sea to Sky and our worldwide clientele with local knowledge and proven integrity since 1973. Our 35+ lawyers and staff are dedicated members of the community, providing volunteer time and expertise to a variety of local charities and organizations.

Nesters Market makes it easier to be healthy

with a full juice bar, a complete pharmacy with on-staff pharmacist, natural remedies,

local products, fresh fruits and vegetables. Come visit our Whistler and Squamish locations!

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TJ Rogers, cosmic.

Safety Third.

The Badass Issue drops November 2022.

LIVE IT UP

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SCOTT SERFAS

ir a n ope

Your adventure awaits Ziptrek Ecotours hosts a selection of breathtaking zipline tours. Our wilderness adventure area is located directly above Whistler Village, in the spectacular temperate rainforest valley between Whistler and Blackcomb Mountains.

Discover eco-exhilaration®

ziptrek.com 604.935.0001

Mountain Life – Coast Mountains - Summer 2022

Articles inside

SYMBIOSIS

BEYOND

EDITOR’S MESSAGE

FLOWRIDERS

WISDOM OF THE WATCHMEN

CLIMATE

BACKYARD

JUST THE TIP

ENJOY THE RIDE

OCEAN