TRAIL MIX
CURATED BRAIN SNACKS FROM A LOCAL EXPERT THIS ISSUE’S TRAIL MIXER: JOANNA CROSTON Joanna Croston is director of the Banff Mountain Film Festival World Tour, and has lived in the Canadian Rockies for more than 20 years. She’s a closet poet, book geek, wannabe birder—and if she could find a way to do all these things on skis, that would be her dream life.
COVER TO COVER Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer, 2013, Milkweed Editions. Braiding Sweetgrass is a transformational read, taking you deep into the millennia-old relationship between plants and humans. It is a book full of wisdom and personal anecdotes of Kimmerer’s experiences as a trained scientist with Indigenous heritage. The author grapples with the dichotomy of belief systems daily. How do you engage in the scientific method, and embrace Indigenous creation stories? How do you maintain sustainable relationships with the land, and live in a modern world which focuses on scientific fact? Kimmerer never tells us the answers, rather she lets the reader discover their own possibilities.
The Environmentalist’s Dilemma; Promise and Peril in an Age of Climate Crisis, Arno Kopecky, 2021, ECW Press Kopecky’s latest book is a rant of sorts, firmly nestled in the angst of a pandemic—but it’s the best kind of rant. It reminds us that we’re not alone fumbling through an attempted environmentallyethical lifestyle when there’s so much happening in the world, most of which feels beyond our control. This sounds like a heavy read, but the beauty of Kopecky’s writing makes these difficult conversations accessible. His words are concise and well-researched and quite funny on occasion, despite the gravity of the topic. By the end of The Environmentalist’s Dilemma, I felt both optimistic and energized to act.
GIVE THEM A FOLLOW
TUNE IN
Fave Podcast – This is Love hosted by Phoebe Judge The second episode of This is Love describes a kind of insane event regarding an ocean swimmer and a whale, and if you only listen to one, make it Something Large and Wild—it literally had me sobbing with pain and joy simultaneously. Episode 39: Can I speak to David? is another favourite—spoiler alert, let’s just say it involves David Lee Roth. How can you go wrong talking about something everyone could use a bit more of? Love, that is. thisislovepodcast.com/episodes
Mountain music – Nurdjana de Rijcke has an incredible voice, and an indescribable depth to her sound—sultry, jazzy and rich but also light and playful. Nurdjana is revitalizing songs written by her father, and adding new ones and her own stylistic spin on these beautiful tracks. She keeps dropping singles that make me stop what I’m doing immediately and listen. Her new EP is coming out June 14 and I’m definitely waiting with bated breath. nurdjana.com
@ruby_tooth is a Banff artist with a knack for pairing wild with domestic and, through the style of the “old masters”, makes everything both classic but racy and ultracontemporary. My favourite painting: Ground Squirrel with Badger Hair Shaving Brush. The self-deprecating style of outdoor writer and filmmaker Brendan Leonard, @semi_rad, has me cracking up daily with his ridiculous, nonsensical infographics. Example: the Doing Shit bar graph where progress is inversely related to time and measured with two elements on the x-axis, “doing shit” and “saying you’re gonna do some shit”. That’s some funny, useless information, yo. 63
