Vote to Send Whistler’s Lifers Heliskiing
I’ve worked with most of the photographers who entered Whistler Blackcomb’s Deep Winter Photo Challenge and like and respect them all. So I wasn’t going to vote in the People’s Choice for Deep Winter. I hate giving my email to enter random contests. Everyone put on amazing shows. I was happy that Robin O’Neill won, because she blazed such a trail through my heart last year as the first she-photographer ever invited to compete. I had closure. I didn’t need to engage any further.
But when I chatted to Robin O’Neill yesterday, she told me that she’s just trailing behind Mason Mashon in the People’s Choice contest with one week of voting left, and she’s really hoping to win.
So she can take her athletes heliskiing.
I know Mason put his heart on the line too. And I’m sure he and his crew would love a day of heliskiing too.
But the Voleurz crew have, inshallah, next year.
Robin’s athletes are all over 75 years old. And they’re the people who built Whistler. Werner Himmelsbach. Peter Alder. Trudy Alder. Peter Morin. Betty Vogler.
So I voted. And I’m saying, why don’t you vote too? Send Karl Ricker heliskiing. How freaking cool.
Much as I love that any of the teams have a shot at a day heliskiing – they all deserve the playday, after putting on such great shows – I get goosebumps thinking about those grey-haired Lifers, who have devoted their entire lives to this place, all hustling out of a helicopter, standing on top of a perfect peak as the bird flies away… with a pristine field of pow unrolling before them.
So that’s my pitch.
The best argument of all comes from an email Robin received on Monday:
Having just got back from possibly my last downhill trip – thinking of giving it up due to age – I am re-invigorated by the dignified photos of elders. Your work was inspiring and I am thinking of maybe another trip this season – two trips in a season, I haven’t done that in 10 years
At some point in our lives, we are no longer in the realm of ticking firsts… We start inhabiting a place where each trip, each adventure, each farewell, could be our last. A different kind of pioneering mentality is required. And that’s something to honour.
Trailblazing is what these elders of ours have done. I’d like to pay a little something back.
If you feel the same way, vote here.
Deep Winter VI, the recap
UPDATE Jan 17, Robin O’Neill’s winning show:
Robin O’Neill – Deep Winter 2012 Winning Slideshow from Robin O'Neill on Vimeo.
On timing. (In which we argue that Deep Winter 2012 was a display of both exquisitely good and bad timing.)
Deep Winter Photo Challenge returned last night, the cultural highlight of the New Year.
It couldn’t have come at a better time, socially. We’ve recovered from the onslaught of Christmas parties, we’ve shaken off the New Year hangover, we’ve officially ditched the resolutions to be better people, to get drunk less.
It could have come at a better time, snowcially. Like now… with flurries forecast all week, 10-20cm expected on Thursday and 40-90cm expected by the middle of next week. It might have been the most un-deep winter week ever. But Robin O’Neill was too tired to even contemplate the hypothetical offer on the table, to go back in time and reschedule for a different weather window, when compere Feet Banks offered to play Wizard.
Feet: “Would you rather we push back the event to next week so you can get all that snow in the forecast?”
Robin: “No. Too. Tired.”
"Big Night", photo by Jussi Grznar
On microphone management. (In which we argue that Feet Banks is the host-with-the-most, and we hope he went home with an Arc’teryx jacket for keepsies.)
My vote for best performance of the night goes to Feet Banks, emcee extraordinaire, for his sartorial class (vest and bow tie, quite the wardrobe upgrade since he debuted as host of the 72 Hour Filmmaker Showdown in his skivvies), his microphone management and commitment to keeping the show moving (“we’re just going to give you a second to all get off the stage and then we’ll roll tape”), his willingness to go woo-woo for a minute so we could send some white light to Sarah Burke and Rory Bushfield, and his quicker-than-a-40-year-old-virgin’s-orgasm wit. (“Did you bring the short guy into the mix so the snow would look deeper?”)
(Give the dude an Arc’teryx jacket. It’s hard to throw love all night to the sponsors, and not get any warm fuzzy affection back. I’ve got an idea, Feet. Ask Robin for a jacket. I think she might have a few extra…)
On being bold. (In which we commend the photographers for having the cajones to enter the Deep Winter challenge and for inspiring and entertaining us.)
The stakes of this contest seem to have gotten so high that more established photographers are demurring the invitation to compete. All the more reason to give a shout-out to the six photographers who took up the challenge: Reuben Krabbe, Steve Lloyd, Mark Gribbon, Mason Mashon, Jussi Grznar and Robin O’Neill.
As Vince Shuley tweeted: “way to make hard snow look good.”
Their shows did not disappoint, although the line-up of fresh faces did come with a less intense, angsty vibe than last year‘s Deep Winter Photo Challenge, when Robin O’Neill stepped up for mountain women everywhere, competing alongside Blake Jorgenson, Ilja Herb, John Scarth, Tim Zimmerman and Andrew Strain.
Child prodigy, Reuben Krabbe, who has his sights set on breaking Jordan Manley’s “youngest photographer ever to win the Pro Photographer Showdown”, made an impressive debut, (ultimately coming in 3rd AND taking Best Photo) with an action-packed show jammed with “banger shots” captured with the help of Dan and Dave Treadway.
Utah native Steve Lloyd brought the fresh eyes of an outsider to the game – reminding us not to overlook the everyday beauty of the Canadian flags lined up at the top of Whistler gondy. Mark Gribbon brought the snowboarders into play. Mason Mashon (who proves his version of “lifestyle” means not taking your ADHD meds: “okay, we rode bikes to the hill, we’ve been skiing all day, who wants to go skate on the frozen pond?”) landed a shot of rime-encrusted bikes in the back of a pick-up truck that might be the Best Most Unlikely Cover for Bike Magazine.
2012 Deep Winter Photo Challenge. Day 2 with Mason Mashon from UnofficialNetworks.com on Vimeo.
Jussi Grznar put together an emotive show that started in bed and came full-circle for a 2nd place finish… And what says “and they all lived happily ever after” more powerfully than a guy and girl spooning in bed, with the dog booted to its rightful place on the floor.
But Robin O’Neill’s storytelling about Lifers was the most powerful. With stark portraiture, a few recurring motifs (back-to-back shots that pulled from shallow focus to long focus to tell instantaneous stories about movement and perspective, and triptychs that would fall away to reveal one full frame), and a confident delivery, O’Neill ((#robinneedstwitter) follows her Deep Summer win, deserving her title as All-Season Queen of the Lens.
On the Zeitgeist. (In which we try and read the tea-leaves.)
This year, there seemed to be more love in the air. (Is this a Zeitgeist thing?) There was more ice-skating than Deep Winter has ever seen. We also saw a preoccupation with injury, with the physical and emotional toll that a dedication to the mountains can exact. We saw bigger vistas, that only a stormless Deep Winter week can offer. We saw athletes working incredibly hard and bagging some stellar action shots. And we saw that what makes a photographer a cut above is more than technical proficiency and an eye for a well-composed shot, but the ability to create a mood, even without the moodiness of a storm.
On hard work. (In which we note the concentration of talented passionate hard-working people who make this place, as they say over at WIA, awesome.)
So here’s to hard-working mountain-loving people of Deep Winter. To the marketing and PR peeps at Whistler Blackcomb who work their asses off to come up with fresh and creative ways to engage people with the WB community, to bring people here, to represent this place as authentically as possible. To the athletes who, judging from the recurrence of images shot at the physiotherapist, are pushing themselves to the very edge. To the photographers who are brave enough to step up and showcase their work. (In a 72 hour time frame, the deadline bears down on you so hard, you don’t have time to think, to censor yourself, to second guess. Your naked work is up on the big screen.) So kudos to you all. Thanks for a great night.
How to Make Something Awesome: Lessons on the Creative Process
I posted this 3 months ago at the Origin Design and Communications’ blog, but I’m still marinating in this easy 5 step process on how to make something awesome, as gleaned for a feature I wrote for SBC Skier from a one-on-one with Sherpas Cinema’s Dave Mossop.
All.I.Can. Official Teaser from Sherpas Cinema on Vimeo.
1. Don’t be afraid of a big idea.
Creating a ski film with a theme has been one of the hugest challenges of my life. The chapters and segments in All.I.Can are loosely based on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs – his theory provides quite a palatable explanation of the building blocks and stages necessary for a person to reach “self-actualization” or reach their full potential. In the case of our environment, we are interested in humanity as a whole reaching actualization, and in turn, a balanced sustainable existence.
2. Commit yourself, boldly and publicly.
Dropping the trailer for All.I.Can last summer was kind of like Evil Knievel holding a press conference and saying, “Next year, I’m going to jump 150 cars in my underwear”. Half a million people have seen it. It’s being studied in film school. It’s a piece of art, in and of itself. But it’s also a promise and a contract with 500,000 people, to deliver. You can’t get more accountable than that.
It’s been the most intense year of my life, and though I signed up for this epic quest, I never dreamed there would be such an enormous following. It’s awesome, but yes, the pressure can often be overwhelming – we are just regular dudes after all.
3. Give yourself a deadline. That you must meet. Or suffer public humiliation.
That would be the September 15 screening in Montreal at IF3 – the International Freeski Film Festival, followed by the world premiere in Whistleron September 23.
4. Trust your obsessions. (That would be time–lapse, I’m guessing?)
5. Make the process as fun as possible. Explore a question you are passionate and curious about. Take the dream trips for your research and shooting. Work with people you love and admire and have a blast hanging out with.
Single best moment of the past 2 years? That’s impossible to say, but my birthday party at 10,000ft on the Freshfields Icefields pops to mind. Next day, not so much.
6. Be disciplined and dig in for the hard yards.
As Scott Belsky, founder of Behance says, great work is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.
And perspiration looks like this:
Mitchell Scott, (June 13): So how many hours of work left until we get to that day, September 23?
Dave Mossop: Whatever the days are between now and then, times 24 hours a day, plus about 300 hours, that we’ll manage to squeeze in there somehow.
You can order the film on DVD or Blu-Ray, here. Or download it on iTunes, here.
Poem a Day: the continuing case for a daily practice. Even if you suck.
A few years ago, as a New Year’s resolution, I decided to write one poem a day.
I was inspired by my grandfather, who, at 92, would jot down a few notes every day in his dayplanner about what had happened that day, even though from where anybody else was sitting not much was happening at all.
Still, it was a practice that helped him differentiate one day from the next.
The motivation was cured further over dinner with my partner’s grandmother. In her late 80s, she confessed that she regretted not keeping a journal. “You forget so much,” she said. The days all blur into one, she said, unless you make an effort to identify one true thing that makes today different from yesterday. “They just slip away so quickly.”
And in a way, that’s what the poem-a-day was. A word-Polaroid. A dated snapshot. An attempt to harness the velocity of this life, and if not to actually slow it down, to keep pace.
Some days, some weeks, I was swept up in the current of life and the notebook didn’t float. But I kept returning to it.
This year, I recommitted to the poem-a-day project. I dropped $55 on an A4 Moleksine notebook, so the dated page (and the audaciously expensive paper) would hold me accountable.
Today is December 31, and I close the book. I have written 365 ordinary poems.
I might have to write a thousand, in order to write one truly brilliant one (like strange and shining poets I stumble upon.)
But even if I never manage to write a poem that shines, and even if I never sit down at the age of 80-something and follow the trail of crumbs that leads back through all my days, to this new 2012 notebook, all fresh pages and promise, the exercise has allowed me to look at each day of my life as if there is something brilliant worth plucking out, burnishing down to a handful of words and holding up to the light.
The case for a Daily Practice
I get the new hygienist at my 6 monthly check-up.
After ten years as a ski-bum, finally having dental benefits means I vaguely dread these appointments – there’s belated penance to be paid for sins of omission and neglect. And the new hygienist, though young and capable, is brusque enough to be a little Scary. Not to mention the sharp instruments she wields.
“Do you scrub when you brush your teeth?” she asks.
“Ummm…” (Is there any point in denying this?)
“Imagine scrubbing the skin on the back of your hand really hard. You’d scrub it raw. That’s what you’re doing to do your teeth.”
“So you’re telling me I can’t brush twice as hard for half as long?”
“No shortcuts,” she smiles. “Sing Happy Birthday. Brush for the whole song. Gently.”
Be gentle with yourself. Take the time it takes.
This has been the story of my 2011. Repeated so often and coming at me in so many different ways (in yoga class, in the dentist chair, in the garden, on my bike, building a trail, at the shooting range, in bed with the flu) that I expect they’re going to take my “gifted” card back. *Sorry, we didn’t realise how dense you would turn out to be when we gave this to six-year-old-You.
My constitutional density has turned me into an advocate for a Daily Practice.
It is why I love my friend, the Manifestly Un-Dense Julia McCabe for her Art of Discipline yoga immersions - for not only committing to a personal 6am practice of 2 hours of yoga a day, but for cajoling a class full of sleepy-eyed students to the mat with her.
And it is why I keep checking in on my (also Not Dense) friend Rory Tucker with his Photo a Day project. His curiosity to discover his recurring themes and obsessions has taught me that it is okay to revisit the same things over and over, that sometimes, that return is what it takes for things to sink really deep.
Year Forty One. Photos by Rory Tucker
A daily practice is like standing in the stream of time trying to catch a fish with your bare hands. You’re rarely successful, and you miss far more than you touch, but you really really notice everything… including the strength of the current, the temperature fluctuations in the water, the close calls and near misses, the muscular sashay of the fish, the occasional bird-shadow that will suddenly block the sun.
It is attunement by full immersion.
So I recommit to another year of practice: 30 minutes of yoga, a daily poem, and flossing. Even when I don’t feel like it. Especially then.
Because I owe it to my future self. Not the clean teeth or the memory book or even the opened hips, (which my future self quite desperately wants.)
I want to give myself the power of a habit. The unbroken chain of a daily practice, freed of the burden of back-sliding to zero. Starting over is the hardest thing. It’s so much gentler just to do it every day. And let it take the time it takes.
Last night for Whistler’s Late Night Alternatives?
On Friday night, I ducked away early from a Christmas cocktail party, sucked my breath in at the cold, and hiked over to Muni Hall to present a seminar on media relations to the last ever class of interns to take LUNA’s remarkable Community Event Coordination training certificate program.
LUNA’s CEC certificate is a perfect case study in sustainable operations and innovative social programing. A $55,000 municipal budget line-item is stretched like a magic bean into incredible low-cost programming offered all year long to Whistler’s most under-served population, the seasonal young adult workers that staff the town’s engine-rooms. It works thanks to a core group of ‘interns’ who are accepted into the program each year to learn events management in the most hands-on way, graduating from the program only once they have produced their own event. Given the economic importance of events to Whistler, it’s an incredible in-community training program braintrusted and run by the quiet creative talent, Kiran Pal-Pross.
Over the 7 years the program has run, that annual investment has yielded 51 graduates, 6000 volunteer hours, and over 250 events (including the iconic LUNAFliks), attended by 15,000 young adults. According to LUNA’s website, the program has contributed to a 20% reduction in alcohol-related calls to the RCMP. That’s a pretty good ROI.
“We proudly advertise and promote LUNA as a best practice.”
Norm McPhail, Officer In Charge, Sea to Sky Regional Police Services for the RCMP
After attending my first LUNAflik this summer, and connecting with the smart dedicated women who are LUNA’s last ever interns, I have come to believe that LUNA’s Community Event Coordination program is one of the most remarkable innovations to have come out of Whistler in the last decade. It also offers a wealth of talent and creative thinking that Whistler’s tired [sic]-and-true events sector desperately needs a dose of.
Alas, bureacratic bean-counters don’t share my enthusiasm. They have identified LUNA (as well as the under-attended Youth Centre) as programs that are beyond the core services of a municipality. I’m guessing that the cost of hiring one single By-Law officer, should additional policing of the muni’s liquor laws be needed as this programming disappears, would be approximately $55,000, so the “savings” seems like dodgy math to me.
$127,500 will be saved in 2012 by reducing youth services from the youth centre and LUNA, according to the report.
That means 10% of the $1.2 million cuts recommended come from reducing services to the young (non-voting) residents of the community, the ones, let’s face it, least likely to call up their elected representatives and say, don’t take our programming away!
This year’s class of LUNA interns has shrunk down to just three keeners, hanging on despite the fact that municipal budget cuts will end the program prematurely, so that there’s no chance for them to graduate with the certificate.
They will rally for LUNA’s grand finale event, Hockey 101, on December 30. And then, an incredible social experiment will come to an end.
Best Segment in a Ski Movie – Behind the Scenes of All.I.Can’s street segment with JP Auclair
JP Auclair Street Segment (from All.I.Can.) from Sherpas Cinema on Vimeo.
Sherpas Cinema’s All.I.Can has been winning serious props since its premiere in the fall, but one segment of the film is making a profound impression. JP Auclair’s urban skiing sequence, shot in Rossland, Trail and Nelson BC, received more than 200,000 hits in 48 hours when it was released online.
Which makes me wonder about instant karma. Here’s a few things I discovered when I interviewed JP for this story on the Sherpas for SBC Skier magazine that suggest guy has a pretty solid credit rating with the bank of Good Attitude.
1. He taught himself to edit, so he’d have better control over his stuff. He didn’t want to be that athlete walking out of the screening, bitter, because the segment that he had put his heart, soul and body on the line for, was disappointing.
It’s really hard for the production company to keep track of everyone, especially in a 2 year project, things get lost. So one year, 2003, I think, I decided, ‘I am going to go edit my part.’ I learned the software so I’d understand the whole editing part and wouldn’t annoy the editors knowing nothing, and then I asked Poor Bpyz to send me all my footage for editing to learn on. Next thing I knew, I had a finished product, because it’s super fun to edit. My philosophy has always been, don’t bitch if you didn’t work hard.
2. He got his part because he lived next door to the Sherpas in Whistler one summer. (Casting call happened in the backyard.)
I met the Sherpas last year on this cat ski trip with Fresh Sports Calgary. Mica had hired Dave to shoot it. One night we all started talking about the environment and the movie and I just thought it was a great project. By coincidence, we met again in Alaska. I was still shooting for PoorBoyz, but all my crew had burned out and left, so I was by myself. Chad Sayers got hurt on their first day, they were looking to fill a seat on the helicopter and I was looking for people to ski with and film, so we agreed to trade. Then, last summer I was working on a PoorBoyz segment, next door to Dave’s house. He was cutting the teaser for All.I.Can and wanted to revist the dialogue we’d had at Mica, the whole “do more, not less” thing that I’m pretty passionate about. It had resonated for Dave and he wanted to include it in the trailer.
3. He can’t fake it.
I’ve had to find new ways to get inspired, because ‘ski-porn’ can get old. I don’t really work until I find something that drives me, and this film, I was like, oh my god, I’ve got to be part of this. Dave had seen my urban segment for Revolver and was like, you’ve got to be that guy for my movie. I was like, no way. I didn’t have the drive to do that. No way, I’m finished with that. But I thought about it later on, and thought, if it’s Dave, he probably has got some insane thing in mind and I can’t pass on that. He wants to do what I do, so I was like, okay, let’s try and do something.
4. Complete strangers trust him.
We’d knock on people’s doors because we were in their backyards, jumpbing over their cars. We’d feel like little kids, “uh, can we build a jump in your backyward?” One lady, we asked, “Can we jump on your driveway?” Dave was like, “I swear, he’s really good, he won’t land on the car.”
5. He starts things, because risk-taking and passion are part of the make-up of mountain people.
Auclair helped launch the 1080 ski for Salomon in 1998, founded Armada skis in 2002, and founded Alpine Initiatives in 2008.
Our whole take at Alpine Initiatives is you can’t really have a healthy environment without having healthy commmunities, and vice versa. It’s about trying to make the snowsport community stronger, so we can reach out and embrace the global community and people who are wanting to uplift their own community, no matter where in the world they are. We call ourselves mountain lovers, winter enthusiasts, people who love to explore, have drive and passion, risk taking people, and that can make a community really dynamic. We all get our inspiration pretty much from being in the mountains and hanging out with beauty, basically. If we had the resources we wanted, we’d be all around the world. But we’re super committed to doing every project really well and not having loose ends.
All of which makes me think, JP Auclair deserves every “like” he gets.
Skiing The Edge – presenting the best feature ski writing of 2011
Skiing The Edge is now available for download on amazon.com and via iTunes.
Deploy today’s coffee budget in favour of story! Just $3.99.
In July, Dave Fonda invited me to judge awards recognising the best feature ski writing of the year.
I said yes because:
- he promised me a coffee mug,
- he also promised there would be no more than ten entries,
- finally, he promised to buy me several fine microbrews if I go skiing in Quebec and I like being owed beer by quality people in groovy locations around the world.
(I subsequently found out he’s in advertising. Tread carefully when being seduced by a professional copywriter.)
I also agreed because:
4. my ego voted YEA, inflating immediately at the prospect, and
5. it seemed like the perfect way to settle in with a glass of wine and the best published ski writing of the year, to learn a thing or two about the craft of narrative, ski and lifestyle journalism, which is kinda my thing.
As it turned out, the best ski writing isn’t getting published.
Whatever is happening out there in Media Land is shrivelling up the market for long form work, and the world of ski storytelling is no different. So what began as a full body immersion in the best ski writing of the year became a glimpse at the declining opportunities for ski writers to tell stories beyond schilling resorts in buffed up service pieces masquerading as features.
Chapter Two. Fast forward to October. Another email pings into the in-box. Jules Older, my one-time editor of the now defunct Ski Press has an idea. (The four most thrilling and dangerous words in the English language: I have an idea.)
Jules has not taken the demise of print lightly. He took to hanging around the Apple store in San Fran, taking free seminars in shooting and editing video, he wrote an app reviewing San Francisco restaurants, and began to maintain an informal e-newsletter connecting an A-list of writers and journalists. Still a reliable arbiter of topnotch work, Jules was receiving (in addition to the bad jokes and tales of woe from his circle of Jokers) the occasional long-form email, outpourings and ventings from long-form journalists with no real forum left.
The trigger event: an email from Gerry Wingenbach, author of the 100 Best Ski Resorts in the World, veteran journalist and disenchanted correspondent with Outside magazine’s Away blog, about spending a night in the Whistler jailhouse.
Jules now had 3 killer stories cooking up his in-box – stories that hadn’t otherwise seen the light of day and had no real prospect of airing.
So he embraced the first tenet of the e-revolution: DO IT YOURSELF.
“Thinkin’ bout an ebook,” went his email. “Are you in?”
20 writers, whose names you’d recognise if you’ve picked up a ski magazine any time in the last decade, said yes.
Leslie Anthony, Michel Beaudry, Michael Finkel, Dave Fonda, David Goodman, Beth Jahnigen, Lori Knowles, Steven Kotler, Skip King, GD Maxwell, Moira McCarthy, Roger Moss, Effin Older, Peggy Shinn, Roger Toll, Kristen Ulmer, Jenn Weede, Gerry Wingenbach, and me.
Skiing The Edge, the collection of tall tales and true does for ski writing what #longreads is doing for long form journalism, what Utne Reader is doing for the alternative press, what Dave Eggers is doing for contemporary writing with his annual Best American Non Required Reading – it culls through all the bullshit and hands you the good stuff on a silver platter. Compiled and edited by a pro, it compiles the best stuff you’ll be glad to sit down with, sometime this winter, with a steaming mug of cocoa/gluhwein/french-pressed coffee in one hand, and your e-reader in the other. (Which I am about to do. With a special sneak preview. To finally immerse myself in the best ski feature writing of 2011.)
Skiing The Edge will be available on 1 December, for less than the price of a ski magazine (or a latte in a ski town.) $3.99. But it will be juicier. Way way juicier. So plan to take a bite. And rediscover what you’ve been missing.
The Pemberton Interview project
It’s not quite as weird as David Lynch (but then, who is?), but Choose Pemberton, which launched 18 months ago, was my own version of The Interview Project.
Officially, it was the content command centre for a summer campaign geared at promoting Pemberton.
Unofficially, it was a chance to ask local people, the ones who don’t sit on the sidelines and rattle their fists, but who roll up their sleeves and jump into the business of growing, making, moving and shaking, what inspires them.
At almost 15,000 hits, 74 posts and more than 30 profiles, the end of the year and the onset of winter seemed a good time to wander back through the archives and revisit the 5 most popular interviews so far.
1. Handcrafted food for the People! Western Promises Food Promises A Revolution of Taste.
Western Promises celebrated its one year anniversary this November as quietly as it opened, but its fans aren’t known to be too shy about shouting their praises for the funky little restaurant. One lunch, a customer left with a shout-out to the kitchen, “Thanks, Michael. My mouth just had an orgasm.”
Michael Guy’s passion for hard-working food shines through in every bite. But I loved his commitment to his adopted home the most:
“Why Pemberton? There is no place I would rather be…in 50 years I hope to have my last breath somewhere here staring at the mountains and thinking about what a decent life I’ve had.”
2. Laying hands at Kula Wellness Centre.
When Percy Abraham and Corinne Von Dehn set up a home massage studio last summer, named “Kula” for “community” I got a sneak peak into their philosophy on wellness and work-life balance, and got the chance to ask Percy something that had long been on my mind, “How much does it weird people out to have a male massage therapist?”
A reasonably large percentage of female massage recipients are not entirely comfortable being touched by a man and a probably even bigger percentage of male recipients are the same. While respecting everyone’s choices, I try not to let gender interfere with what’s really at stake here : healing.
3. How to become a potter with Sunna Studio’s Amy Hazeldine.
Before Amy Hazeldine was the feature artist in Mountain Life magazine, she was the feature artist on Choose Pemberton, revealing her perfectionist tendencies, her Icelandic inspiration, how much she geeks out on glazes, and how, after plenty of creative trial and error, she’s finally found her path.
I’ve worked as an environmental educator, spent four summers in Nunavut in diamond exploration camps as the cook, worked on the assembly line making tire parts, and I’ve done my Whistler time as a bartender and server. Out of all the hats I’ve worn, the potter’s hat is my favourite fit.
4. Spotlighting Pemberton’s most prolific graphic designer, Sumire Design.
Lisa Komuro Ankeny does so much work behind the scenes to make Pemberton a better-looking place, it was great to spin the karmic wheel back in her direction. Her enthusiasm for Pemberton is inspiring (“Pemberton is amazing,” she told Choose Pemberton, “It seems like this little town is bubbling over with creatives. It’s as if everyone here makes something, has a garden and is an incredible athlete. It’s a beautiful place to be.”) but I most loved her insight on how to juggle life as a graphic designer, a mother, and an artist:
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. I’ve never been able to juggle – not even the scarves back in P.E.
3 days a week of daycare, coffee and some late nights do the trick. I wouldn’t change a thing.
5. Time for a new set of skis? Think Tyfoon.
What do legendary ski mountaineers do when they grow up and have a family? Why, they keep skiing, attend the Youtube School of Artisan Ski-Making and begin handcrafting wood skis from the Coast Mountains’ forests. Is there a top secret formula?
No, no secrecy in the process. Just a crazy old ski bum with his head down in the basement, breathing sawdust and trying to come up with a ski that will suit.
And that’s just a sampling of the amazing growers, makers, movers and shakers of Pemberton.
My passion for the project was fuelled by a conviction that if you want to live somewhere amazing, then you have to support the people who are trying to do amazing things.
But the project also reiterated for me that my favourite writing projects are often pure portraiture, simply letting people tell their stories, in their own words. It helped me to discover that the art of great storytelling really grows out of the art of listening. And it reinforced, without a doubt, that when I landed in Pemberton, I had truly come home.
Debating the options of getting a professional headshot taken after picking up the latest issue of SBC Skier
No, really. Take me seriously. I’m a serious journalist.
Actually, yes, I do tend to bite off more than I can chew.
Thank you Feet Banks. I can always count on you to keep me company out in WeirdoLand.
