I recently had the chance to profile the design wizards – Louis-Philippe Leonard and Jon Hewitt – behind the Squamish woodworking and finish carpentry studio, Leon Lebeniste, for the upcoming summer issue of Coast Mountain Culture… and we digressed into a conversation about labours of love and honouring the life-force with our work. Co-founder Jon…
Author: Lisa Richardson
Remembering Sarah Burke
The most amazing thing about working as a journalist is the chance you get to have great, insightful, curiosity-stoking conversations with people – conversations which you document. (This has turned me into the kind of person who hates to let a funny or insightful comment go unrecorded – I am forever reaching for my notebook…
How to Sell a Cup of Coffee
Two things I know: 1. The secret to an awesome adventure is always an uncomfortably early start. I’ve learned this from ski days, climbing trips, epic mountain bike rides, and road trips. 2. All artists steal. Marketers steal the most. So do it, and do it shamelessly. These two things came together for me the…
New Year’s Resolution: Be the Most Mediocre Mother Ever
I am having a baby. It was a slip-up. Seriously. In 17 years, my husband and I, who like each other a lot, and have been officially ambivalent about having a kid that entire time, had unprotected sex, once. It came after a lot of cocktails. Bam. A little stowaway snuck past the Gates of…
3 Reasons to Take Up Snow School’s “Improve Yourself” Invite this Month at Whistler Blackcomb
Dave Hobson doesn’t really believe in lessons. The Alpine Supervisor of Whistler Blackcomb’s Snow School (and 2012 Supervisor of the Year)* is inclined to the philosophy that you can pretty much teach yourself anything. Except skiing and snowboarding, that is. In part, he advocates ski lessons because it’s a social experience. Putting your self in…
How to Ski Like A Man
The failure of the world to explode in cataclysmic fireballs on the end of the Mayan calendar means those New Year resolutions you didn’t bother with suddenly demand a little attention. (It’s not too late!) Today, I told the Liftopia community that any Self Improvement journey should begin with a promise to go skiing. With…
A Prayer for the End of the World (or How I Learned Not to Envy Dying Catholics)
In honour of the 21st of December and the end of the Mayan calendar and possible impending annihilation of life on earth… I make this confession. I’ve always envied dying Catholics. Hail Mary, full of grace, blessed are thee amongst women. I envied them their Hail Marys which seemed to bring such succour to television’s…
Pros and Cons of Parenthood or Why there’s a conspiracy of silence around becoming a mom
I sat at my work Xmas party the other night between two twenty-somethings and two forty-somethings. I nursed a cranberry juice and an unplanned-for 6 and a half month pregnant belly and played the Berlin Wall as the conversation bounced back and forth about the pros and cons of having kids. (Me: quiet as stone….
Climbing Taught Me How to Suck. On Grit, and the 7 Things I’ve Learned from Rock Climbing
We don’t put our climbing gear away until the snow is thick on the ground in Whistler and the rivers are high and we can be sure that the granite is dripping runnels and waterfalls and there is clearly no hope for that crispy sunny bonus day on the rock. So, we’ve now officially conceded…
Scripting the Wonder Reels
Why my enduring crush on Mike Douglas, Jeff Thomas and Blair Richmond, the crew at Switchback Entertainment? Because I write this: And they respond with this: To which I say: Exactly. For more on the Wonder Reels campaign, and our membership in the Church of Story, check out this blog post at Origin Design +…
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