Tonje has recently signed with Arc’teryx, so I was asked to interview her for a “Welcome to the team” profile. I have never failed to be impressed with the athletes who join this brand’s roster – and Tonje is just as personable and engaging. We bonded so hard over a mutual appreciation for Katie Burrell,…
Is the City Dreaming You or Are You Dreaming the City? Meeting my 20 year old self in New York City
One of my oldest friends was laid off last May from a firm she’d been working with since we graduated in the late 90s. She decided, after securing commitments from friends to join, to use her severance to splurge on a month-long sabbatical in New York’s Chelsea neighbourhood. I was one of the friends. COVID-19…
Katie Burrell on putting yourself out there
If instead of Barbie, Greta Gerwig had had to spend 2022 remaking Hot Dog… the Movie, after living and working a couple of seasons in a ski town, Weak Layers might be the result. Luckily for us, mountain culture has its own Greta Gerwig and her name is Katie Burrell. Our very own ‘action sports’…
Spotlighting Alex van Zyl and the culture-shaping superpowers of landscape architects and design of place
I’ve worked before with the wonderful Tom Barratt of Tom Barratt Landscape Architecture – he’s a long-time Pique reader and he often has a sense of something that might be a story of interest to me. (This piece on his work in the Chilcotins, which required the long-time road biker to take some mountain bike…
Tom Prochazka – How to Build a Global Mountain Bike Community
Tom Pro is a genuine legend in Whistler, and the global bike community, so it was a treat to profile him for Interstellar Mountain Culture magazine, because honestly, I wish I could sometimes say to the next generation of mountain culture and resort leaders: be more like Pro. Here’s the profile: Tom Prochazka speaks several…
Hope in a Time of Precarity – want to come to Hollyhock this September?
Last year, I had delicious plans to go on a summer camp with some of my favourite humans to hear Wade Davis and David Abrams at Hollyhock. It felt like something, AT LAST, to look forward to, after the pandemic’s hard yards. And then, the day before I was supposed to jump on the ferry…
What’s up on the wall at a journalling workshop… for May’s participants
May was the only month we opted not to print out copies of the prezo for participants, and it was the only month people requested a copy afterwards. So here’s a glimpse at the Journaling for Self-Care approach, without my bonus soapboxing about rebellion, your sacred attention span, and the importance of naming your Younger…
What if we are the remedy we need?
Last summer, I joined a group of random strangers, from all around the world, to meet up via zoom, and support each other as accountability buddies, going through a free online foundations training in Active Hope. I’d heard about it when Manda Scott interviewed the co-creators of the training on her podcast. I’d had the…
Not Alone
Arc’teryx invited me to connect with their athlete, Sarah Hueniken, and filmmaker Heather Mosher, to write a piece about their film, Not Alone. Gripped magazine called it “one of the most important climbing films ever made. Mosher has done an exquisite thing with Not Alone, one that I hope everyone gets a chance to see….
Lift and drag: on being voted Pemberton’s Favourite Writer
The Best of Pemberton issue that Pique newsmagazine puts out, landed a month ago. Everything is moving slowly in me these days, so it took a while to formulate a response to being anointed Pemberton’s Favourite Writer. As a friend recently shared, compliments tend to make one’s mind explode. Well, specifically the phrase that The…
Lisa Richardson Bylines 