En-vi-ron-ment

En-vi-ron-ment – noun; the set of circumstances and conditions in which something exists or lives. That’s become a pretty loaded word these days. Say the word stapler to a friend who just got out of an empty F350 Super Duty truck and they might think you’ve had one too many morning Americanos. Say the word environment at that moment and you’ll likely get something more serious than just a quizzical look. We all know what ‘The Environment’ is, we’ve had the lessons drilled into our heads: always recycle, don’t throw that Tim Hortons cup out your car window, try to drive less and so not be in your car to throw said cup in the first place, etc, etc. But what does all that mean? Why, with all the media hype and talk of CO2 levels, do we seem to be getting nowhere?
Because no one talks about it. ‘What,’ you say, ‘how can that be? We hear about it all the time.’ True, we’re bombarded with David Suzuki this and Kyoto that, but all those TV specials and news reports about the “latest environmental study”, it all becomes just more background noise to our lives. When I say people don’t talk about climate change, I mean they don’t discuss it, especially in a town that owes a lot of its wealth to the strip-mines and upgraders along the banks of the Athabasca River. It’s such a polarizing issue that people often only bring it up around their friends, people they know will agree with them. A lot of it has to do with our fear of being wrong. For some reason, we seem to have this built in phobia of being mistaken. This doesn’t just affect the climate change issue either…it’s a paradigm of our society. You’re either for the war, or you’re against it. You’re pro-choice or anti-abortion. You care about the environment, or you don’t. You’re a Flames fan or an Oilers nut, but there’s no room to simply enjoy hockey. We slot ourselves into categories like ‘athlete’ or ‘business person’ or ‘environmentalist’, and then we cling to those categories because we think they define who we are, and we get defensive when those identities are questioned. Questioning what we believe feels like questioning who we are, so instead we define ourselves in binary, when the whole world is multi-faceted, including the problem of climate change. The solution to this problem doesn’t lie in confrontation, in a struggle of the “tree-hugger” against the “Big Oil execs”. The solution lies in collaboration, meaningful debate and honest exploration of the issues. Unfortunately, Greenpeace activists getting arrested earn higher ratings than a friendly town hall forum.
Now, I’m not saying that all the media attention paid to “the climate change issue” is bad. It’s awesome, and we need more of it. We just need the right kind of attention. Things are starting to change, slowly. We recycle more, we try to use less water, and we even get a discount on coffee for bringing our own travel mugs. And those things do add up to a solid and measurable difference. But at this point, with this much CO2 in the atmosphere (389 parts per million), lifestyle changes alone are not enough. We need our leaders to understand that things cannot keep going the way they’ve been going. The Tar Sands is the world’s largest industrial project, an open sore larger than England and the leading industrial polluter in Canada, but how do you stop it when you still need to put gas in your car? Alberta relies almost entirely on coal to provide power and heat, but our homes still have to be warm. The solutions are out there, and they’re surprisingly simple. The free flow of ideas will help us make sense of the climate mess we’re in, but most of us are too afraid to tackle the issue. We pat ourselves on the back for going to the bottle depot, and we leave it at that.
One (I’m proud to say fellow) athlete who sure isn’t afraid to debate the issues is three-time Olympian Sara Renner. Her and her husband four-time Olympian Thomas Grandi have been leading the chorus for a solution to climate change in Canmore for years now. In a phone conversation I had with Sara while she was at a National Team training camp in Mammoth Lakes, California earlier this month (and I at a slightly less adventurous training camp in Lake Louise), she made it clear that climate change is a serious issue for her and Thomas. Their biggest reason? Their daughter Aria.
“I started noticing a change in the post-Olympic (Salt Lake City, Utah, 2002) season. There were more and more race cancellations at sites that had never had snow problems before.” She went on to talk about the increasing number of storms blowing into the Bow Valley from the east, something that never used to happen when she was growing up here.
“I’m worried that [cross country] skiing could be the canary in the coal mine.” The thought that her daughter might grow up without the possibility of competing in the sport her mother loves is a troubling thing for Sara. It troubles me too.
“I have a huge responsibility to her.”
As I said, Sara likes to talk about the issue, but she doesn’t just leave it at that. This past weekend’s group hike to Quarry Lake, just above Canmore, where a crowed gathered to unveil a giant banner with the number 350 printed boldly across it? That was largely Sara and Thomas’ doing, through their group, the Canmore Climate Crusaders. 350 parts per million is what scientists agree is the safe upper limit for CO2 in our atmosphere…as I said earlier; we’re already at 389 and climbing fast. The event was part of a much larger day of climate action. People at over 5,200 events in 181 countries across the planet marched, made signs, painted faces, streets and buildings, even bungee-jumped, all in an effort to show world leaders that we need a meaningful and binding resolution on climate change at the Copenhagen Climate Conference in December. (There is a great photo spread from the event if you flip back a few pages, courtesy of Pam Doyle.)
This was not just a one-off event either. There are lots of chances for you to get involved in the demand for action on climate change, right here in the Bow Valley. In fact, here’s a perfect example:
On the evening of October 29th, at Communitea Café, the Canmore Community Cruisers are having their AGM and Bike Shorts film festival dedicated to celebrating life on two wheels. The group, which I’ve had the incredible opportunity to work with over the summer, is a local charity that takes old bicycles and rehabs them into commuter bikes. You might have seen their ‘Green Fleet’ around town at the Alpine Club hostel, or outside Communitea. They’re bikes that anyone can use for free, you just have to sign up as a member of the group. Entry is by donation, simply pay what you can. I’ll be there, and I challenge anyone reading this to meet me there. I’ll be the skinny guy in the Mad Max costume. Do you think further Tar Sands development is ruining Canada’s reputation as a global leader? Do you think the whole climate change thing is a hoax? Do you have no idea either way? Perfect. Come out and talk to me or to any of the other awesome people who are sure to be there, we want to hear what you think…in fact, we need to.
Remember, on the mountain, as in life, always ride that high line…otherwise it might not be around for much longer.

Artistic Merit

That street musician that you passed on the sidewalk in Calgary last week, were they any good? Would you have even noticed if they were? What if that person was a world-renowned musician, who plays for sold out crowds, and you passed up a chance to experience them one on one, intimately, like friends at a kitchen party? In January 2007, in a Washington DC metro station, over 1000 people passed up just such a chance.
Joshua Bell, one of the world’s foremost violin masters played incognito for 45 minutes in a Washington DC metro station during morning rush hour. Of the over 1000 people who hurried passed during his performance, hardly anyone so much as glanced up from their head-down, all-business stride; barely a dozen bothered to stopped and actually listen. The longest that anyone listened was for a little over three minutes. Later, that man told the Washington Post (which had arranged the social experiment) that he had only stopped because he was five minutes early for work.
This poses some interesting questions about society’s priorities. I have to wonder, if we as a culture can’t spare even a few moments to stop and enjoy one of the greatest musical artists of our time, playing some of the most inspiring music every written on one of the most beautiful instruments ever crafted, what else are we missing? More than that though, I think this is a question about how we define art. Another analogy would be to take a Tom Thompson painting, remove it from its frame and hang it in a local coffee shop with a $150 price tag. One or two might look up at think “hmm, that looks kinda like a Tom Thompson” before going back to their café americano and the latest Dan Brown novel. Does that diminish the worth of Thompson’s work? Do you think he would care?
Was Joshua Bell’s performance, removed from its frame of a concert hall and a tuxedo, still art? If a masterful artist makes beautiful music, but fails to touch any of his audience emotionally, was the music still beautiful? Conversely, if something superficially inartistic manages to stir something in an audience, what is the significance of that? Jarome Iginla certainly has the power to touch people emotionally. I’ve seen full-grown men brought almost to tears by the Flames so narrowly missing the play-off finals. Is that art? Certainly you could argue there’s something artistic about the face splitting grin of an exhausted hockey player hoisting the Stanley Cup, but is that more or less artistic than all the inglorious hours spent in a gym that it took to get there?
You might be tempted to argue that sport is too focused on competition, on a clear winner and an obvious loser, to be considered an art. After all, art is not a competition; it is simply art for art’s sake. As an athlete, I can tell you that, while sport would not exist without competition, that isn’t necessarily the intended goal. The goal is not what lies at the end of the journey; the goal is the journey itself. Ask any of us why we do what we do, why we sacrifice decades of our lives just to be able to go from point A to point B faster than someone else. The answer you will always get is ‘Because we love it’, plain and simple. Is that any different than the art student who spends hours trolling coffee shops and book stores, pleading for somewhere to display their work? What’s the lowest common denominator between hours spent mixing paint, filling out training logs or hand folding a thousand home made CD liner notes? It’s been said that it takes 10 000 hours to perfect a skill, whether it’s playing the steel guitar, capturing the essence of a river in a camera lens, or figuring out exactly how to take a tight right hand corner at high speed while being jostled by 3 other skiers all trying to reach that red line in the snow before you do.
To me, art is defined by the passion behind it. By that measure, what we do on the roads and trails around Canmore is more artistic than most of what you’ll hear on a Top 40 radio station.
10 000 hours is a long time (a little over 416 days consecutively) and you don’t get there because you know it will pay well when you do, or because you want a medal of a different colour. You will only get there if you truly love what you’re doing. And here’s the kicker. If you love what you’re doing, it won’t matter whether people take notice. You can watch the video of Joshua Bell’s performance for yourself on the web. If you do, you will notice something right away. Of the over 1000 people who passed in front of the camera, Joshua Bell is the only one smiling.

Remember: on the mountain, as in life always ride that (soon to be snow-covered!) high line.

Boys are from Mars

Boys are from Mars, girls are from Venus, and Caster Semenya is from…neither, or both? That seems to be the way the International Association of Athletic Federations chooses to see it, showing that their sensitivity and compassion for individual athletes isn’t exactly what you’d call stellar. The media circus surrounding Ms Semenya, the track star and newly crowned women’s 800-meter World Champion, has the sports world bewitched. Athletes and sports fans around the world are following this story intensely, waiting with baited breath for the next news release. Semenya’s face has been plastered on newsstands and newscasts across the planet. To most athletes, this would be welcome recognition for their achievements. For Semenya however, this public obsession with what should be a private matter must surely be distressing.
The ordeal began when suspicion developed surrounding her gender as a result of rapid physiological changes in the eighteen-year-old runner, changes similar to an adolescent male going through the last few stages of puberty. Her voice became deeper, her musculature and facial structure more masculine, and her running times began to improve at startling rates. At the World Track and Field Championships in Germany last month, just hours before she ran her way to a gold medal and a world record, the IAAF, track and field’s governing body, announced publicly that steps were being taken and tests ordered to address the question of Semenya’s gender.
As an athlete, I feel for Caster Semenya. An athlete’s reputation is their livelihood, and to risk destroying it before knowing all the facts is incredibly irresponsible and insulting of the IAAF. To be sure, any athlete convicted of cheating should be swiftly and harshly punished, along with their sport’s national organization, but not before All the facts are in, but that is not the case here. This constitutes an outrageous violation, not only of an obviously moral matter, but also of the IAAF’s own policy. Any case concerning performance enhancement or athletic misconduct that carries the possibility of disqualification is to be strictly confidential until final results are available. That said, leaked information does happen, especially with high profile cases like this one. The problem is that when information is leaked, or released prematurely, it is impossible to judge its validity. Take the example of Lance Armstrong and the fog of accusations, stories of needles found in trash bins and accusations of cover-ups surrounding the seven-time Tour de France champion. Because of all the misinformation and confusion, it is doubtful that the public will ever get a solid answer as to whether Armstrong has had a clean career or not. Unfortunately dealing with media issues like this are part and parcel of being a world-class athlete. What is different about the Caster Semenya case, however, is that this wasn’t a leaked morsel of information. The IAAF started this media circus themselves, with their own official press release. They did it consciously, fully aware of the potential damage they might cause. They took an intensely private matter and turned it into a public scandal, and that is very troubling. From there, the issue has spiralled into a classic media frenzy, with leaked information and inside sources as news agencies scramble to scoop the story from on one another. None of this is anyone’s business, and yet thanks to the ineptitude of the IAAF and the voracity of the world’s media, it now seems to be everyone’s business.
What is most alarming is that it is not the first time an athlete has been subjected to a public outing like this. In 2006, an Indian runner named Santhi Soundarajan reportedly attempted suicide after ‘failing’ a gender verification test at the Asian Games. Imagine if you had been raised to believe you were a girl (or boy) then were suddenly and very publicly told you were something else. To her credit, Semenya seems to be taking things in stride, at least publicly. She has been calm and collected in press releases, and following the Championships, appeared in the South African magazine You, adorned with the latest female fashions and sporting attractive eyeliner. Say what you will about conforming to female stereotypes; the message is clear, and the resemblance to tennis’ Williams sisters is a little uncanny.
What’s more, and let me be explicitly clear on this note, this is in No Way a question of cheating. Some people have speculated that Semenya knew about her condition, correctly referred to as ‘intersexed’, prior to her competing at the World Championships, and that this constitutes cheating because one characteristic of an intersexed person is very high levels of testosterone, levels that would typically be indicative of pharmaceutical enhancement. Whether that is true or not remains to be proven, but even still I would argue that the case is not so black and white. Semenya is a woman, has been raised as a woman and wishes to remain a woman. She has done nothing to artificially augment what she was born with naturally. Surely the IAAF would not force these kinds of tests on, say, a female high-jumper who was far taller than the average of her competitors. There are many examples in sport, as in all society, of arbitrary classifications. There are weight classes in combat sports and even rowing, because it is accepted that some athletes are naturally larger and stronger than others. Does this mean that a competitor in a higher weight class is more of a man or woman than a smaller athlete? Are these situations really so different from Semenya’s?
Ultimately, this comes down to how we define gender. What does it mean to be a man, or woman? For most people, the deciding factors are seemingly clear and simple, especially given that in everyday life, the distinction is fairly meaningless. As race and class however, the distinction is not so simple. For generations, the definition of ‘citizen’ was considered solid and inflexible, if (by today’s standards) extremely narrow. Still, it was accepted for a long time simply because it was considered to be ‘common knowledge’. Women, people with disabilities, visible minorities, and others were barred from voting simple because ‘that’s the way it is’. Eventually, as a society we came to see the fallacy of this, and we adapted our concept of what it meant to be a citizen. Science has pointed to gender as being a continuum and not the ‘either-or’ that we currently think it to be. Maybe it’s time we began to adapt our thinking around what it means to be male or female. As science continues to unravel the mysteries of the human genome, and we continue to redefine for ourselves what it means to be human, old stereotypes like race and caste have fallen by the wayside.
A scene in Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club comes to mind. Tyler Durden, the hero-antagonist, points to a Calvin Klein poster of a massively muscled, sculpted and hairless male model wearing nothing but white briefs and wonders aloud, ‘Is that what a real man looks like?’
As Caster herself has said, “It doesn't upset me. God made me the way I am and I accept myself. I am who I am and I'm proud of myself.” I’d say that’s something we can all learn from.
On the mountain, as in life, that high line might not always be where we think it is, but that shouldn’t stop us from riding it.

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Something Funny

Going Home

Travel in Canada is an odd thing, especially when you do it as much as athletes like I do. It’s a lot of repetition, doing things over and over; the same cabin interior, the same airports, the same crowded airport Starbucks.
The flight from Calgary was uneventful, save for the fact that it almost didn’t happen. I think I’m getting just a little too good at cutting things close. Those last few minutes of sleep almost cost me a few hundred dollars. I’ve always been mildly amused watching other folks barrel frantically through the corridors, luggage flailing, only to stand in impotent frustration in the security line. Hurry up and wait isn’t so funny when it’s happening to you. The security guard waves me through, but stops me short for a moment. He grins as he reads my tee shirt, with its skeleton highland piper and Dropkick Murphys lyrics. “Nice to see a fellow fan,” he says.
“Sing loud, sing proud, man” I reply, also grinning as I grab my backpack and dash off to my next obstacle.
I arrive at the gate just as the last passenger is boarding. The gate attendant and I share a moment of awkward silence as I rummage through my stuff for my boarding pass. I manage to find it and hand it over. The attendant checks my ID, saying, “Oh good, you’re the one we were waiting for.” I begin to stumble over two or three apologies at once, but she just laughs and says, “Enjoy the flight, Mr Winter.” I take my seat half way through the in-flight safety demonstration that no one really pays attention to anyway, and I’m fast asleep by the time we reach cruising altitude on the way to my stopover in Toronto.
Another gate, another boarding pass. The woman behind the counter raises her eyebrow in surprise.
“I’m sorry sir, this aircraft is bound for Vancouver.”
“It is? But I’m…at the wrong gate.” I shake my head ruefully, the woman behind the counter smiles accommodatingly. I’ve done this all before; sat at the same bar eating the same misspelled Sicillian Panini and drinking the same overpriced beer while waiting for a flight. I had finished my meal and walked mistakenly on autopilot to the adjacent gate from which I have boarded so many flights bound for Thunder Bay. Curses to the airport for changing their gate schedule on me. I head back to the bar, casually wondering if it’s acceptable for me to ask the bartender to watch my stuff while I run to the washroom…after all, Never Leave Your Luggage Unattended. Still, he seems like an all right guy, and it’s pretty quiet right now.
“Of course, buddy…no worries, just remember to tip well.” He grins, his thick Italian accent matching his pressed black shirt and bouquet of heavy rings to a tee. His friendly wink is a reassuring glimmer of humanity amidst the chaos of beeping metal detectors, disembodied boarding calls and throngs of travel weary people.
As the plane climbs smoothly up through the broken clouds over Toronto, I am struck, as always, by the immensity of cities like this. As a kid, I can remember driving to The Big City with my parents for the weekend. Back then you passed Canada’s Wonderland about forty minutes before hitting Toronto…now you hit Toronto about forty minutes before Canada’s Wonderland. The lake where I grew up, once quiet, is now churned incessantly by the pleasure craft southern Ontario’s elite as The Muskokas are pushed further north by an ever-expanding suburbia. Cottage Country may be getting closer, but at least my parents’ house is worth more now. I imagine present day South River, the town where I grew up, as having a close resemblance to the Canmore of the 60’s and 70’s, before the 1988 Olympics and the tourism boom, just a hotel and a gas station on a highway. Granted, Canmore has the mountains, but South River, as the crooked sign proudly extols, is ‘The Gateway to Algonquin Park’. After a few days in Thunder Bay to visit old friends and help my brother set up his new digs, it will be nice to head back to South River with my parents to visit my old high school, do some sponsor hunting and have a few days of much needed relaxation by the lake, before braving the chaos of Pearson International a second time for my flight back to Calgary. A break away from skiing is something I’ve been looking forward to for a while. I can almost hear the static-choked CBC Radio One that is the soundtrack to my childhood playing in my parents’ kitchen.
Despite my last minute check-in, my duffel somehow made it through the gauntlet of the Calgary airport baggage services and repeated this impressive feat again in Toronto to immerge onto the conveyer belt in Thunder Bay at the exact moment that I arrived to claim. A baggage handler in an orange jump suit steps from behind a door to hand me my pole tube. “Ski poles?” he asks.
“Uh, yeah…thought most people usually guess fishing rod,” I reply.
“There are a lot of you skiers here in Thunder Bay,” he says. “You hear for training camp?”
“Nope, just visiting old team mates,” I say.
“Well, have a good one.” With that, he’s gone back through the door, the howl of jet engines sinking to a dull hum as the door shuts behind him.

People often complain about air travel, about how exhausting and inhumane it can be. As an athlete who usually travels with fourteen pairs of skis for weeks on end, I have had my share of horrendous experiences over the years. Those awful stories of forty plus hours of travel, of lost and broken luggage, or narrowly missed flights go really well with friends and a pint of beer. However, it’s the simple examples of kind people along the way that stand out most to me, the kind that are so common in Canmore. Maybe that’s why I love my new mountain home as much as my old Algonquin one.
On the mountain, as in life, it’s good to know that everywhere, there are other people out there who always ride the high line.

An Olympic Mulligan?

Women’s ski jumping is not worthy of Olympic representation, but golf is. That is the inference that the International Olympic Committee has made clear with their August 13th announcement that Chicago 2016 will officially reinstate golf as an Olympic event. This comes as a serious shock to me, and one that I find upsetting. The question as to whether golf truly deserves its spot in the Olympics is a hot topic amongst many athletes, myself and my teammates included. Canmore is an especially interesting place for this debate, given that so many of the residents are athletes, and so many of the tourists are golfers. To answer this question we first need to understand the broader question of what the Olympics are, and what they mean.
The Olympics are the pinnacle of human achievement, a celebration of the youth of the world. They are also an expression of freedom, one of the last remaining bastions of fairness and equality, a place of athletic triumph amidst an otherwise often bleak political landscape. With a warming planet, illegal wars, massive financial corruption, and a litany of other problems facing the world today, the Olympics should stand as a place where people can interact and compete without all the baggage of every day life, as equals on a level playing field, the sole goal being the celebration of personal and thereby collective accomplishment. As one of the founders of the modern Games, Pierre de Coubertin once said. “All sports for all people.” He declared. “In no way can sport be considered a luxury object.” Does golf, a leisure activity of the upper class requiring lots of money and little physical exertion, really belong alongside Olympic power lifting and the hundred-meter sprint? If not, what of other sports like curling, or equestrian? Clearly, there is more at stake here than another feather in Tiger Wood’s hat.
What is interesting about this question of golf is that it is the opposite side of a coin that’s already been tossed once before. Earlier this year, women’s ski jumping was faced with the same IOC decision, and sadly they lost. Immediately the issue of gender equality, for a sport that already has a long-standing men’s field, became a hot topic. Other arguments about the level of competition, and calibre of the athletes involved were also voiced. In her July ruling, Justice Lauri Anne Fenlon of the BC supreme court, which lacked the authority to overrule the IOC, did go so far as to say this: “Many of the men the plaintiffs have trained with and competed against as peers will be Olympians; the plaintiffs will be denied this opportunity for no reason other than their sex.”
While still considered a small victory for those involved, these comments are slightly off the mark. The IOC would very much like this debate to be about gender equality, just as they would like the golf debate to be about athleticism and tradition. Why? Because they have battalions of lawyers and experts ready and armed to fight those particular battles. What they don’t want discussed, whether in regards to ski jumping or golf, are their real motives. Baring women from ski jumping has, in reality, nothing to do with gender equality or competitiveness, just as allowing golf has nothing to do with the athleticism of the players. No, both of these cases are clear indicators of the IOC’s true objective: to bring in the highest TV ratings possible.
How else would one explain these two, otherwise contradictory rulings? The arguments against women’s ski jumping are based on the premise that the technical merit and competitiveness of the athletes is not sufficient to warrant Olympic gold medals. According to the IOC, men can compete in ski jumping, but allowing women, who train just as hard, the same opportunity would somehow water down the pool of potential gold medal winners, degrading the achievements of other athletes. And yet, they don’t see any problem with the possibility that somebody with the dubious athletic grace of John Daly might stand atop an Olympic podium (structural concerns aside)? Women’s ski jumping has a long pedigree of excellence, and a rich history, as does golf. Both require the perfection of a very difficult (and in the one case dangerous) skill. Both are very popular events, drawing crowds of thousands, but it is here that the similarities end. Ski jumping fans are primarily European, as are their major sponsors and equipment suppliers. That doesn’t hold much sway with the corporate backers of the Olympics, especially for Chicago 2016. Golf, on the other hand, draws thousands of spectators and millions of North American TV viewers, many of whom will then go out and buy from an industry that is one of the most profitable on the continent. The coincidence of golf being added in time for the next American Olympics is hard to ignore. If this really were not about capitalizing on golf’s money making potential, why not bring it back in time for London 2012, especially with so many host courses for the British Open already in place?
The discussion over which sports belong in the Olympics is an important one, and is crucial to the continued legitimacy of the Olympic movement. What troubles me is that, regardless of your stance, none of the real issues seem to be even on the table. As someone who is striving to be a part of the Olympic movement, I have to wonder if the interests of big business are being placed ahead of such important, healthy debate. Is this decision really about whether golfers like Tiger Woods, or ski jumpers like Canada’s Katie Willis deserve a place on the Olympic podium or is it about how much money can be made by putting them there?
On the mountain, as in life, always ride that high line, even if the IOC isn’t.

Now That's Progress

It’s always surprising to me how much I enjoy the Haig Glacier. Who’d have thought that being sequestered on a mountain, many kilometres from the nearest flush toilet, living in cramped, stuffy huts and doing nothing but eating, sleeping, skiing and playing scrabble for a week can be so much fun. There are not exactly a lot of activities to fill your day with up here, but those few things that you can do are best described as epic; hours spent simply eating as much as possible or skiing so many circles on the same six kilometre loop that it becomes difficult to remember what day it is let alone what lap you are on. And of course, there are the dead-to-the-world naps. Located on the Haig Glacier, at the border between Alberta and B.C. in Kananaskis Country, the Beckie Scott Centre for High Altitude Training on the Haig Glacier is a place that is well known to nearly every high-level cross-country skier and biathlete in Canada. This week is my ninth time at the Haig, and I still look forward to these camps. Training here every year for the past five, I have noticed changes. A three-hour trail run from Upper Kananaskis Lakes takes you along the Upper Kananaskis River, onto interminable switch-backs, (which, despite their seemingly infinite character do eventually end) then back into the shade of spruce trees near Lawson Lake. Growing up in Northern Ontario has its benefits, but it certainly doesn’t prepare you for the quiet beauty of the alpine meadows that the trail crosses. The last twenty-five minutes of the run is a less-than-pleasant climb up over the ridge from the campground at Turbine Falls and into the rock field moonscape where the training centre huts are located. A helicopter airlifts our bags and skis in for us, and with only one flight a week forgetting your Birkenstocks is not an option.
A typical day at the Haig starts at seven am with breakfast, followed by a forty-five minute hike from the main camp up to the glacier proper. That’s a fair amount of effort just to reach the snow, so once we’re up there we might as well ski…a lot. I’m shooting for twenty-eight hours over the six days that we’re here, and that won’t even be a record for me, much less the camp. The snow conditions can be very challenging, but thanks to some superb grooming by the CODA (Calgary Olympic Development Association) guys who run the camp, having mid-February conditions are not as uncommon as one might think. The CODA guys are also responsible for some of the best eating to be had anywhere in Alberta. Don’t believe me? Try Jody’s coconut curry and rice, and you’ll soon change your tune. After a huge post-ski lunch comes my favourite part: napping. Maybe it’s something about high-altitude air and low oxygen, but napping at the Haig is almost akin to a religious experience. A scrabble game or an afternoon movie is followed by another demonstration of culinary prowess in massive quantities, followed by sleep. Then, get up and do it all again, for a week straight. We’re all incredibly lucky to have the chance to train at a place like this. The alpine facility at Farnham Glacier was recently closed, denying Canada’s up and coming alpine skiers the same opportunity. It takes an exhausting amount of effort on the part of CODA and everyone else involved to keep this place running for us, and they deserve more thanks than they get. After all, this place is pretty isolated.
Not so isolated, however, as to escape the machinations of pop culture. It is pervasive even amongst the marmots and rock. That’s to be expected in such an activity-restricted place. After all, magazines are pretty easy to carry. Still, I’ve always looked forward to these weeklong training camps for the same reason that Bow Valley backcountry skiers, hikers, climbers and other adventure enthusiasts enjoy their trips: it’s a chance to get away from the world. As a political science student, I do miss keeping up on current events, but for the most part I enjoy being away from it all.
Away from it, that is, until the news of Michael Jackson’s death forced it’s way into our lives during our last camp in June. In a place surrounded by such rugged natural beauty, somewhere that you’d expect to be as far from pop media as one could reasonably get, the news of Jackson’s death reached us within, I am told, less than an hour of his body being found. Less than an hour for news to travel not just from city to city across a continent, but to penetrate the backcountry of the Canadian Rockies. And we’re not talking about the death of a president, or the collapse of a symbolic wall. We’re talking about an over-the-hill pop musician, and the rapt fascination with which we discussed his death while eating dinner at twenty four hundred metres says something about progress. Playing scrabble between workouts, I am surrounded by no less than five laptops (admittedly one of which is mine). Two years ago there were none. Four years ago there was no satellite TV, let alone Internet (even if it is for only a few precious minutes a day). I won’t bother to count the number of iPods. To be fair, these luxuries serve a very important purpose. The reason we all come up here is to access some of the best training in Canada, and no reasonable expense is spared to help us relax and recover between workouts. The couches, TV and board games are not utterly frivolous. What’s more, many of us are also part time students, and having access to the web means we can continue our academics (or submit a newspaper article on time) even from such a remote place. What I find interesting is that, given the stunning geography of this place, we still choose to surround ourselves with pop culture. Our daily lives are full to the brim with gadgets whose only purpose is to facilitate our access to Facebook, to instant connectedness. I’m as guilty of it as anyone. With such a diverse team, the microcosm of society that is life at the Haig makes for some interesting food for thought…after we’ve arrived back in Canmore on Friday that is. Right now I’m far too tired for such deep thoughts.
As always: On the mountain as in life, always ride that high line.