A lot has changed in the past few months.
I finished out my season at Sunshine with amazing experiences and even better friends, and I am now moving onto the next chapter.
I spent my last few weeks at Sunshine hitting park laps, learning new tricks (trying not to kill myself in the process), and spending time with my friends on and off the mountain. Originally, I had planned on finishing the whole season and getting the full experience of spring skiing, slush cup, and the end of season staff events. That idea changed as soon as I started to look for a summer job.
I had an interview with a whale watching company in Tofino which looked like a dream job. They had staff accommodation, good hours, a small team, and I would have been on the beach every day. However, as they were looking for someone to start early may, I was not the best candidate. I started to think about my plan for the summer as I wanted to go to Ontario to visit family, but also have a job to come back to. With that in mind, it didn’t make sense for me to leave Banff in June as peak summer season would just be beginning. I decided I would cut my season short at Sunshine and head to Ontario for a few weeks this month.
Leaving Sunshine was bittersweet. I was not sad to leave per say because I’d be seeing everyone again in the next few months, but I knew I would miss living on the mountain with all my friends in my building, and I would miss my lifty crew. The work itself was fun, but the crew I got to be with everyday made it so much better than I could have hoped for. I had an amazing time with all the liftys, so I knew leaving early would be a little sad.
On the other hand, I had the longest ski season of my life. I skied for 6 months straight, pow days, slush days, backcountry, and more. I couldn’t have asked for a better time out in the mountains and I wouldn’t trade it for anything. I was ready to leave my job at Sunshine and head home because I had my fill.
So, I flew out of Calgary on April 30th and headed home.
Travelling has become so simple for me now. I’ve had the opportunity to fly to the Rockies when I was younger and abroad that I am now comfortable in the airport. Checking in and showing my passport to security used to scare me half to death, and now it’s a breeze.
I had an 8am flight and spent most of it asleep in the window seat with my headphones on.
I spent the first week home with my Nana. Her family cottage is up on Georgian Bay and it’s where my brother and I grew up. We would spend each summer living up there with my Nana going to swimming lessons, cliff jumping, fishing, canoeing and never once spent a day inside. It’s my childhood all wrapped up in one place. My Nana and I went up to open everything; take the patio furniture out of the dining room, take down the sheets on the windows, sweep the floors, put cushions out and essentially air everything out. Opening a cottage is a much larger job than what I assumed it was as a kid. We did two days’ worth of yard work and hauled boats out of storage, build deck chairs, and burnt dead trees we found around the property. My cousins came up with their kids on the weekend to help empty the boathouse and install the ramp which was a long job, especially in freezing water.
The week was perfect. A heat wave came through as soon as we got up and we saw sun every single day. I got to help my Nana out with her bird atlas – the Ontario Bird Atlas (2020-2025) – that takes hundreds of volunteers across the province to collect data on every bird in the area. She is assigned a 10×10 kilometer square and over the span of the five years and must collect and input as much data as she can. The data includes breeding, nests, the numbers of birds, if they are singing, mating, migrating, anything that will give the publishers an accurate analysis of the species. It is a huge task, but I am grateful because my Nana finds so much joy partaking in it. We spent an hour or so with binoculars scouring the area around our cottage trying to find nests, and also peering into the forest behind the cottage trying to find the Nashville Warbler who was singing just out of our eyesight.
I had a full week where I was looked after, ate proper meals, got to sleep in my own bed and five days where it was just my Nana and I. I have to be honest I felt pretty spoiled, but I loved it. It was exactly like living there when I was a kid, only I got to be more helpful and could actually help out with bigger jobs.
Living out west has been incredible, but it is hard to adjust to the fact that I’m not home surrounded by family. Being back in Ontario reminded me how far away I am now and will be in the next few years. I got accepted to UBC in Kelowna which I am ecstatic about, but I am also going to miss family gatherings, Thanksgiving with the Cook family, and summers with my Nana. Although living out West makes my visits home special, it also means there is so much to catch up on and very little time to do so.
My two weeks home were non-stop. I was trying to fit in as many visits as I could, which I was surprised to find that I saw quite a few people, even some I wasn’t expecting on being able to see. I caught up with family friends from back home, my old school, and childhood friends I’ve known since I was born. My second week I visited with my grandparents up near Huntsville which is a visit I cherish so much.
I lived up near my grandparents the past two summers, but with Covid floating around, my cousin and I were very cautious with how much contact we had with them. I would have loved to have had more time to sit in the cottage, eat dinners with them, even go inside for tea, but with our exposure at work and their health concerns, it was too much of a risk that we didn’t want to take. We still had a great time and I got to chat with them a lot more than I have in other years, but it wasn’t the same as it could have been.
So, last week was incredibly special for me. Now that the variant has calmed down and cases are lower, I was able to visit properly and had more time to go by myself and see just the two of them which is a rarity in the Cook household. My dad has four siblings, all with kids of their own, so my visits with my grandparents have always been noisy with many people talking at once. This time it was just me.
I saw them for the three days I was in the area, twice by myself, and one dinner with them, my Aunt and Uncle, and my cousin. The past year has been rocky for them and the family which is scary in its own way, and now that I am living out of the province, I don’t speak with them as much as I want to and don’t get to be around for the important things.
I got to sit and chat for hours, which is longer than any other conversation I’ve had with just the two of them. I can’t explain how much it meant to me, and I hope they are reading this to know.
After seeing family, I went to see my other family, my friends out in Montreal. Earlier in the week I got to visit with two of my high school friends out in Peterborough which was so much fun and it felt like nothing had changed despite it being almost a year difference. When I went to Montreal it was the same. I spent my birthday with two of my closest friends from home and went downtown to a few bars. I am definitely not used to the city life. Banff is a fairly small town – very touristy, but small. Montreal is huge and I don’t think I got used to it. I wish I had more time with everyone I saw but going back even for a few weeks was so nice.
I’m headed back to Banff this week and I am honestly really looking forward to it. I am starting a new job in June with a rafting company out of Canmore and will be spending every day outside by the river. I am most likely living out of my van again, so stay tuned for how that goes and where I end up staying!
I’ll try to add some more photos to the gallery soon 🙂 thanks for taking the time to read, this post seems incredibly long, but it was important for me to share.
Julianna Cook 