Canmore Summer & UBCO

It’s been a while!

Small update for everyone on my summer; I was working in Canmore with Chinook Rafting as their off-river assistant. The position entails checking guests in for their rafting trip, helping out with gear, occasionally doing “bus chats” where you explain how to fit lifejackets and helmets properly and give some background on the rivers, taking photos of the trip and driving the trucks and trailers to and from the take-out locations. It was a great job for the summer with an even better crew. I got to know people from Scotland, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and as always there were a few Ontario folk working there as well. I loved the off-river assistant job because I was outside all day, running up the trails to make it to the photo spots and sitting high up in the work trucks driving down Highway 1. By the end of the summer however, I was wanting to do more. I watched the guides run the river every morning and afternoon and wished that I could be in the boats almost everyday. I spoke to my boss during my last week and asked about doing Guide School to become a raft guide for the following summer and he said I’d be more than welcome. Guide school normally takes place early may so I am headed back to Canmore after school ends and getting trained as a guide. I am ecstatic for how the summer is going to play out and can’t wait to get back to it.

I lived out of my van in “Vanmore” which is the van life community in Canmore (very clever name, I know). In the past few years, Canmore has started tightening its rules around overnight campers within town limits. There were close to 60 van-lifers in Canmore over the summer and normally everyone would use the public parking behind the Save-On-Foods to sleep in order to get to work in the mornings. Over the years there were problems with littering, noise and a lack of respect from the community living there and so it is now against the law to camp overnight inside the town. Although the crew living there this summer were respectful – they didn’t leave garbage out or dump waste in the parking lot – we were not allowed to park unless we had paid a permit ($10/night). There were a lot of upset people in the van life community and everyone I met had a few tickets linked to their licence plates making it difficult to camp under the radar. Most of us ended up camping between Canmore and Exshaw in an open gravel lot near a trail head. We made the most of the situation and everyone got pretty close by the end of the summer.

A few friends of mine, who I had met through my brother, were also living out of their vehicles in Canmore and working at the rival rafting company. We had cookouts in the parking lots, went swimming in the Kananaskis River, played frisbee golf, went out in Banff and basically lived like dirtbags all summer. It was an incredible time. I got really close to everyone I parked with and now the people who I used to call my “brother’s friends” were now mine too. It got to the point where I had more to talk about with them than I did with my own brother.

I went to the Calgary Stampede for the first time with a few friends from Sunshine and had an amazing time. It was 35 degrees and sunny outside – mix that with a little too much alcohol and sweaty crowds and you can imagine how wiped we all were by the end of the weekend. I got to see Zach Bryan live the week prior which I can confidently say was one of the best moments of the year. I couldn’t find anyone to tag along with so I drove to Calgary by myself and made my way to the front of the crowd to watch the concert. I ended up finding another girl my age who was there alone and so we stayed together for the rest of the show. It was an incredible night – Zach Bryan is even better live than on his albums and the energy of the audience increased that to a whole new level.

By the end of the summer I was starting to get sick of living in the van. I still love it and am planning on doing the same thing next summer, but after three months with next to no space and never having a reliable place to use the washroom, I got a little restless. I moved into residence at UBCO at the end of August and it was an extremely welcome change. I was nervous, as everyone is before University, but within the first few days I made friends who I know are going to last throughout my four years of school.

The first few weeks were a little odd simply because everyone is trying to find their groups, get to their classes on time and not fall behind. At the beginning of October one of the outdoor clubs hosted an “Intro to Rock” course at Skaha Bluffs outside Penticton. I had been climbing outside once before over the summer and had the basic understanding of everything we learned. We were split into pairs and sent with a volunteer from the club to teach us the ropes (literally).

We were taught how to belay, use climbing commands, tie in and check safety measures. It was an awesome day. It was over 30 degrees outside with full sun, but it was such a cool experience to be outside with a bunch of like-minded people wanting to climb and get to know each other. After climbing, a bunch of people from the club camped out at a nearby lake off a long stretch of logging roads. It reminded me of Algonquin Park in a lot of ways – dirt and gravel roads leading out to small open pits and lakes. There were close to 60 people, if not more, camping out at this spot. There were fires and guitars out, someone made an outdoor sweat lodge, we went swimming in the middle of the night and had the best time.

I got to know a lot more people on the trip and it helped set the tone for the rest of the year.

It’s almost ski season now and I have my Big White seasons pass ready to go. Check out photos on my instagram and I’ll post some more in the gallery!