Photo: James Blench (copied and recopied until fuzzy)
As our courses filled the constant pressure to fill them eased. I relaxed. Started to enjoy my job again. But more change loomed.
Carla found an apartment and moved out. Emma moved into the room she vacated. When Barry moved to Banff to live with his girlfriend, I made his room into an office for my assistant, Janet (who also taught rock and cross-country courses.) I moved my Mac and printer into what had become my office. I got more done, and didn’t wake Em when I worked in the middle of the night.
Emma used Carla’s old room as a catch-all for a jumble of clothes, accessories, mementos, keepsake cocktail glasses, and unused art supplies. She smoked in that room but not in the rest of the house. She shared my bed. If you walked into her room, you might have thought she was a bag lady. I preferred to think she was an artistic eccentric. Others had different opinions. I sensed the staff were not enthusiastic about our relationship or Em’s presence in the house.
However, they did like that I secured pro-deals from Canadian distributers of patagonia clothing and Rossignol skis. The former provided core staff with royal blue nylon/fleece jackets with an oversize patagonia logo and matching wind pants. The patagonia distributer gave us a discount of 50% less 20% and included other clothing in the deal.
Rossignol sold us skis — downhill, cross-country, telemark, and touring — for $50 a pair if we traded them in for a new pair each year. I also persuaded the owner of a Calgary outdoor shop to give instructors a 30% discount. She gave me 70% off on a pricey French jacket — a goose down duvet — and plastic winter climbing boots. I think she fancied me.
*
The pro deals helped us all cut costs. But, while packing my Volvo prior to a four-day visit in Jasper with Karl Klassen — the rock-climbing instructor I had climbed Gonda Traverse with, I experienced a troubling moment of environmental clarity.
In the back of my station wagon with back seats flat, I loaded steel and aluminum climbing tools, plastic ice climbing boots, harness, hardware, 150-foot kernmantle nylon climbing rope, and a small climbing pack.
I added a pair of Rosignol giant slalom skis, plastic ski boots, aluminum poles, nylon ski jacket and pants, and gloves.
Then, I laid in telemark skis, leather boots, different pants, and a lighter jacket.
Finally, I tossed in my cross-country skis, plastic/leather boots, light nylon wind pants, longer poles, and lighter gloves. A patagonia daypack held my other clothing.
Standing at the open back door of the Volvo, I realized I had never seen my all gear in one place before. The sum of all that plastic, metal, nylon, polyester, wool, cotton, and leather shocked me. More than $1200 worth of equipment and clothing (Over $3500 today!). But as disturbing as the dollar outlay was, thinking about the gear’s environmental footprint gave me a gut check moment.
I realized I was not living as simply as I thought I had.
Driving up the Icefields Parkway to Jasper, marveling at the fragile mountain environment — spectacular peaks, glaciers, rivers, frozen lakes and waterfalls, and all the unseen denizens of the various ecosystems — I promised myself to do better; accumulate less stuff. Cut out unnecessary extras. Live simpler.
*
My weekend with Karl was outstanding. He had days off. So, we downhill and telemark skied at Marmot. We cross-country skied into the top of frozen Marmot Falls, rappeled to its base, then swapped leads as we climbed back up. I spent most of a day with two female Hector friends, scrambling up Malign canyon and soloing the river’s five- to 15-foot frozen waterfalls. And another day, skiing at Marmot with Karl.
Riding a chairlift, we spotted a group of skiers who had placed plastic poles in an ersatz slalom course. Karl turned to me, grinning.
“You wanna go run those gates?” Karl asked.
“Sure. Should we find Chris and see if he wants to join in?”
Karl laughed.
“Chris would never do something like that. He’d have to go off alone and practice until he looked good doing it. He hates to look like a beginner.”
Karl and I had great fun flying and flailing through the slalom course, scattering poles in our wake. Then drinks and dinner at a local bistro. Our fantastic weekend lowered my background anxiety and upped my happy quotient.
*
I returned to work energized and optimistic. Through the spring, all went well.
But after Chris returned for the summer, I had to spend too much psychic energy refereeing disputes between him and James. They had conflicting visions for YMS, different teaching styles, and both wanted to be right. I tried to apply my book-learned leadership and management skills to no avail.
So, I hired Arthur, my Vancouver couples’ counsellor.
After a 2-day“team-building” retreat in a Banff hotel meeting room, Arthur recommended I fire James. Though the cocky Californian had been his usual ‘I know best’ self, he had been forthcoming and honest. Chris had dissembled; flaunted rare and deceptive ‘best behaviour.’ If I were to fire anyone, it would be him. But, post-retreat, friction lessened between James and Chris. I felt more comfortable with them, individually and together.
Arthur had helpful suggestions for me, too.
“You were a touch heavy-handed,” he told me in private.
“More like a teacher or workshop leader. And you get prickly' when challenged. That makes you sound judgmental. I think you could benefit from an Active Listening course.”[1]
Then he explained and demonstrated the approach. I thought it could help me recognize ‘shudda, cudda, wudda’ thinking and help a lot. So, I bought Thomas Gordon’s Leader Effectiveness Training book. I practiced listening carefully, then repeating what I heard — open to correction — until a listener said, “Yes!”
It helped.
I still toiled in my office most nights, worrying I wasn’t doing enough or the right things. But, when I slept late, eyebrows lifted.
Grumbling began about “short days, long lunches, too many vacations.”After a sly comment from Janet one day, I piled nine leadership and management books on her office chair early the next morning and topped with a note that said, “I’m trying!”
Still, enrollments went up. Staff wages increased. YMS’s reputation grew.
Sally Borden Recreation Building Photo: Banff Centre
In the final two years I was with YMS, Gary Luthy, offered us a terrific gig. Gary had supported the school when it was just a series of Yamnuska Centre courses. And made my Earthways program much easier to run than if I had had to do it on my own. He had become Registrar at the Banff Centre. He also oversaw the Sally Borden Fitness and Recreation Center, and its programs.
For two (maybe three) falls, he hired us to help the Centre’s international Winter Session participants adjust to the mountain environment.
Early in their session, we took groups on two 3-day Wilderness camping and hiking trips. The 20-something artists, writers, weavers, photographers, ceramicists, musicians, and music theatre participants hiked, camped, cooked meals in picnic shelters, and sang around wood stoves in the evenings. I mouthed.
I led ACC viewing parties and took the least woodsy group on easy hikes.
One Japanese woman told me she had never walked off pavement before. On a well-built trail across a high, open meadow she leaned over and clutched the foot-sized boulders that lined the trail.
But after the weekend, she told me it the trip had been a life highlight.
On another trip, trudging up a gully to a ridge that overlooked Lake Louise, a world-renowned Chinese violinist who spoke no English, saw white shapes moving toward us along the base of the mountain beside us.
She turned to me, trembling, wide-eyed, and squeaked.
“Meow?”
I shook my head and smiled.
“Baahhh.”
As a huge smile split her face, she exhaled.
“Ahhhh!”
On that trip, a usually grouchy, 50-plus Vice-President of the Center and his out-of-shape wife had rested in a small green meadow beside a lake while the rest of us hiked further up the valley.
After we’d rejoined them, the VP said, “I appreciated your kindly, thoughtful way with me and my out-of-shape wife. She actually enjoyed the day.”
Then he took us all to the Chateau Lake Louise for cocktails.
That shocked the hell out of Centre staff person who co-led the trip.
“You nailed this one,” he said. “I’ve never seen the old guy so happy or friendly.”
One afternoon on another trip, Centre President David Leighton joined us. Nervous — remembering his ban on ‘nature awareness’ programs — I led an ACC exercise called “Get To Know A Tree.”
Participants paired up; one blindfolded, the other sighted. Then, in a meadow edged by small fir and spruce trees, the sighted helped the blindfolded explore a small tree with all their senses. Then they switched roles.
At the end, we all shared experiences in a circle.
I can’t remember who David had partnered with. Marni, I think. But, after the exercise, he thanked us for an “surprisingly insightful” experience.
He stayed for dinner and the viewing party that evening. Just before I ended the viewing party, a three-quarter moon rose above a long limestone ridge and flooded our site with soft, warm light.
After, David said, “Too bad you didn’t do that Tunnel Mountain sunrise thing.”
I smiled.
Gary paid us well for running the wilderness programs. He also gave us yearly passes to the Sally Borden rec center. A 15-minute drive from home, I could swim laps in an Olympic-size pool, lift weights, play squash, then relax in a hot tub and sauna. Gary whipped my butt at squash, but I got to know him better than I had at the Y. I deeply appreciated all he’d done for me. I hope I told him so.
*
Toward the end of our third year in Canmore, I tried to make a case for offering mountain-based personal mastery retreats for individuals and groups. My research had showed, if we did them right and gave participants hotel lodgings, the retreats could bring in almost as much revenue as all our other upper-level courses combined.
But the staff vetoed the idea; still unwilling to “mess with people’s minds.”
So, I designed a week-long Adventure Fitness course with hiking, creek running, bouldering, scrambling, and Action Skills as elements. I paid out-of-pocket for a small, black-and-white ad in FITmagazine. Loads of info requests flowed in during the three months it ran. When I took the promising results to the Board, they vetoed it, too.
Frustrated, ego-bruised, but undaunted, I bust my butt to convince the editor of world-famous SOBEK Expeditions to include our top three mountaineering trips in their glossy, international catalogue. Doing so would greatly up our visibility and credibility in Canada, the US, and beyond.
“But,” he said, “you’ll have to double your fees. High-end clients avoid low-priced offerings, thinking they are substandard.”
Again, the staff said, “No go.”
“Charging $3000 for a trip is a rip-off,” one said in a meeting in our living room. “That’s not what we’re about.”
The others agreed.
My muscles quivered. I gulped deep breaths to calm myself. I kept my anger in check throughout the rest of the meeting. But after everyone left, I kicked over a stack of books beside the fireplace, and bloodied a knuckle on a wall.
Out of ideas, I withdrew into my own thoughts. Alone, I ran the river trails and wandered the benchlands above town, asking myself, “Does this path still have heart?”
Some Sunday winter afternoons, I skied down the undeveloped Goat Creek trail above town to the Spray River, and back. If I started late, I had to slog uphill by headlamp. But I felt adventurous. Like my mountaineering friends. Ha!
I decided to quit downhill skiing at the end of the season because of its substantial environmental footprint and ecological harm. And stick to simpler, less consumptive, and closer-to-home activities — hiking, running, cross-country skiing, and mountain biking.
In the Co-Evolution Magazine article I had read in Maui, and re-read many times, Michael Phillips, author of The Seven Laws of Money, had written, “The most effective thing each of us can do for the environment is to reduce our present income.”
I couldn’t reduce my already-low income by much, but resolved to keep it and spending at current levels.
*
One weekend, Emma drew me a framed watercolour of a bull in boxing gloves, punching at a butterfly. I laughed, but got her message. I still have the picture.
Em’s friends told me she had changed since we had hung out.
“In a good way,” one said. “She lies less now.”
“She’s been with you longer than any guy,” said another. “You’re good for her.”
But, when I wrote in my journal, it was usually about conflict between Emma and I, and my inability to rise above it. I tried to listen to Em carefully, catch my “shoulds,” and damp down quick reactions.
But one afternoon, perched on our living room couch, we argued about her coming home at 4 am, smelling of booze and sex. I tried to keep things civil, but Emma was furious at me for being angry. Sitting side by side on our living room couch, she pounded my shoulder until it turned black and blue. I had to pin her arms to her sides to stop her outburst. I almost lost it and hit back.
Instead, I grabbed my notebook, quick-stepped down a creek-side path to the river. On a grassy patch on the dike, I did an ABC exercise about our difficulties before deciding my future with Emma. I wrote out my thoughts and feelings, tried to find and change my irrational judgments and nutty beliefs, then rewrote them all in positive ways. I thought hard about ending our relationship. But when I returned to the house, Em was contrite, apologetic, huggy. I took her in my arms, let her lead me upstairs.
I’d think about my reasons for staying later.
A few weeks later, she quit tending bar and got a job in a florist shop.
*
In the new year, the YMS Board decided they would direct me.
Barry chaired, but James and Chris pushed the agendas. They downgraded my title from Director to Manager. Made me keep a running account of my hours and expenses. Tasked me with finding a new office, which meant I (and Emma) would have to find a new place to live.
I felt as if they had sent me to the “untouchables corner.”
Marni let it slip that folk resented YMS paying rent on two offices. They thought I spent too much time with Emma. The record of work hours would belie that belief. I went along with their wishes, but any heart the job had held for me for shrivelled and died.
I didn’t think things could get worse.
Then, before summer, the Board insisted I take part in a training climb for core staff with Dan, our ACMG guide overseer. The route on glaciated, 8500-foot Mount Burgess was far beyond my experience and comfort levels. I silently cheered when fog turned us back from before we crossed the glacier and tackled the peak.
On our way down, I almost fell while traversing a rock face on a slanted 18-inch-wide ledge. Unroped. Hundreds of feet of air beneath us. James took my short ice tool from me and gave me his longer, wood-handled mountaineering axe. It helped me balance better. I was much relieved when we trudged down the approach slope and through the woods to the cars.
But more was to come.
During our all-staff training weekend, Chris assigned me the Welcome and Introduction talk, which included briefing new hires on the three-day program. In the Alpine Club meeting room, as I started outlining the schedule, Chris stood up at the back of the room.
“Uhm. That’s not actually correct.”
Lightning flashed between my ears. My heart hard-knuckled my tonsils.
“I’m reading the schedule you gave me,” I said, then ground my teeth.
“Yeah, sorry,” Chris said. “We changed it this morning.”
As he read a revised schedule, I stood at the front, cheeks burning, jaw clamped so tight I thought I might crack a tooth. I stumbled through the rest of my introduction, then bolted for my car.
Driving home to the Hospital Hill house Emma and I had bought with another couple and split into two suites, I pounded my fist on the Volvo’s steering wheel. A two-mile sprint along the river dike burned off my much of my anger and some of my shame.
Back home, I made a grilled cheese and tomato sandwich, then took it and a bottle of Heineken onto the deck. Sunshine slanted into the gap between Rundle Mountain and Chinaman’s Peak, above town. As I nibbled my lunch, I considered the previous two years.
As YMS’s momentum had increased, finances stabilized, and I saw my systems worked, I’d eased off a little. Perhaps I should have quit. But hoping to add personal mastery and gentle adventure programs to our course roster, I’d stayed. But my heart wasn’t in the challenge. I coasted.
Mid-afternoon, the sun shifted into the center of The Gap, warming the deck and me. Sipping a second beer, a line from Frank Herbert, author of The Dune Trilogy, popped into mind.
“There is no real ending,” he’d said. “It’s just the place where you stop the story.”
That evening, Emma and I attended the all-staff dinner at the Alpine Club. Afterward, as we crunched across the parking lot to our cars, I handed Barry an envelope.
“This is me, resigning,” I said.
He nodded, folded the envelope, and slid it into his jacket pocket.
“Okay, Mon.”
*
I stayed through the summer and fall to help James with marketing and copy writing. On October 31, I left YMS.
Because I had spent $5000.00 of my savings on YMS in the early years, and taken no pay increases since I’d started as Director, James paid me for two extra months.
Em and I went to Mazatlan for a month. I sat in the sun and contemplated my next steps. Looking back at my work history, I realized I had often felt unappreciated. In many situations, I had strayed from the herd, seeking freedom from rigid, hypocritical systems and structure. But I had usually joined another herd.
I had not sought the freedom to create the work situation I craved.
I asked, Am I ready to become a Free Lance? To create and sell my own programs?
I could not answer the question affirmatively. But I resolved to try.
*
Over the next decade, in the hands of James, Marni, and future directors, the mountain school grew into a highly-respected business.
“In 2005,” Wikipedia says, “the company was re-branded Yamnuska Mountain Adventures [YMA] to reflect the growth in soft-adventure programs. Individuals, groups, corporations and military organizations from all over the world choose Yamnuska as their provider.”
YMA offers climbing, skiing, and mountaineering. It also offers programs similar to those I (and Chris, initially) had envisioned: Hiking, Scrambling, Mountain and Leadership Semesters, First Aid, Family Camping, custom designed organization retreats, and international expeditions.
Barry and other ex-YMS staff still work for and with YMA. I am happy for them. It gives me great pleasure and pride that, had I not risen to the challenge of revitalizing YMS, YMA might not exist.
*
Though I had often felt taken for granted at YMS, in the decades that followed, all but one of the core staff told me I had positively influenced their personal and professional lives.
“A mentor,” several called me.
Whenever I returned to Canmore on other business, the old crew organized a bar night or hosted a BBQ. At my 65th birthday celebration in Hector Lodge, 100 people enjoyed dinner, wine, dancing, and a moving testimonial speech from Sharon that brought tears to my eyes.
Four years after I’d left YMS, I spent three days in Canmore leading a “Personal and Professional Mastery” retreat for the Calgary chapter of the Young President’s Organization (YPO)[2].
The second evening, after dinner at Ziggy’s, Matt Woofter (LTS ’73) and I sipped Scotch and reminisced about Hector in Matt’s families’ chalet above town. As we were about to quit for the night, Chris Miller pounded on the front door.
Waving a mickey of Bushmills (not his first, I thought), he insisted we talk.
He talked. I listened, wishing I was back at my hotel, tucked under a soft down comforter. Though I don’t remember all of Chris’s slurred, rambling confession, the gist of it went something like:
“I wanted to be in charge. I wanted to take YMS where I wanted it to go. But I was afraid to be out front; to lead. And maybe fail. So, I played Puppet Master, pulled your strings, and tried to get you to take it where I wanted it to go. That wasn’t right, I know now. I’m really sorry. Really!”
I nodded, said, “Thanks, Chris. I appreciate you telling me. It helps.”
I didn’t know if Chris’s garbled apology was sincere, or just the Bushmills talking. But tucked into my comfy, duvet-covered bed inside the polished log walls of The Paintbox Lodge,[3] I chose to believe he meant it. Or, at least, wanted to mean it.
He and Janet spearheaded my 65th birthday party.
[1] “Active listening is the practice of preparing to listen, observing what verbal and non-verbal messages are being sent, and then providing appropriate feedback for the sake of showing attentiveness to the message being presented. This form of listening conveys a mutual understanding between speaker and listener.” — Wikipedia
44 YPO (formerly Young Presidents' Organization) is an American-based leadership community of chief executives. To qualify, a person must have become, before age 45, president, chairman or chief executive officer of a corporation of significance with a minimum revenue and minimum number of employees.
[3] The Paintbox Lodge had been Othmar’s log pension. A couple I’d helped create brochures for their wilderness lodge bought it. One of them, Barb, had been the Western Canada High School Homecoming queen candidate in whose silly skit I’d played a goofy part.