The “Three Sisters” above Canmore, Alberta
Late August sun flickered through boughs of 50 foot high spruce in front of Bowfort Lodge. Barry and I stood outside the main doors, waiting for a friend who promised “great news.” In a staff meeting, everyone had agreed to move the school to Canmore, if we could find a decent, affordable place for it — and if I stayed on as director. When I thought about my decision, my gut churned, my muscles tightened, and my appetite disappeared. I felt like I had when the Board asked me to rebuild the school. But then, we had backing for a year. Now, we’d have three months.
“So?” Barry said, tucking a black Bob Marley tee into his white painter pants. His dark eyes shone. “You up for it?”
Barry had grown into an excellent instructor. I found it easy to bounce ideas and concerns off him — without fear of immediate rebuttal or dismissal.
“I’m not sure,” I said, my jaw tightening. “So much is unknown.” I tugged at a cuff of my navy long-sleeve tee with John’s white soaring eagle logo on the breast. “Where? When? How? Thinking about it spins me out.”
A car door slammed in the no-parking zone in front of Bowfort. Our mutual friend Carla Smith danced up the cinder walkway toward us, her face aglow, dark brunette pony tail bobbing, a floral mini-dress swirling about her tanned, fit legs.
“I found us a super place in Canmore,” Carla said, grinning. “With an indoor pool!”
“What?” Barry and I said. “Where?”
Carla, mid-20s, just out of university, was the physiotherapist at Canmore Hospital. She had taken a Rock course with Barry and Marni and wanted to stay connected to the climbing community. When she learned we might move YMS to Canmore, she suggested the three of us share a house and split the rent.
“It’s a rustic A-frame,” she said. “In Teepee Town. Four bedrooms. Unfinished garage. Room for a YMS office, gear room, and we three. And a covered pool extension built on the back. Wanna go see?”
Barry and I looked at each other with raised eyebrows, shrugged. “Sure.”
Teepee Town, a trapezoid shaped residential area that had seen better times, sandwiched between Canmore’s second avenue and the Trans-Canada highway. The A-frame faced south-west across the railway tracks and open fields toward downtown. Its steep-pitched roof, cedar shingles, and windowed two-storey front gave it an alpine feel.
On the main floor, a grey-black Rundle Stone fireplace dominated a carpeted sunken living room. Up two steps to a bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, and small dining area. Above a hanging balcony fronted three bedrooms and a small washroom.
Off the kitchen, through a door into an under-the-stairs pantry, another door led to a covered 30- by 20-foot pool with a tiled deck.. A sharp chlorine smell rose off the water.
“We can split rent four ways,” Carla said. “You guys, me, and the school.”
Barry and I liked it. When we showed the rest of the crew, they agreed.
So, YMS was reborn in the middle bedroom of a Teepee Town A-frame.
Moving to Canmore was physically straightforward. Everyone helped move gear, set up an office, and turn the garage into a gear room. Yvonne came in two days a week to teach me registration and bookkeeping systems. We sat side-by-side at a plywood desk James built in a 4- by 8-foot alcove in the middle bedroom upstairs.
A churning gut and jumpy muscles kept me awake at night. Bushmills and an occasional Valium helped. Still, I was eager to get this massive rock moving uphill.
Wayne Perkins and Punch Jackson at Recreation Alberta had both hinted we could qualify for provincial grants if we became a non-profit organization. So, we registered as Yamnuska Mountain School Society with me as president and five core staff as directors.
In late September, I flew to Edmonton to talk with Punch.
Blonde, my height (5’ 10”), Punch looked like an outdoor guy who no longer got out. He sat behind his desk, leaned back, and twisted a pencil in his hands. Frowning, his voice close to cracking, he said, “The Mountain Guides Association contacted me. They argue you’re a business competing with them. So, it would be unfair if we gave you grants they can’t qualify for.”
“That’s bullshit!” I said, jumping up and almost knocking my wooden chair over. “They cater to rich folk who want to be led up classic climbs. Many of their clients are from out of province. We teach ordinary Albertans how to be safe and have fun in the mountains. No comparison!” My knuckles turned white from gripping the chair back.
“I’m sorry,” Punch said, his face reddening. “The Guides have the Minister’s ear. I can’t get mixed up in this.”
He pushed his phone across the desk.
“Call Tourism Alberta. The guides have a free, full-page ad in their catalogue.”
When I called the number he gave me, the catalogue editor told me they only included businesses.
Fuck me! Same old hypocritical, bureaucratic bullshit.
I left Punch’s office, shoulders slumped, fighting tears. But, in the airport cab, enjoying the greens and golds of a northern Alberta fall, I changed my story to Fuck THEM! We’ll make it work and show those assholes!
But, after we sent out our winter flier, Peter Fuhrmann, Banff Park’s bushy eyebrowed Chief Warden refused to allow us to run ice climbing and ski mountaineering programs in the park. The 6-foot-plus ACMG member demanded our instructors be certified guides. I tried to explain our different mandates. The smug-faced bureaucrat leaned back from his desk, stared at me with dark, piercing eyes, and said, “No guides; no permits.”
In a second, frustrating meeting with Fuhrmann, I threatened to send James, Sharon, and Barry up the Weeping Wall, then have him explain to the invited media why his wardens couldn’t get them down.
“None of your guides can climb ice that steep.”
I wasn’t sure that was true. But I knew old guard guides who opposed us couldn’t.
Fuhrman only relented when Bill March, an internationally certified guide and co-founder of U of Calgary’s Outdoor Pursuits program, offered to act as our overseer. Once a top British rock and ice climber, tall, narrow-faced Bill neared 50, but still flashed the boyish, high-cheek grin he’d shown in old magazine photos.
“Hell,” he said, “John and James practically invented Grade 6 ice.”
I created an Advisory Board with Bill, business people, and Banff School colleagues. Marni, I think knew a lawyer. When Yvonne left, I hired an accounting firm to handle bookkeeping, taxes, and payroll. At night, I pored over management books, such as Ken Blanchard’s One Minute Manager and Tom Peters In Search of Excellence. I read about “maverick entrepreneurs” who operated not just for profit, but for the good of the world.
Could that be me?
I took out a $5600 personal loan from my Credit Union to buy an Apple Macintosh computer, dot-matrix printer, and cheap pine desk and chair. I set them up in my bedroom, so working during my frequent middle-of-the-night insomnia bouts was easy. Staff and I wrote articles for the new Exploremagazine in exchange for 1/6-page, black and white ads. When the editor needed colour, we placed 1/3 page, 4-colour ads and paid black and white rates. Urs Kallen, an iconic Rockies climber who claimed he’d been “cured,” ran Kallen Graphics with his wife, Gerda. They helped me make our print material professionally appealing and affordable.
We’ll show those assholes!
*
After a year in Canmore, our cash flow crept toward break-even. I topped it up from my share of proceeds from our Calgary house sale. But, though our reputation had grown, Furhman still insisted on an ACMG babysitter. But the chill was thawing.
At a mountain safety conference in Banff, Rudi Krannibitter, the ACMG’s Chief Examiner, sat across a breakout table from me. After I introduced myself, he leaned forward to shake my hand, grinned, and said, “You don’t have fangs!”
Then, cycling to Banff one day, I overtook Ottmar Setzer, one of the old guard guides. A former Alberta alpine ski team coach, he had a rep for fierce competiveness and ‘toughness.’
“You come here and make things too hard,” Ottmar huffed, as we pedalled side by side on the highway shoulder. “I have to make colour brochure now. And ads for magazines. So expensive!”
“Yes,” I said, edging my wheel in front of his. “But how’s business?”
“Oh,” he said, upping his cadence. “It is increased.”
“So, a little competition is good, eh?”
“Huh!” he said, chuckling. “I think you got me there. Ya.”
That winter, we rented Ottmar’s hand-built log pension to house participants. But he lifted stove burner rings and chastised guests for “improper cleaning” after meals they had cooked. We moved to the Alpine Club’s clubhouse.
Starting over in Canmore was stressful, but we had fun times. BBQs. Pool parties. Barry and I set up a workout area on the pool deck with weights, wind-trainers for our bikes, and ice tools strapped to rafters for pullups. Carla swam laps every morning before work.
One night, Barry and I drank three bottles of red wine, then rocked out to The Clash and The Stones in our living room. When Carla returned from a date and saw her ‘boys’ gyrating in front of the fireplace, her brown eyes bugged. Barry and I grinned like idiots. Carla’s mouth crinkled; showed brilliant white teeth. Then she changed into jeans and bumped hips with both of us. When I turned 40, I bought a keg of beer and threw a party at Pigeon Mountain Lodge, east of town. Chris Miller supplied ‘kickass’ rock and roll dance tapes. Forty YMS and Hector friends attended, but only a half dozen Canmore folk.
I wanted to get more involved with the town. I tried hanging out at the Hotel tavern but sitting at a table by myself, I felt self-conscious. In spring, Gary Luthy invited me to play on a Banff Centre slo-pitch team. He and I swapped pitching duties. Later, a more competitive team recruited me when their pitcher got hurt. We won a lot. I invited them and the other team to post-game swims and BBQs. A decade later, I would return to Canmore on a visit. At the meat counter in Mara’s grocery, a guy I’d played against turned to me, lifted his chin.
“Hey, bud!” he said. “Haven’t seen you ‘round ball much lately.”
I smiled. “I moved to the coast nearly 10 years ago.”
“Huh! That’d do it.”
*
At Christmas that year, Barry and Carla went home for the holidays. Dwayne and his partner Colleen hosted an ‘orphan’ dinner for Chris, James, and me. Dwayne, the quiet member of the YMS crew, was a fit, handsome athlete with dark eyes and a shy, head-turning smile. Colleen came up to his shoulder. Outgoing, with unruly black hair and flashing eyes, she taught design and drawing at Mount Royal College in Calgary. James wore his usual ensemble of jeans and plaid shirt, but had traded his white cap for a winter tweed. After dinner, we lingered, yakking and laughing. After an hour, gorged on turkey and bored by climbing talk, I felt a powerful pull to be home.
I lit the fire in the living room, then sipped Bushmills in an armchair and listened to Emmy Lou Harris’s Pieces of the Sky album. Orange Christmas tree lights suffused the room with a soft, warm glow and faint pine aroma. I felt tranquil, if a touch melancholic.
Then the phone rang.
“Hi! I’m in Banff. With two friends. We thought you might like a visit.”
“Alice?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Tonight?”
“Is Celine with you?”
“She’s with my husband’s family.”
“I’ll open wine.”
Alice and I slept together that night and two nights in a 50s-style cottage court above Radium Hot Springs. Being with her felt like it had during our best moments on the coast. Fun. Loving. Sensual. She wanted me to drive to the Kootenays for a New Year’s party with friends. I was tempted, but my gut told me it would be a mistake. Besides, I wanted to get to know Emma, a friendly new bartender at Ziggy’s bar.
*
All the single men in town had designs on Em. The dirty-blonde barkeep had moved from Sunshine ski resort in the fall with two women friends. She looked fearless, flowing between front and back bars and from customer to customer, her braless breasts swaying under clingy blouses.
But I was 40 to her 20. I didn’t have a hope in hell of winning her favour.
So why try?
Loneliness? Rebound from Alice? Sure. But, deep down, I wanted to outdraw all the young guns pursuing her; to feel as manly as my climber friends. I invited Ziggy’s staff to a New Year’s pool party. Em and I hooked up.
Wyatt Earp in the house!
Emma opened her heart and history to me. She had grown up in the prairies. A talented artist, she’d quit school at 16 when her high school went up in flames and she lost her entire portfolio. She’d left home, got pregnant and gave up the baby, and ended up at Sunshine, living a life of booze, drugs, and sex.
“I screwed anyone I could,” she told me. “Inside, outside. Behind the bar. In grooming Cat cabs. On a snowmobile at the top of Standish Chair.”
“Why?” I asked, tilting my head and touching the back of her hand.
“It filled the hole where my art should have been,” she said, eyes tearing.
My heart went out to her. I saw her potential to be more than she seemed. Maybe I could help her — even if our connection was just a fling. I couldn’t see the cliché.
In March, I drove to Victoria to visit Alice. We had had decided a visit might help us see if we could make something work. She lived in a tiny cottage outside Victoria. One night, Celine woke up crying. When Alice got up to warm a bottle, Celine climbed out of her crib, toddled to our bed, and cuddled with me. I flooded with feelings I had never experienced. But, two days later, during lunch, I fumbled a question from Alice’s friend, Julia — something about how I felt. How was I doing? Instead of saying, “Fine,” I stammered, trying to find words for my frustrating tangle of feelings, fears, and desires.
“Tell her the truth!” Alice snapped.
I wasn’t sure what she meant, but her tone and the look she gave me cut deep. I glared back. She shook her head, stomped to the washroom. Julia lifted her eyebrows, said, “Are you sure about this?”
I left the next morning. I wouldn’t see Celine again for over a decade.
*
I still hadn’t mastered the art of leading fiercely independent cats. I deferred to staff regarding climbing and mountaineering decisions. In meetings, we still argued about the relationship between adventure and finance. James had taken John’s place as de facto leader. But he and Chris often clashed. Marni played peacemaker. Dwayne stayed on the sidelines. Sharon argued she shouldn’t have to attend meetings because she was only ‘part time.’ I was more referee than respected leader but tried to impress on them the do or die nature of our challenge.
Despite more work than I could handle, I made time to climb. In summer, I did Red Shirt with Sharon. Barry led me up Sideline on Crag X. I swapped leads with Karl Klassen — a laid-back climbing instructor who worked summers for YMS and ski patrolled at Marmot in winter — on the airy but short Gonda Traverse on Banff’s Tunnel Mountain.
During our second winter in Canmore, Barry and Bill Stark, a contract instructor, ran an Ice Onecourse in Grotto Canyon, near His and Hers. On the second day of the course, I brought Advisory Board member Dixon Thompson — an Environmental Design prof — and two of his Calgary friends. I hoped Bob, a writer/journalist, and the CBC TV producer whose name I forget, would do stories about YMS programs.
To ensure TV guy had a good experience, I climbed the bottom of Grotto Falls beside him. But I got so involved in cheerleading, I found myself half-way up the 200-foot, Grade 2 route — unroped. Albi’s words, “more die going down,” echoed. So, I sucked it up and finished the route.
“Ya, mon!” Barry said, high-fiving me when I topped out. “Your first solo.”
I nodded, then sat against a tree trunk, letting my pulse drop into double digits.
Bob wrote a glowing article for the Albertan newspaper, but CBC guy couldn’t sell his colleagues on a TV segment.
Our bank balance slipped into the black. Staff wages rose. As work pressure eased, I spent more evenings in Ziggy’s. Em and I became a couple. But our relationship was rocky. She had zero interest in climbing or skiing. Her interests seemed to be limited to work and partying. I paid Marni to help Em learn the to cross-country ski. Em resisted.
“I don’t like it and can’t learn,” she told me. “So, stop trying to make me!”
I figured she only aspired to be public with things she looked good doing.
So, why am I with her?
Maybe she fills the hole in my life where close friends should be
Working with James helped me appreciate him more. A quiet, private guy, he sought excellence in everything he did. One night at Yam Centre, I had walked into Bowfort Lodge after returning from a tough day in the city. Only the entry way light was lit. Inside, I heard classical guitar music coming from the fireplace lounge. I peeked around the corner. James sat on the river stone fireplace ledge, finger picking his guitar. I hadn’t known he played. I slid down the wall and sat on the floor, listening. He was very good. When I asked him about it the next morning, he waved me off.
Massey’s Ice Climb. Photo: cndalpine.com
That winter James and I swapped leads on Massey’s waterfall near Field BC. But James’s new expedition gloves caused his tools to twist. He struggled. Only about 40 feet up the first pitch of the 1500 foot, W4 route, he clipped into an ice screw, said, “You’re officially seeing James Blench gripped.” He tossed his gloves down and lowered a narrow auxiliary rope for me to attach a spare pair he’d stashed in my pack. With them on, he floated up the steep bottom pitch. The rest of the route leaned back to W3, W2, my speed.
In spring, we set out to climb Narao Gully, west of Lake Louise. We camped in a forest below a headwall late one night. Nerves robbed me of sleep, but James zonked. I dozed fitfully when he rousted me at 4 am. In the dark, we scrambled up a headwall into a hanging alpine valley below Narao Peak. James wore his headlamp. I climbed with a small plastic flashlight in my mouth. It was good that our lights only illuminated a few feet in front of us. The headwall was steep! In the valley, fierce wind gusts blew grit into our faces. While James checked out the Gully, I sat on a flat rock behind a protruding rock wall. I was asleep when James returned. I stumbled up-valley with him and had a look at the gully. A skinny X-shaped couloir with a small rock outcrop where the lines of the X crossed. James pointed out the debris on the snow in the top portion, then said, “I don’t think it’ll go. Too much rockfall. You think?” Relieved, I agreed. So, we retraced our steps, drove back to Banff, and treated ourselves to a small “local’s special” feast in Banff Park Lodge’s well-appointed dining room.
*
Weekdays, our house often buzzed with staff and students. I’d hired an assistant to replace Yvonne and do clerical work and answer phones. So, at noon, I sometimes walked downtown, grabbed YMS mail at the post office, then ate lunch at the Village Green bistro. While I sipped a second glass of Chablis, I sorted mail, made “to do” notes, and did ABCs in my journal. Those relaxing, productive hours reminded me of Vancouver sanity stops. I had no inkling they would become problematic. As would the winter vacations I took, seeking respite from keeping my unruly cats focused on our survival.
Our second winter in Canmore, run down physically and emotionally, I suffered a plague of painful canker sores; 50 or more in my mouth and throat, on my lips, gums, and tongue. I couldn’t eat anything but the few icy vanilla milkshakes Marni made me. My doctor gave me tetracycline to ward off bacteria and let me go to Mexico for a scheduled two-week vacation. In Mazatlán, I spent nine days in my motel bed, trying to read a Travis McGee mystery but nodding off. For meals, I dipped fingers into tiny jars of pear baby food. Evenings, I sipped a small Baileys Irish Cream — a nod to my ‘vacation.’ The sores healed. My last three days, I lay on the beach, sipped Corona, and finished Travis.
A year later, I took another 10-day vacation in Mazatlan. I spent mornings in the courtyard of my off-beach colonial-style hotel, writing an article on YMS’s and other adventure challenge approaches for Alberta Recreation Magazine.
That trip almost hadn’t happened.
A month into our fall three-month course, a student, Jesse, had fallen out with James. He wouldn’t let her lead-climb yet because he thought she was over-confident, reckless, and still needed a top rope belay. During an argument one afternoon at Wasootch, James told her, “If you don’t like things now, you're gonna hate the 10-day Icefields mountaineering trip with no toilet paper.”
Jesse missed his twisted joke, quit the course, and demanded a full refund.
In my office, I explained it was too late to replace her. “If you buy a ticket to a 3-day concert but leave after the first day, they won’t refund your money. I can’t either.” I acknowledged James’ joke was inappropriate, promised to smooth things between them, and provide toilet paper!
But Jesse stood up, flipped her shoulder-length brown hair, and said, “You’ll hear from my lawyer” as she bolted out the door.
I chuckled. Too many bad movies?
A month later, we received a court summons via registered mail.
The District Court judge reminded me of Family Court’s “Unfair Judge.” He appeared smitten by Jesse. In a short, pale yellow dress, she used lithe, tanned legs to full advantage. As I tried to answer the judge’s questions, the old perv kept glancing at Jesse and grinning. I doubt he heard anything I said. Just before he cut the trial short so he could ‘make an afternoon tee time’ at the golf course, he chastised me for my “lack of business sense” and “insensitivity” for not providing toilet paper.
“Especially for such a lovely young lady.”
I sucked a breath.
Our lawyer shook her head: Don’t.
The judge recommended I take a business management course and ordered me to refund Jesse’s $2400. I couldn’t speak to James or Marni for a week.
But courses filled. As registrations and a cash flow increased, my job got easier.