Stories to Tell

Barry Blanchard is a seventh generation descendent of Cuthbert Grant. Grant led the Métis at the Battle of Seven Oaks on June 19, 1816. Barry is proud of his Métis heritage and equally proud of being appointed as Member of the Order of Canada in 2024. Barry is a father, mountain guide, and author. He is an Honoured Member of the Association of Canadian Mountain Guides, Honorary Member of the Alpine Club of Canada, and his first book, The Calling, won The Boardman Tasker Prize for Mountian Literature in 2015.

Barry will share the story of establishing a new route on the east face of Howse Peak in the Canadian Rockies, in March 1999. He feels that some of the best writing in his upcoming second book, The Echo, was gifted to him during that ascent.

Chris Rubens has been a globally recognized professional skier for the past two decades. Dedicated to the mountains and passionate about moving through them, he spends most of his time self-propelled in the backcountry, seeking elegant lines and sharing them through film, photography, and social media.

Chris will reflect back on his storied career, sharing his personal progression from a teenage ski racer in Calgary to a backcountry skier based in Revelstoke. Along the way, he’ll dig into the moments when everything came together, when it fell apart, and what he learned in the process.

Photo by Bruno Long

Lori Anne Donald is a Whitewater Mountain Resort athlete and Nelson-based Physiotherapist at Mountain Sport Clinic, where she helps active people and athletes prevent and recover from injuries so that they can keep doing what they love in the mountains. A former member of the Canadian National Ski Mountaineering Team, Lori Anne has raced across North America and Europe, representing Canada at multiple Ski Mountaineering World Championships and World Cup races.

In her presentation, Lori Anne will explore the art of transition—both in ski mountaineering and in life. Newly retired from World Cup racing, she’s shifted her focus to Canada’s great peaks. So far, she’s successfully skied to the top of Mount Logan (5,959 m), the highest point in Canada, and she has summited Mount Waddington (4,019 m), the tallest peak in British Columbia. 

Pascale Marceau is an explorer, mountaineer, and high-risk industry consultant based in the Canadian Rockies. With more than 25 years of mountain experience, her work has increasingly focused on remote, cold-weather expeditions and exploratory firsts in some of the most demanding environments on the planet.

In Arctic Awe, Pascale recounts a seven-week ski journey through Canada’s High Arctic where the goal was simply to be. Stripping away competition and ego, the expedition required full acceptance of the environment, navigating polar bear encounters, crevassed glaciers, and thin ice where adaptation and resilience were not optional but essential.

Pascale will take us along an edge-of-your-seat Polar Trifecta, sharing lessons from the High Arctic that reveal how deeply capable humans can be when fully in sync with nature.

Rob Mazenc is the Services Director with the Alpine Club of Canada (ACC), Canada’s national mountaineering club founded in 1906. Originally from France and now based in the Bow Valley, Rob is a passionate backcountry skier with a deep appreciation for mountain culture in all its forms. In his role at the ACC, Rob focuses on community engagement and national collaboration—working with 26 local sections across the country and groups of passionate volunteers to support programs, partnerships, and leadership development.

In his presentation, Rob will explore the history of backcountry huts in Western Canada through two landmark projects: the historic Abbot Pass Hut — recently dismantled stone-by-stone after permafrost destabilized the bedrock—and the eagerly anticipated Robson Hut, slated for completion this summer. The ACC operates and maintains the largest network of backcountry huts in North America.