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.

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.