When Did This Begin?

When I was seven years old and living in England, my friend's family was considering emmigrating to Canada.  They brought over brochures to show us that featured.... mountains, mounties, and indians!  That was my understanding of Canada.  Imagine my disappointment when we got to Toronto in 1964 and there were none of the aforementioned in sight! 

Twenty years later, in 1984, I made my first visit to Alberta, spending a glorious two weeks in the Rocky Mountains of Alberta, with my first husband Jim(Mark's Dad), visiting Banff and Lake Lousie and Jasper, hiking and going on one of my most memorable adventures - a three day trail ride along the Skyline Trail near Jasper.  I fell in love with the mountains.  My next visit was 16 years later in 2000 - a ski trip to Sunshine and Lake Louise with two of my work colleagues.  I couldn't wait to come back and bring Mark back with me to experience skiing in a big mountain setting!  That happened two years later as Mark (age 16) and I met up with my good friend Lesley and four of her skiing friends, all from England.  We both loved it of course and I tentatively watched Mark start off to ski his first double black diamond.  Little did I realize what the future would hold!

In 2004, Mark headed off to New Zealand to study outdoor adventure tourism for two years, coming back with his Level 1 ski instructors.  In the fall of 2006, he drove out to Banff to work his first season as a ski instuctor/guide for SkiBig3.  Now that he is the Outdoor Activities Manager with the Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel, he is permanently residing there year-round. 

After I had been single for five years, I was thinking about selling the house and moving out West.  Mark was just finishing up high school and I was really feeling the urge to finally make the move.  Then I met Colin!  I explained to him my urge to move west, and he thought that would be great after his two boys had finished high school.  After another seven years, we are there!  In November 2010, I visited Canmore and knew it was the town I would like to move to.  Colin and I both visited in January 2011 and met with a former high school acquaintance of Colin's, Brad Hawker, who is now a real estate broker in Canmore.  How exciting that was!  He set us up with a website to view appropriate listings and that quickly became my favourite past-time, whenever updates came in.  In July 2011, Colin and visited again and toured through other communities between Calgary and Vancouver.  We were then absolutely sure of the Canmore move. 

We have decided to move in the fall of 2012.  But the project begins now, in January, as we spruce up our house in Ajax by stripping off the remaining wallpaper and doing some painting, with the plan to put the house on the market in the spring. That will also include a lot of downsizing activity as we anticipate having less living space in a townhouse or condo (no more crawl space.... yeah!) We will also focus on finishing up our exploration of the East Coast this summer visiting Newfoudland, the Cabot Trail, and PEI.  I want to complete my geocaching map of Ontario by doing the remaining 13 counties. That will include a trip to Moosonee on the Polar Bear Express.  Colin and I will stay out east to ski this season.  Colin has never skiied at LeMassif.  We are heading off on Jan 7th to ski a day at Tremblant, a day at Mt Ste. Anne, and two or three days at LeMassif.

It is going to be an exciting year!