Bound for Banff
The following article originally appeared in Winter 2014 edition of ACMG News (volume 40), on p.22. A copy of the article can be found here: ACMG news 2014 Bound for Banff
Cecilie Skog and Susan Oakey-Baker at the 2014 Banff International Mountian Film Festival
The Banff Mountain Film and Book Festival started more than 35 years ago as something to do in the off-season, between climbing and skiing. Some mountain types got together to show some films, over beers.
Now it attracts thousands of people and hosts world-renowned authors, filmmakers, adventurers and explorers such as Reinhold Messner, Jon Krakauer, Lynn Hill, Maria Coffey and Greg Child.
My husband Joe and I packed our truck, loaded our dog and son, and headed east through bursting autumn colours to Banff, to attend the festival for the first time. When we checked into the Banff Centre, I thought “I could do a lot of creating here”. Forest, deer, snow-capped peaks, crisp air. Cool place.
In the Max Bell Auditorium, I listened to David Roberts describe Douglas Mawson’s hard-to-believe Antarctic exploration in the early twentieth century during which the soles of Mawson’s feet detached. In the next presentation, the audience giggled when Lisa Baile showed naked pictures of legendary Coast mountain explorer John Clarke “crack” climbing. I marveled at the photo of Cecilie Skog’s anorexiclooking body, after an 1800 km ski across Antarctica. Through all of the presentations, a common thread emerged: a love of adventure.
I skipped lunch and roamed over the pages of words I might say, as I waited to present my new book. I wondered if I would take people out of their comfort zone.
I stood on the same stage that my late husband, Jim Haberl, had stood on almost 20 years ago when he presented his book “K2, Dreams and Reality.” My slides came alive on the screen: mountains, rivers, oceans and friends. Jim and I explored the wilderness together, all over the world. It was there, out of my comfort zone, vulnerable, that I felt closest to life and to him. When Jim was killed, I faced my hardest test of survival. I faced my most vulnerable self.
The audience listened for 45 minutes as I detailed my journey through grief. Sometimes they laughed.
I tried to answer the question, “Was it worth the risk loving Jim, a mountaineer?”
To be vulnerable, to venture out of one’s comfort zone, to live wholeheartedly in spite of the uncertainty of life, is absolutely worth the risk. Living with your whole heart is the only way to truly survive.
To finish my presentation, I described how my husband, Joe, and I and our 7 year-old son, Sam, went wilderness camping just a few weeks ago. Sam scrambled up the rocks, jumped over logs and said, “I love this world. This is the best hike ever. It’s risk. It’s freedom. There are no signs.”
