Behind the Scenes with Highline and Sundance Lodge

This January, the Highline team and our wild gang of writers, photographers, and creatives set out on an adventure to Sundance Lodge for our annual creative retreat. Well-known for it’s horseback trips in the summer, it’s a bit of a local’s secret that this beauty transforms into a super cozy, laid-back lodge perfect for an accessible winter getaway as well.

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Kristy Davison
Abraham Lake — Nature's Dutch Oven

The expulsion of gas is very rarely a welcomed event; just ask anyone who has invited extended-family relatives over for Thanksgiving dinner. Yet every winter at Abraham Lake, locals and tourists alike flock to this body of water on the upper course of the North Saskatchewan River in Western Alberta. They arrive to witness a stunning display of frozen methane gas bubbles that slowly float to the surface. These bubbles create a spectacular tableau of shapes and designs that would render Jackson Pollock speechless.

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Need to Read: The Best Mountain Books of 2015

Five faves from the 2015 Banff Mountain Book and Film Festival. The 2015 Banff Mountain Book and Film Festival’s literary game was strong. From memoir to mountaineering history, the fest continues to bring out the best in books. Don’t know where to start your reading list? Look no further, friends.

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Nancy Hansen's Radical Approach

A Canmore resident for two decades, Nancy Hansen’s enthusiasm has been unrivalled since she began climbing in 1995. In 2003, after summiting 3,612-metre Mount Forbes, she became the first woman, and only sixth person to climb all 54 of the Canadian Rockies’ peaks above 3,353 metres (11,000 feet). Adding to a long and impressive check list, with 46 summits completed, she has climbed more of the peaks listed in Roper and Steck’s book, “Fifty Classic Climbs of North America” than anyone else.

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On the Rocks: The Local Impacts of Glacial Melt

The Athabasca Glacier and the rest of its kin throughout Western Canada are dying, in large part due to anthropogenic (human-caused) climate change. And with the loss of glaciers, much of what we mountain folk hold dear about the places we love will be washed away. Our little pieces of paradise – along with the planet as a whole – will become much different and  more difficult places to live.

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Bear essentials: make your own crabapple liqueur

It’s that time of year again: bears are wandering the neighbourhoods of our mountain towns, risking their lives to feast on your delicious fruit trees.

But don’t despair. Instead, let’s get wild in the name of saving the wildlife. Now’s the time to strip the crabapples off your tree and make some inexpensive boozy drinks out of your harvest. Just follow the simple recipe below.

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Bushcraft — Wanna Spoon?

The moment has arrived: the sun will soon be tucked behind the mountains; birds chirp an evening lullaby; and bellies are full of, well, let’s be honest, probably hot dogs and potato chips — it’s the magical hour of the campfire.

Your companions for the evening are likely: a) your friends, drawn like moths to the campfire’s flames and will, if unprovoked — except for the occasional cooler run — remain hypnotized for hours by the blaze; or (b) your children, in which case by now they’re defiantly karate chopping your last nerve as you quietly debate with your spouse whose turn it is to throw them a bone. Either way, why not introduce knives to the situation (carving knives, of course!), and then see what happens?

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Locals’ choice: top 12 hikes near Banff

Take a hike! The fine folks at Hike365 and Highline Magazine have joined forces with our local audiences to create a top 12 list of the locals’ favourite hikes in the Rockies, within three hours driving distance if launching from Banff. The survey we hosted in April came back with some incredible results, and we’ve pared it down to a top three in each category.

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Kristy Davison
Know Your Neighbour: Christian Wright

Although he’d humbly deny it, Christian Wright is a big dill. One of the most recognizable faces of urban farming in Canmore and a bartender at The Drake Pub, he’s both a people and a plant person. Through working these two gigs, he’s found inner peas: channeling his inner Buddha while pulling weeds alone in the garden as well as when he has to tell a customer that he’s been cut off for the evening. Not that he focuses on the negative or anything — Wright is too busy digging life.

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Highline Contributor
Hiking heaven: Berg Lake

Threading its way alongside the raging Robson River before meandering upwards at a knee-grinding rate, the Berg Lake Trail is one of stupendous beauty and considerable challenge. Situated in Mt. Robson Provincial Park, under the watchful eye of Mt. Robson – at 3,954 metres, the highest peak in the Canadian Rockies – the Berg Lake Trail is a renowned backcountry hike, consisting of jaw-dropping vistas, thunderous waterfalls and culminating at an exquisite lake fed by three ice formations – the Mist, Berg and Robson glaciers.

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Highline Contributor
Bushcraft: How to Build a Fire

Here in the Bow Valley, Dave and Brenda Holder of Mahikan Trails are practicing a kinder, gentler, more-accessible bushcraft. Bushcraft can be a means to connect with our natural surroundings – an alternative way to be in nature rather than the usual hiking, biking, skiing, etc. In this issue of Highline, Dave Holder walks us through how to build a fire in the backcountry.

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