Skip to main content

Welcome to My Mountain Home (where it began..)

Everyone seems to have their own unique story as to how they ended up in this magical, picturesque and quaint mountain town nestled in the great Canadian Rockies. Each and every one of them unique and fascinating in their own special way. The 'how' is the million dollar question that locals are curious of newcomers and that visitors marvel in envy over. For most, it seems, was a calculated endeavour that took years of careful planning to piece together but for some it was a simple stumble. Many running away from life and many, running to begin life.

This place I speak of is like nowhere I've ever experienced. Sure, it's a town with the same regular services as most, the same municipal structure as others and with stop signs and traffic lights, schools and churches. But if you peel just one layer off this small mountain towns' onion like surface and you come to experience what this place really represents and what this place really stands for it's something truly remarkable and a place that you will, I'm certain, come to agree is quite 'magical'.

The stars aligning and a serendipitous series of events underlie 'My story' of how I've come to now call this place my Mountain Home. A combination of; a relationship gone wrong, an obsession for the mountains, the right work situation, an unsettled heart, a desire for change and a thirst for adventure are the reasons why I can rest my head here. I had lost my sense of 'home' living in the oil obsessed Calgary over the years but now, I know that I'm on to something..

The meaning of a 'home' is something that I get, I really get. Most Newfoundlander's (as I am) would know and understand, some would say foolishly, in the unbreakable tie and comfort in attaching themselves to a rocky island that lies in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Another, I would argue, magical place where; connections run deep, people constantly smile and laugh (in spite of the unbelievably crappy weather), strangers are friends, people breath ocean air everyday and just seem to have something figured out in life..it is a place that i am both glad and proud I come from.

For me, it is the people, their stories and the adventures created in my new 'home', and bubble like town that makes it so unbelievably remarkable. This is the first entry into  'A Mountain Home' and it will be my take on the unique people, experiences and adventures that I get to observe and be a part of. My intent is to share my passion for a place that I now get to call home, as uniquely magical and special as my first. Similarly to my rocky island; this is a place where people live in the moment, where people breath mountain air everyday (as delicious as ocean air), where people live to adventure and explore, and a place where folks just seem to have something secretly figured out in life...

Welcome to 'A Mountain Home'. Welcome to Canmore.







Comments

  1. Well done Erin! Makes me want to go there right now! (are you up for a hike?)

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why being a Newfoundlander and not living there is a hard thing to do

On a humid, overcast and foggy Friday night I threw my line into the ocean. We were situated just off the easterly shores of Newfoundland in a quaint coastal town called Portugal Cove. It was only a matter of minutes before my jigger hit the ocean floor. It felt like forever, but soon with a hypothetical ‘thud’, the courting would begin. I was all too familiar with this lure, that now these unsuspecting cod were about to endure. There was nothing overly fancy about this process - a large weighted three-pronged barrel tied to a line and thrown into the ocean with not a morsel of bait on the end. Still though, the cod would bite, time and time again. So why then, were these bait-less, simplistic hooks so appealing to the cod who frequented these shores? I could identify with these creatures of the sea. I couldn't always rationalize the draw and deep connection I had to the rock – but something my heart could always so deeply comprehend. Over the years my head and heart have battled

Boston - A Journey

As I stood there in awe, knee deep in mud, teeth chattering uncontrollably and legs plastered in a paper mache mud, I took in my surroundings. Moments before, we had been ushered off yellow school buses, herded like cattle and directed to wait in large fields until our ‘waves’ were called. Garbage and haggard clothing decorated the ground, people wrapped themselves in garbage bags and lay on the ground huddled close together, trying to find warmth. There were no cell phones to be found, little laughter filled the air and friendly exchanges were few. The freezing temperatures, torrential rains and heavy winds made warmth hard to find and spirits even harder to lift. There was, however, a smell of excitement in the air and an energy that even the strong winds couldn’t tame. I tried to count the endless hours that I, and the 30,000 others who surrounded me had vested into having the opportunity to stand exactly where we were standing, in that treacherous weather, at that that very mo

Girl Guides or Boy Scouts

Beyond the the leaf, the trunk and the roots there is a soil that helps us emerge as individuals. What happens to us along the path of growth is unique. The conditions of the soil and where we choose to lay our roots makes us special. Even amidst the not so fine growing conditions where I grew up, I was never short on hypothetical nutrients, sunlight and support - the same nutrients, sunlight and support that I have found here in Canmore.  The biggest fight I ever recall getting into with my mother was when I was ten years old. While at a provincial hockey tournament in a small town nestled in the heart of Newfoundland, called Harbour Grace, she refused to allow me to get my favourite number shaved into the back of my, already very boyish 'skateboard', haircut. I didn't understand why being a girl should be correlated with my hairstyle, but that was a battle which was clear, I wasn't going to win. My mother however, was most accepting and supportive of my atypica