Our Wedding Day

August 4, 2021August 19, 2021 / Maria / 2 Comments

It’s been 2 years since our wedding day, but I never wrote about it and I’ve always personally found that writing about something really helps me to be able to recall it better in the future. It was an amazingly special day and I want to try and hold on to as many of those memories as possible (and hope too many haven’t slipped away already).

I always wanted to get married in Newfoundland. The longer you’re away from the home, the harder it is to describe what the term means to you. I felt tethered to Newfoundland for a long time after leaving and probably drove all my co-workers and new friends nuts with how much I liked to talk about it. There’s really nothing more frustrating than trying to explain to a Vancouverite that 5cm of snow is not a snowpocalypse and that snow in March is not crazy. So I really held on to my roots, and I still do.

But the longer you’re away, the more untethered you become and it’s hard to deny that Vancouver has also become my home and that I now have strong feelings of attachment associated with both places. But all this really only fueled my desire to get married in Newfoundland. I knew it would be an impossible trip for most people to take, but I really wanted to give the people who have become close to me on the West Coast the opportunity to visit. Plus I really wanted some wedding photos with the ocean (sadly I never ended up getting them, though not for lack of trying).

We came home two weeks before the wedding. The first week was dedicated to all the chores and appointments that come with organizing a wedding from afar, but I was adamant that I wanted to leave the second week free to spend time with my friends and family that were visiting from away. I got my wish and had a great week hiking the east coast trail and partying on George Street with many of the people I love. My bridesmaids threw me a lovely little pre-wedding party and we held the rehearsal dinner at my parents house.

It absolutely poured the night before the wedding. We had the most gorgeous weather leading up to the wedding, which I took as a bit of a bad sign because there’s only so much nice weather St. John’s is going to get, but it was still calling for decent weather on our actual wedding day. We had to move the wedding rehearsal to my church, but we still planned for an outdoor wedding at Pippy Park.

On Saturday morning, August 10, I woke up to the most gorgeous weather. I was pretty anxious the night before (okay like super anxious), but all I felt on Saturday morning was excitement. My recurring nightmare leading up to the wedding was that I wouldn’t have everything ready, or that things would be late, so it was so nice to wake up and think that none of that mattered anymore. Everyone had their jobs and whatever happened, I wouldn’t have to be the one to deal with it. Plus it was a sunny day and the sun always puts me in a great mood!

I was almost giddy for everyone to start showing up, I believe we’d planned to start hair and make-up at 8am because we had a 1:15pm wedding (yes, that’s the kind of organized person I am, the kind that gets married on the quarter hour!) Our hair, make-up, and lash artists all showed up on time to my parents house, along with all my bridesmaids and before I knew it, we were all done up with an hour to spare! I had the hair and make-up scheduled pretty tight, but everyone we hired was amazing and we had time to just relax before heading to the ceremony. I loved my hair, which was an updo done by Flhair by Lauren and Brittany Rowsell did a great job filling in my lash extensions. Make-up was what I was really nervous about because I’d had a bad experience with getting my make-up done in the past, but I had a consultation with Carlye Winsor and she was awesome! I looked exactly how I wanted to in all my pictures and I can’t thank her enough for that!

Our photographer, Zach Wheeler, showed up to take some pictures of us as we finished getting ready and we took a few snaps in the backyard before the bus showed up to take us to the ceremony. I can honestly say that I didn’t feel any butterflies before the ceremony. I expected to feel anxious on the way to the Courtyard, but all I felt was excitement to walk down the aisle and finally marry Seth. The time on our invitations said 1:15pm, but that was because I was sure something would cause us delay or people would be late, so we were actually planning for a 1:30pm wedding. But since everything was running smoothly, we actually did start the wedding pretty much on time!

My best friend Gill played a piano prelude that I’m sad I never got to hear and my new brother Trevor played and sang Somewhere Over the Rainbow on his guitar while we all walked down the aisle. Since we got married outside, I stayed hidden in the bus with my parents until Seth had been walked down the aisle by his parents and then snuck in line behind my bridesmaids.

Walking down the aisle was my favourite part of the entire wedding and one of the most emotional moments of my life. It was overwhelming and I felt a very powerful feeling of love for Seth as I walked down the aisle. The whole way down the aisle I was trying to hold back my tears and Zach caught a photo of me right when I entered the Courtyard that I absolutely love because you can see the emotion written all over my face.

Mom kissed me at the end of the aisle and left lipstick on my cheek, which got me, and everyone else, laughing and really set a tone for the rest of the wedding. I’ve been to a lot of wedding ceremonies and of course, I’m unbiased in saying that ours was the best. It was a no fuss ceremony, but it meant everything to us. We were married by Major Barb Pritchett, who was the corps officer at the Temple when we started going there as a family in 1995. She messed up right at the beginning by calling me Beth (we think it’s because it rhymes with Seth?) and made us all laugh, only bringing a little bit more joy to the day. But she also gave us a lovely ceremony and I think she really set us up for success in our marriage.

After walking down the aisle, the vows were my next favourite part. We decided to go through the arduous task of writing our own vows and I’m so glad that we took the time to do it because it was the most meaningful part of the day and something that I will always treasure and hold us accountable to. My friend Erica pre-read them both to make sure they were similar in length and content, but I think we had a good mix of reminiscing about our relationship while being thoughtful and intentional about the promises we were making to each other. We talked in advance about what marriage meant to us both and agreed on what kind of vows we’d be making to one another.

My childhood friends Maria and Steve did a duet for us of Ruelle’s, I Get To Love You, while we both signed the register and My Aunt Arlene and my cousin Emma did readings for us from 1 Corinthians and Anne of Green Gables (yep, it was that kind of wedding). Just as we were finishing signing the register, we started to feel a few light raindrops. My cousin, Olivia, quickly came to the rescue with an umbrella for us, which we laughed at because it had little birds on it and Seth loves birds. But it was light enough and we didn’t really need it, so we ditched it for our first kiss and presentation as husband and wife. We’re both proud to have decided to keep our maiden names, so there’s no annoying document changes for us (and my blog handle is still accurate, yay!).

As we started the procession down the aisle it started to rain in earnest as Trevor ironically played “Here Comes the Sun” on his guitar. It was the oddest day for weather. There are photos from the beginning of the wedding that show blue sky, but at the end of our 30 minute ceremony it really started to pour (that’s Newfoundland for you). It helped to speed the receiving line along because everyone was trying to hurry back to their vehicles, but the poor Groomsmen got soaked stacking up all the chairs.

Fortunately the first bit of rain didn’t last too long and we were able to get our family photos done in the Park without too much ado. The rain was sporadic, so we’d take some photos, hide under the eave of the park building, and then take some more. The only problem was where to go after that for the rest of our photos.

Surprisingly the rain wasn’t really bothering me that much. We were ahead of schedule, so it wasn’t slowing things down and it was so sporadic I figured it would just move off. We had planned to go out to the Marine Sciences Centre to take some photos on the East Coast Trail, but we decided to head downtown to Government House instead to avoid the rain. Unfortunately the rain was much worse downtown, so we took some photos inside the receiving hall, which I was unsure about because they were inside, but they ended up being some of my favourite photos of Seth and I from the entire wedding!

After that we split with our bridal party. They went off to the Reception site and we continued on our photo tour. We decided to try for Cuckhold’s Cove since it was nearby, but there were a bunch of other wedding parties there as well, so we decided to try for the wedding reception venue instead. It was located about 45 minutes outside of St. John’s and I was getting reports it was sunny out there. There’s only one small regret that I have about my wedding, and that’s that we never made a go for photos on the East Coast Trail. I really wanted ocean photos, and sadly I never got them. If I could do one thing over, I would just take them in the rain. But we still have gorgeous photos so I’ve learned to let it go.

Our reception was at The Wilds, which is a golf course out on Salmonier Line. They recently constructed a brand new pavilion, and the price is great compared to the golf courses closer to town, so we were thrilled that the space was available. It was far enough that a lot of guests decided to stay the night in the hotel, but close enough that people were still able to drive home if they wanted.

The Wilds staff took us out on the course to some of the prettier photo sites and we got some unique photos in the woods. We finally got a full shot of our giant wedding party and popped some champagne before heading into the ceremony.

My cousin Olivia and my friend Sean were our Emcees for the night and they did such a wonderful job, as did all of my Aunt’s, who got up early to decorate the entire venue for us. I really was so lucky. Because I was living in BC, my Mom took care of all the decorations and completely executed our vision for the space without us ever having to lift a finger! My Aunts took care of the reception while my Uncles took care of the ceremony site. Emily is an experienced cake decorator, so she made both the Wedding Cake (which was 3 tiers, two of which were Styrofoam), and the sheet cakes that everyone ate. She even let us do a little cake testing and we agreed on a vanilla cake with raspberry filling and white chocolate ganache!

We did our reception set up a little bit different than your typical Newfoundland Wedding. Seth didn’t like the idea of having a head table, so instead we just had a normal circular table at the front of the room where we sat with Emily, Trevor, and their partners. The meal was my favourite, turkey dinner, and the chef did a special fish meal for Seth. We had a fun little kissing game that incorporated both our hobbies. To get us to kiss, you could either come up to the front and hula hoop, or you could pick a card and try and guess the name of the bird! Both games were a hit, but of course, I’d give the edge to the hula hoopers.

We threatened everyone to keep their speeches short, they all listened except of course for my parents. But everyone gave lovely speeches and Seth’s family especially, had everyone laughing. We ended the formal reception by cutting the cake, but since we had so many people Come-from-Away, we wanted to integrate a Screeching-In ceremony into our wedding! Personally, I think this was one of my more brilliant ideas. It always takes the staff a while to set up the hall for the dance and the Screech-In kept everyone entertained and out of the way! So we re-located to the bar and our family friend Mary screeched in around 25 people!

It was super fun to watch all my friends from Vancouver and a good deal of Seth’s relatives kiss the fish. It raised a lot of questions in my office when I sent the photos around after the wedding, so for those who have never heard of a Screech-In, it’s Newfoundland’s way of welcoming outsiders in as “honourary Newfoundlanders”. The catch is, you have to kiss a cod and take a shot of Screech Rum!

We had our first dance to I Can’t Help Falling in Love with You, which was so special for me. First dances are one of my favourite parts of weddings, I’m always the weirdo in the front who can’t stop staring at the happy couple as they dance, so I loved having my first dance with Seth. I’d been very on the fence about having a father-daughter dance. I don’t like a lot of the patriarchal aspects of weddings. I’d strongly been debating walking myself down the aisle, but at the end we decided to both have both our parents walk us down the aisle so that at least it was equal. So formally, we weren’t planning to have a father-daughter dance, but at the last minute I decided I didn’t want to risk regretting it, so we had a joint father-daughter, mother-son dance to Bruno Mars’ Count on Me.

I’m so glad we did, it ended up being one of my favourite parts of the wedding! Halfway through, my Mom and Emily cut in to dance with us and Trevor and Seth’s Dad cut in on their dance. We danced as families for a little while and then we all joined into a big circle and danced together as one big family. I get teary-eyed just thinking about it. I do recognize that I am so lucky to have 2 supportive families that both like each other and are endlessly supportive of me and Seth. The dance for me represented the forever merging of our families and made me so happy that despite the things that make us different, we are all one family now.

After that the dance kicked off in earnest. Now I don’t want to brag, but my wedding was definitely a party! I feel like I’ve been to so many weddings where it takes forever for the dance to properly get started. It’s always the bridesmaids trying to get everyone comfortable on the dance floor – we did not have that problem. The DJ kicked off the party with Heave Away and the dance floor was immediately flooded with people! I give most of the credit to my large and energetic family and it was really an awesome time. Me and Emily were slightly concerned when the DJ played a slow song for the second song that it would kill the rave he’d just got going, but the floor was then crowded with all the couples and when he went back to a fast song again after that the party immediately continued. Our DJ could use a little work on his song transitions, but he was actually really good at reading the room and playing a little bit of something for everyone, so we were really happy. He kept the party going literally the entire night, the dance floor was never empty, so there’s not much more you can ask for from a DJ!

Eventually we broke out the hula hoops on the dance floor and we had a photo booth set up in the corner for people to enjoy. Mom had set up a candy bar, but I somehow never visited it once the entire night. I went hard at the beginning of the dance because Zach had told me he usually sticks around to photograph 2-3 songs and then takes off, so I wanted to stay on the dance floor. But apparently even Zach was having the time of his life and he ended up sticking around for at least an hour of the dance, photographing all our guests.

The only downside was it was extremely hot in the venue. Even with the rain earlier, it had been a hot, humid day, but fortunately there was an outdoor deck on the venue, so I was constantly going in and out for air. I believe we had the venue booked until 1am, but no one seemed to have any interest in kicking us out and the DJ just kept on playing, so eventually around 1:30am I went over to Seth and told him maybe it was time for us to move out. Most of my relatives were still hanging around because it’s customary to send off the bride and groom. So we told our parents we were getting ready to go and my Aunts secretly wrangled up the rest of the guests to make a bridge tunnel to see us out! It was so sweet, so we ran through their little tunnel, ending one of the most exciting days of our lives.

Truly, I was so floored by all the love and everyone who came out to celebrate with us. I felt like we started our ceremony off on the right note, with a mixture of humour, but also authenticity, and it carried through the rest of the day. Would I have preferred if it didn’t rain? Of course, but even with the rain, it was still a perfect day. Our wedding was in 2019, so in retrospect, we really had no idea how lucky we were to have been able to gather with 160 of our friends to celebrate.

We stayed in the honeymoon suite overnight and said another goodbye to our friends and family in the morning. This one was a bit harder since we wouldn’t see any of our friends again on the trip and would be going back to BC in a few days. We checked out to the most enormous bill I’ve ever paid in my life, and then headed off to Bonavista to enjoy a short honeymoon before heading home. We went on a proper honeymoon in December when we visited New Zealand for 5 weeks (again our timing was so lucky!), but it was nice to have a few days after the wedding to decompress and just enjoy each other’s company!

Mount Assiniboine Backpacking Trip: Part II

July 28, 2021March 27, 2023 / Maria / 5 Comments

We had a pretty solid start to our trip on Day 1 (Part I), but things went downhill really fast on Day 2. It’s hard to write about, but backcountry safety and emergency preparedness in the wilderness are so important to me, so I think it’s really important to share when things go wrong. More people than ever have been exploring the backcountry during the pandemic and search and rescue tasks have been way up. Social media has exposed a lot of very beautiful locations, but people don’t always share the challenges that often come along with those experiences. I don’t want to give a false idea of what multi-day thru-hikes are like, so I think it’s really important to share the good along with the bad. In general, my entire 6 day trip to Assiniboine was extremely challenging, but Day 2 was probably one of the worst days I’ve ever had in the backcountry.

On Day 2 we had to go 14km to get to our campsite at Magog Lake. We departed shortly after 8am and it was about 1km to the lake. There’s a short uphill section that takes you partway up the mountainside and from there, it’s another 6km of relatively flat terrain that runs parallel to the lake. The trail traverses in and out of the trees, so we had a pretty good time because large parts of the trail were shaded, and the parts that weren’t shaded offered absolutely gorgeous views of Marvel Lake and the glacier covered mountains at the end of the lake. From the trail, we could just see the tip of Mount Assiniboine peaking out from behind the mountains.

Once the trail reaches the end of the lake, it starts to ascend up to Wonder Pass via a series of switchbacks. We knew the switchbacks would be challenging in the heat, so we planned a nice break before starting them. It was around 11am, so we decided to wait to have lunch and instead has some snacks. I was feeling a little tired, so I mixed myself some electrolytes to help prepare for the climb. We hit a river right before starting the ascent, so we all topped up our bladders and bottles.

I was feeling good as we started the switchbacks, but I was also worried about the others, particularly Lien, who drinks a lot of water on a normal day, much less a really hot one. I told everyone to say if they felt the least bit dizzy or nauseous and that we would stop. But one mistake I think I made was that as we climbed up the switchbacks, I was at the head of the group. We probably should have put a slower hiker at the front, but the trail goes in and out of the trees, so we were stopping for short breaks at every single shady section of the trail, so I didn’t think much of it.

I was one shady section ahead of the group taking a break when the guys called up to me that our other companion, whose name I’ve left out for privacy reasons, was feeling tired and wanted a quick break. I walked back down the trail to see her sitting on the ground leaning against her pack with her eyes closed. This was a bad sign for me and indicated to me that she probably already had heat exhaustion. I quickly mixed her a half litre of electrolytes to try and perk up her energy. The guys seemed pretty sure she’d come around quickly, but honestly for me it was a really bad omen. I’ve had first aid training since I was 16 and have treated 2 other cases of heat exhaustion in the past (1 of which resulted in a seizure), so I just had a really bad feeling.

What I wasn’t prepared for though was how quickly our companion’s health went downhill. Within minutes she was fully lying down on the trail while I continued to give her electrolytes and Brandon gave her energy chews. She kept saying she just needed a few minutes to rest up, but I was not reassured by the fact that she was lying down and knew she was likely already dehydrated and needed more than a few minutes of rest. I booted up my Inreach on the side as a precaution, but the guys wanted to give her more time. This is not unreasonable as you definitely don’t want to call for emergency assistance unless you’re sure you need it.

But shortly after that things really deteriorated and she started having severe muscle cramps in her arms and legs. At first I thought she was having a seizure, but then recognized it as heat cramps and immediately made the SOS call. This is something I hoped never to have to do when I purchased my Inreach, but of course, I also purchased it for this exact scenario. While I was making the call the guys removed her shoes and socks and anything that was creating tightness and started massaging her legs, feet, and arms. This definitely helped with the pain of the cramps, but I knew that in the long term she needed hydration. I poured water over her face and torso to try and cool her down and kept feeding her electrolytes, hoping she would not pass out because I needed to keep giving her water.

As we gave first aid, I noticed the SOS had still not sent. It often takes my inreach about 20 minutes to send messages, especially in the trees like where we were, but I didn’t want to wait for it, so Brandon offered to run it up the trail to try and get the message through. It stressed me out for us to split up, but we needed help and I had wilderness first aid training and Brandon was fast, so it made the most sense. He took his water and left. It felt like he was gone forever, during which I mostly continued to feed her electrolytes until she complained it was too much and asked me to switch to water. At that point, I started drinking the electrolytes myself because I was starting to get tired too. Lien continued to massage her limbs. She had initially been frantic because she couldn’t feel her legs or arms, but overtime, she started to regain feeling and fortunately, still never passed out. Eventually she became cold from all the water I poured on her, so I changed her into dry clothes and we put an emergency blanket under her to insulate against the cold ground.

I don’t know what the official diagnosis was for her condition, but I believe it was heat stroke, which can only be treated with medical help. The fact that she had such severe cramping and lost feeling in her limbs likely suggests that her body was starting to shut down and was taking energy away from her limbs to preserve her body’s core functions. I’m not a professional, so perhaps it wasn’t as extreme as heat stroke, but I don’t doubt she needed more help than we were able to provide on that mountain.

The sun was on the move and our shade was disappearing, so I put up my tarp to shield us all from it. Her pain had subsided so me and Lien quickly ate some food to keep up our own strength and then kept giving her water. There wasn’t much else I could do for her aside from try to replenish her fluids. Thankfully Brandon returned, having finally got the SOS to go through. He was immediately inundated with messages from Emergency Services looking for more details. Fortunately the Inreach had found the satellite and we were now able to message from our location. I’m sure the technicians were frustrated with us because it takes forever to type using the text pick on the Inreach and we gave them pretty limited info to try and get the messages out as fast as possible. They asked if we could move at all, to which I responded no, and I told them we’d wait at this location and to look for a yellow tarp. Lien tied his red ground sheet to the trees as well to make us more visible.

Once I finished the trip, I learned Inreach had called both Seth and my Mom, who were listed as my emergency contacts. They couldn’t originally get a hold of Seth, who had our entire trip plan, but the main thing they first asked my Mom was about my level of experience and whether she thought I had sent the SOS accidentally. The reason they wondered is because the GPS location showed we were directly on the trail. Mom told them she thought it was unlikely it was an accident and to please send help. By then we had got more messages through and Inreach reassured my Mom they were already on the way.

They definitely were on the way. Shortly after Brandon returned and less than an hour after the message had gone through, a helicopter circled our location and sirened at us to let us know they’d seen us. They told us after it was really easy to find us having our exact GPS location and with the tarp. They flew off and returned some time later with a guy on longline. He landed about 15metres down the trail from us and Lien accompanied him to our location. He asked our companion some questions and we filled him in on what had occurred. During this, Brandon had departed again to go back to the water source to refill our bladders and Lien began packing up the backpacks for departure. A second S&R guy was flown in on longline and they assessed whether they could bring our companion out lying down or sitting up. They decided lying down would be best for the extraction and then to transfer her to the helicopter to sit on the way to the hospital. At this point she was looking better. She was actually keeping her eyes open and giving longer responses, plus she needed to go to the bathroom twice. S&R never actually gave her any first aid on the ground and instead transferred her to hospital to go on saline.

They told us we had taken the right actions in putting up the tarp, cooling her down, and giving her lots of water and electrolytes. They took her out via longline lying down and then took Lien out by longline sitting up. They waited for Brandon to return before taking Lien so we could plan what to do next. They did indicate they would take us all via longline if we needed it, but that it wasn’t preferred as the helicopter wasn’t big enough. They needed to take Lien so he could go to the hospital, but it made no sense for them to take me and Brandon too, so we had to decide whether to go back or continue on. I felt that we should go back. We had been through something traumatic and I wanted to know she was okay after having given her first aid for 3 hours. But Brandon pointed out there was really nothing more we could do for her and we were more than a day from either trailhead, so we should just go on.

So we went on. I still feel a bit guilty about it, but I’m also glad that at least the trip wasn’t over for everyone. In the back of my mind though I was concerned about me and Brandon also getting heat exhaustion. Brandon had already climbed the pass once with the Inreach and I was tired from the stress of attending to the incident. One of the eeriest parts of the day was the fact that we hadn’t seen a single person besides S&R. It made us feel like we were the only people crazy enough to be out hiking, but we encountered lots of other people at Assiniboine who were day hiking up to the pass and thru-hiking in the opposite direction, so it was just a coincidence we were the only ones hiking through the pass that day.

Before moving anywhere we finally sat down and ate our lunch to get some energy back. After that we took it really slow. We crawled at a snail’s pace through the sunny sections and took a break every time we encountered shade. There was limited shade in Wonder Pass, but was it ever gorgeous! I felt like we weren’t able to properly enjoy it, but we still got some lovely photos. We debated camping in the pass since it was an extenuating circumstance, but there was so little shade to be found we ultimately decided to press on. Though we did find a single tree up there and took a break.

It was approaching 6pm when we left the pass. The top of the pass marks both the Alberta-BC border and the transition between Banff National Park and Mount Assiniboine Provincial Park. It was a relief to finally start moving downhill and we walked through a beautiful larch forest that I’m sure is super scenic in the fall. We descended past a waterfall and down to some meadows where we re-filled our bottles from the stream. In total Brandon drank a whopping 7L of water on this day!

It was still late June, so I was surprised by the amount of wildflowers we saw on the trip! We saw lots of buttercups and Indian Paintbrush, as well as the Alberta Wild Rose, forget-me-nots, and lots of other white and purple flowers I can’t identify. Eventually we arrived at Gog Lake, which still had some small bergy bits floating in it. I wanted to go for a swim in it, but it’s surrounded by wetland, so I settled for a dunk in freezing Magog Creek instead. It was only knee deep and my feet immediately started to go numb, so I quickly washed myself down before crawling back out.

We were pretty exhausted at this point, but we continued on through the meadows and couldn’t help exclaiming at the beauty of the park. We finally hit the Naiset Huts and were disappointed to learn it was still another 2km to the Magog Lake campsite. It was finally starting to cool off now though and the sun was lower in the sky, we continued along the edge of Magog Lake and were treated to the most gorgeous views of the lake. Every step hurt and when we finally rolled into the campsite it was 8pm – almost 12 hours after we had started! We were greeted by the Ranger who directed us to the shadiest campsite remaining (not very shady). But we didn’t care and trudged our way out to site number 40 at the back of a little meadow.

I have lots to write about the campsite, but this post is getting long, so I’ll save it for the next entry. We set up camp as quick as possible and I got dinner going while Brandon filtered water. We scarfed down our dinner and sent messages out to Lien and Seth to let them know we’d made it to the campsite and check on our companion. She was still in the hospital, but doing better. After that we pretty much hit the sack immediately. Unfortunately sleep was elusive. There was too much to process from the day, I just lay in bed for hours with my brain spinning. At one point I got up to pee and I could barely open my eyes or move my body I was so tired, but my mind just would not go to sleep. Eventually I drifted off late in the night with no alarms set for the next day. Click for Part III.

Mount Assiniboine Backpacking Trip: Part I

July 21, 2021August 19, 2021 / Maria / 10 Comments

At the tail end of June I went on a 6 day backpacking trip to Mount Assiniboine Provincial Park. It’s a trip I planned last year that ended up getting cancelled because of the pandemic. We made a second attempt at it this year and were partially successful in making it happen. I got permits for 3 nights at Magog Lake and we decided to extend the trip by a night on either end to hike in and out of the park.

There are lots of options for how to get to Mount Assiniboine and where to stay. There’s a swanky lodge with several hotel style rooms, about a dozen reservable huts, and a pretty standard backcountry campground with 40 sites. We opted to go the rustic route and stay at the campground, but me and Brandon had a running joke throughout the trip that the next time we return we will stay at the lodge!

Likewise, there are a few options for getting into the park. You can take a helicopter ride from Canmore or the Mount Shark trailhead on Kananaskis Highway for $200 each way, or you can hike in through one of the many trailheads that run through the park. I thought a lot of people would be helicoptering in either one way or both ways to the park, but a surprising amount of people we met had actually decided to thru-hike in and out of the park. The park was only open to BC residents this year, so that might have had something to do with it.

I’m sure it comes as no surprise that we decided to hike. There are 3 main trailheads, but the option in Kooteney National Park is not commonly followed. I only encountered one group who had come that way and they said it involved several long sections of bushwacking, so I wouldn’t recommend it. The other ways into the park are through the Sunshine Village Ski Resort (located between Lake Louise and Banff) and through Mount Shark (in Spray Lakes Provincial Park). Most people we met started at Sunshine Village and continued out through to Mount Shark. In retrospect, this is the itinerary I would recommend, but I made an error in judgement when planning the trip and booked the campsite on the Mount Shark side first, meaning we had the reverse itinerary of most other thru-hikers.

The reason it’s preferred to go the other direction is because it’s a net downhill from Sunshine Village, although in past years everyone would take the gondola up to the top to avoid most of the elevation gain. The gondola is closed this year, so now there is a fair bit of climbing on either side. I realized my error before the trip and tried to reverse the itinerary, but the Mount Shark section requires booking a backcountry reservation in one of 3 Parks Canada backcountry sites and there were no reservations left when I tried to reverse my plans, so we committed to starting from Mount Shark.

We started the hike on June 27, which you may remember was the start of a brutal heat wave across the province. Temperatures reached over 40 degrees in Metro Vancouver throughout the week – it wasn’t that hot in the Rockies, with a high of 32 on our first two days, but still not ideal temperatures for hiking. We had a full day of driving across the province to reach our starting point, so we stayed in Golden overnight and arrived at the Mount Shark trailhead around noon the following day. Mount Shark is located off the Kananaskis Highway, which is a gravel road that runs from Canmore.

We started the trek as a party of 4. We ate lunch in the shade at the trailhead before starting our first day, during which we’d hike 13km along flat terrain to the Marvel Lake Campsite. I was quite nervous about the heat going into the hike, though I was reassured that Mountain Forecast showed lower temperatures near Assiniboine. We focused on hydrating for several days leading up to the trip and drank 2-3L of water a day prior to the trip. We packed a ton of electrolyte powder with us and did the best we could to keep our pack weight down.

The first day was hot, but we made good time (about 3km an hour) and kept our spirits up. It was tough starting at noon because the sun is directly overhead, which means that even though a lot of the hike was in the trees, there was still no shade to be found. It’s not the most scenic first day, but I still really enjoyed hiking through the forest and liked that we had a flat day to ease into the trip rather than having to start with the 6km climb up the gondola road on the Sunshine Village side.

The Mount Shark trailhead is located in Spray Lake Provincial Park, but the trail quickly transitions into Banff National Park. From the trailhead, it’s 26km to Magog Lake, so it was a no brainer for us to split the hike over 2 days. There are 3 backcountry campsites that can be booked on the Parks Canada website: Big Springs at 9km, Marvel Lake at 13km, and Bryant Creek at 14km. I never visited Bryant Creek, but I thought Big Springs was quite open and nice and Marvel Lake, though not much to write home about, had lots of a shade and a nice rushing river.

Marvel Lake Camp is located just off the trail junction. There are 2 options for how you get to Mount Assiniboine Provincial Park. You can either take the trail along the edge of Marvel Lake and up over Wonder Pass, which was our plan, or you can take the Assiniboine Pass, which exits behind the lodge. Wonder Pass is recognized as the more scenic route, but is much more challenging than Assiniboine Pass due to the elevation gain. We opted for the more scenic route, though in retrospect, with the heat we should have revised our itinerary to do Assiniboine Pass instead. That said, the pass was incredibly scenic and there is much less elevation gain coming from the other direction, so if you start at Sunshine Village, I would still recommend the Wonder Pass route. I only met one group doing the Assiniboine Pass trail and it was because they did the whole 26km in one day and opted for the easier route.

We were looking forward to ending Day 1 with a swim in Marvel Lake, but we discovered water activities are not permitted in the lake because there is a parasite in it and they want to avoid people accidentally transporting it to other lakes or locations. Also, the entrance to the lake ended up being kind of gross with a lot of mosquitoes, so in the end we weren’t that tore up about it. Instead, we enjoyed Brandon’s infamous Thai curry chicken for dinner and went to bed early to get a head start the following day to try and beat the heat. Check out Part II to continue the saga.