"What then is the right way of living? Life must be lived as play."
- Plato, Greek Philosopher
She was a tough chick from North Vancouver - Lynn Valley to be precise. And there was nothing in her background that suggested she might be interested in skiing. Music maybe. A little jazz, a little rock & roll - that, at least, was part of the family tradition. But sliding down the mountain on two sticks? No way.
Still, there was something about the sport that intrigued her. "There was this ski program at Mt. Seymour offered through the school," explains the gal they used to call "Punchy." "So I saved up all my babysitting money and signed up." She stops. Smiles. "I think that was in Grade 6..."
She'd never been on skis before. Never felt the feeling of sliding downhill on snow. But she took to it like a... well, let's hear it from her. "I remember the sense of freedom it gave me," she says. "I loved it. You know, being with friends, being allowed to be silly. It was fun."
But it's not like she felt skiing was going to change her life or anything. "It was an amusement park sensation. Know what I mean? Like going to the local rink or something. It's not something I saw as part of my everyday life."
But things change.
Sherry Newstead Boyd is celebrating her 40 th birthday this week. A resident of Whistler for the last 20 years - star snowboarder, stunt person, go-go girl, entrepreneur, born-again skier and now mom of two toddlers - the five-foot-nothing dynamo from Lynn Valley is approaching probably the most dramatic anniversary an active person has to face. Forty years old. Ah, the chimera of passing time...
It's the kind of rite of passage that many Whistlerites prefer to let slide by. The kind that reminds each of us of our oh-so-human limits. Questions start to haunt the back recesses of your mind. What have I done with my life? What have I accomplished? Is the world a better place for my participation? And where do I go now?
It's a birthday that can send the mind spinning into an eternal regression of "what ifs." A moment in time when everything gets put into question. Where your very existence is held up before the window of your soul. Have I done enough? Did I make my mark?
It's a birthday, in other words, that can defeat all but the bravest among us. But not this gal. And not this time. With typical Sherryan aplomb, Ms Boyd has decided to embrace this milestone with full energy and humour. "It is a big deal," she admits. "Turning 40 is scary - for sure." She laughs long and loud. "But what are you going to do about it? Hide? Lie? Heck no! Let's party."
Did I say the girl was tough?
Have you read the book The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo ? Maybe you saw the movie. Whatever. Lisbeth Salander has nothing on Sherry Boyd. Okay. So, maybe I'm exaggerating a little. After all, Lisbeth isn't a blonde...
But seriously - "I took up body building in high school so I could have something to connect with my older brother," Sherry recounts. And laughs. "Otherwise we didn't have much in common. Still, it got me interested in fitness and stuff."
Which is perhaps the biggest understatement of the week. Remember her nickname "Punchy?" Well, Sherry didn't get that moniker for having soft fists.
As for skiing, it was still a casual thing. A few nights up Grouse Mountain with girlfriends. A shared cabin at Manning Park for a weekend or two. But nothing regular or constant. "I couldn't afford it," she admits. "It was fun and all, but it just wasn't a big part of my life."
Of course, that was before she discovered snowboarding. "I guess it was just after Grade 12," she remembers. "I was staying at Manning Park with my boyfriend at the time when his brother showed up with a brand new snowboard." Sherry had always loved surfer movies - "you know , Elvis Goes to Hawaii , Gidget and such" - and the quirky one-plank sport spoke directly to that love. "I was attracted, for sure. I really wanted to try it."
And when Sherry wants something... "So I borrowed a board and went up to Grouse," she says. "Of course my boyfriend wanted nothing to do with the new sport; I was on my own." She laughs. "So I went to the repair shop, asked the guys for a few tips, proceeded to the rope tow, got the hang of that," - another giggle - "and off I went."
Wasn't long after that first experience that Sherry's skiing boyfriend was toast, her well-paying desk job with BC Rail was on hold and she was living in staff housing at Whistler. "It happened pretty fast," she says. "I guess I moved up here two years after I graduated - it was 1990. What an amazing time."
Her training at BC Rail ("I needed to know proper radio protocol for my work,") landed her a job as alpine dispatcher on Blackcomb Mountain. "It was the best," she says dreamily. "Four days on, four days off. My 'office' was at the top of the mountain so I could take off on my snowboard during my breaks. It was awesome! I loved working up the mountain so much, you know, being the first one in the alpine in the morning and such. It really opened my eyes to the beauty around here..."
It also opened her eyes to a lifestyle that suited her much better than the urban one she'd been pursuing. "In the city," she says, "I tried to conform to society. But I felt so awkward. It was like trying to fit a round peg into a square hole. It didn't work."
At Whistler, however, she found all these round pegs to hang with. "The difference travelled from North Van to Whistler wasn't that great," she says. "But I'd entered into a totally different world." Giggles again. "And it was a world I felt really comfortable with. A world where I could do what I wanted without putting myself under a microscope."
It was during her first stint in staff housing, in fact, that she met this wild and wacky boardhead by the name of Waylon Edwards. "I kind of fell into his rat-pack of friends," explains Sherry. "Waylon was great though. I was still this dorky city chick. So he became my window into this other culture: you know, the way he wore his hair, the way he dressed, the way he acted." Another long pause. "Whistler was awesome for me. So liberating. The moment I moved up here, the cork was out. Bring on the adventure!"
It was Edwards, she says, who pushed her to try new things. "He'd say things like: 'jump off this rock or I'll never ride with you again.' So I had no choice. I had to jump." She laughs. "He was a great mentor."
Snowboarding was exploding in popularity in the early '90s and contests were popping up all over the place. Sherry's timing couldn't have been better. "I remember the first halfpipe event I ever entered," she says. "At first I was intimidated and just watched. But Waylon kept egging me on. 'You're just as good as these girls,' he would say. 'Stop being a bystander and get in there.'"
Finally she did. "I was keen to try anything those days," she admits. "Still, I was a bit nervous because the other girls were actually pretty good. What if I didn't measure up?"
It turned out to be a totally positive experience. "I really liked the ambiance at those early contests. It was like being part of a big family. Very cool."
Boyd was hooked. But it wasn't until her second place finish at the 1994 Westbeach Classic that she really started to take her competitive riding seriously. "Before it got swallowed up by the WSSF, the Westbeach Classic was one of the biggest pro events on the calendar. Getting second in the 'pipe there convinced me I was on the right track. Now I wanted to go out and test myself against the best!"
Again her timing was excellent. With the scheduled introduction of snowboarding at the Nagano Olympics in 1998 - and the subsequent creation of a national team in Canada - Sherry was on the cusp of yet another big adventure: representing her country at halfpipe events around the world. "It was like a dream come true," she says of the 1995 Team Trials. "We went. We tried out. We got named to the team." A long, long pause. One last fit of giggles. And then: "I remember thinking: 'Wow! Gotta clean up my act now. I'm on the Canadian Team.' It was kind of surreal that way. What a journey..."
Indeed. That tough young chick from Lynn Valley had certainly come a long way...
Next Week: Sherry discovers boardercross, gets hooked on filmmaking, marries a local legend and launches a Whistler dynasty.
