The Banff Centre’s mountain culture program has teamed up with National Geographic Adventure Press to produce a book commemorating the 2002 Banff Mountain Summit, entitled Extreme Landscapes: The Lure of Mountain Spaces . The book, edited by Bernadette McDonald, is a collection of essays by summit panelists. Some of the essays – such as the ones by Marty, Davis and Bernbaum – are hits, while others are misses.
Whistler Village designer Eldon Beck was a featured panelist at the consumption of extreme landscapes seminar, during which he explained his reasons behind planning pedestrian-oriented mountain resort villages. "I design them to be a bit like small, old-fashioned European towns, with mixed commercial and residential spaces," he said. "I try to make a connection to place through the sun, views and landscape, where people will move more slowly." Beck used Whistler Village’s squares and strolls as examples.
Film festival notes
Fifteen-year-old filmmaker Daniel Kingsbury won the film festival’s mountain sports award for The Essence of Adolescence , his seven-minute look at youth culture on B.C.’s Sunshine Coast. " The Essence of Adolescence is youthful, quirky, spontaneous and energetic," says jury member Piers Handling.
WhiteTrax
, a short two-minute film that follows Vancouver-based unicyclist Kris Holm as he navigates snow-covered moguls and snowboard-park terrain on Blackcomb Mountain, won a special jury award.Book festival notes
Squamish-based Elaho Publishing won the book festival’s mountain exposition award with its mountaineering guidebook, Selkirks South by David P. Jones. The guide, which covers B.C.’s Selkirk Mountains between Revelstoke and Golden south of the Trans-Canada Highway at Rogers Pass, is notable for adapting French alpine grades to the mountainous terrain of B.C. "This is a book that will change how we measure our mountains in Canada, and that’s a remarkable achievement," says Canadian Alpine Journal editor Geoff Powter. Elaho also has a similar guidebook for the Vancouver-Whistler area, Alpine Select: Climbs in Southwestern British Columbia and Washington by Kevin McLane. Both books are highly recommended for climbers and ski mountaineers.
Light at the Edge of the World
by Wade Davis was selected by the book festival jury for a special mention. The tome is stocked with interpretative photographs and insightful essays on the world’s cultural diversity.
