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It’s important to play outside - safely

Justin Trudeau brings a particular message to Whistler

By Vivian Moreau

It’s impossible not to look for comparisons to his father. Sitting with Justin Trudeau in a corner of the Nicklaus North pro shop as he goes over notes prior to a speech at the Canadian Avalanche Foundation fundraiser last Friday I’m on the lookout for genetics. The square jaw and the curly hair he runs his hand through when pondering difficult questions is surely his mother’s but the presence and charm as he leans in to ask my name must be paternal. In a striped blue and white open-neck shirt, black jacket, jeans and brown leather boots he has his own sense of style. And although he’s 35 he still has boyish mannerisms: sitting at right angles to me, his long legs stretched out in front of him and addressing a spot on the floor he makes eye contact when he wants to make a point. And although he has just announced his intention to run as a Liberal in the federal Montreal riding of Papineau, the former schoolteacher won’t allow any political questions. He’s at the $175 a plate dinner in Whistler to deliver a cautionary tale.

I begin by asking him about his day on the mountains.

Trudeau: It’s nice to be able to ride up to Piccolo now. It was my first time on that chairlift so that was a real treat. Went up Symphony, I wanted to cover as much terrain as I possibly could, so we (he and Canadian Avalanche Foundation President Chris Stethem) started the morning with a ski down Flute shoulder, got a gorgeous line. Got first tracks down that at around 8:30 a.m. and then last run of the day was hiking across from the top of 7th and down back into the glacier.

Pique: What is your favourite run?

Trudeau: My favourite is a run I invented with a buddy of mine: Smiley’s run that starts up at top of 7th runs down through the trees skiers right of chair, drops down through some open patches and some steeps through the road down some glades of runs and along Sunset and down the entire skier’s left of the mountain. Just a non-stop on the right day… And today I was skiing. I was a snowboard instructor for five years and hadn’t been on skis in 20 years and I just started skiing again this year.

Pique: You were a snowboard instructor?

Trudeau: I spent five years up here working as a snowboard instructor, from age 25-30. At 25 I moved out here to be a ski bum for a bit, and lasted almost a season before I realized I needed to go back to school. I went to UBC and did my Bachelor of Education there. But through the entire time I was teaching high school in Vancouver I would come up here and be a weekend warrior and be teaching seven days a week and absolutely loving it, five days in classroom and two days on the hill. For me it was a huge part of my life.

Pique: Is it true that you used to come here as a little boy?

Trudeau: Absolutely! I remember I learned how to ski here with my mom. She had a place, well the family had a place, that we’re still kicking ourselves that we sold, over on Alpine across Creekside on top of those rocks there. That was a poor decision to let that one go way back when but yeah, I have great memories of being a kid around here.

Pique: Let’s talk about tonight.

Trudeau: Yes, actually.

Pique: What are you going to talk about?

Trudeau: Basically tonight is a fundraiser. We’re drawing attention to the work that the avalanche committee has been doing: the successful work we’ve been doing getting the message out that it’s extremely important to go play outside — it’s a big part of being Canadian, of being grounded in this country, I think, to be able to get out to the wilderness — but extremely important to do it safely.

When we look at our kids these days there is this ability level, this extreme culture that they’re wrapped up in and they’re doing things that are absolutely amazing — drops and steeps, cliffs and things that are really pushing all the limits. And we need to make sure, however, that we’re giving them the information and the tools to match their ability levels and that in terms of accessibility of the backcountry and in terms of the equipment that allows you to get out there. It’s so present that we need to make sure that we’re empowering them to make the right decisions.

Pique: So you want kids to be able to know what to look for, what observations to make in the backcountry?

Trudeau: (They need to know) what to look for, what sort of decision process to have, what equipment is needed — shovel, probe, beacon — how to use it, to understand. One of the things I always say is: there is no point in having a legendary day if you can’t tell your friends about it the next day or that night.

There’s no point either taking an incredible risk when you don’t know you’re taking a risk. If you’re crossing what looks like a perfectly safe area and in fact it’s extremely dangerous you’re not getting any of the, at least the rush of having a risk associated with it. So what we need to do is we need to empower people.

One of the things that I always liken it to is the whole helmet issue. Years ago when I started snowboarding nobody wore helmets — it just wasn’t done. Then when people started wearing helmets the perception was ‘oh you’re a sissy you’re wearing a helmet,’ but now that’s switched and someone who’s not wearing a helmet when they’re riding, skiing extreme, all that sort of stuff, is looked as ‘oh you mustn’t be all that serious or that good if you’re not wearing a helmet.’

Pique: But you know we have no regulations for helmets in Canada?

Trudeau: We have regulations around bicycle riding when you’re under 18, but we don’t have rules or laws (for snow sport helmets.) I know a lot of ski areas are saying if you’re going to go in the park you have to wear a helmet and there are issues around that.

Pique: Do you think they should be mandatory on the mountain?

Trudeau: I don’t think they should be mandatory. I think the way to effect things is to change the culture and tweak the culture. And to encourage parents to deal with their kids the right way and for people just to understand that that’s something that needs to be done.

I know… when I don’t wear my seatbelt I’m not worried I’m going to get stopped by the cops or anything. I don’t feel as safe as I do when I have it on and it’s become sort of a habit and something that one does for the right sort of reasons.

When I ride I wear a helmet. I always have. I don’t feel right when I don’t. I think we have to recognize that people need to make their own decisions and we need to make sure that we’re giving them the tools and the knowledge to make the right decisions. I don’t know that simply imposing laws is always the solution. It’s an easy solution to call for, (but) I like to do things for the right reason rather than because we’re forced to.

Pique: What about having manufacturing standards for helmets?

Trudeau: That makes sense and that’s something we definitely need to look more to, but that’s a little off track (from what we’re talking about tonight.)

Pique: So these kinds of things are what you’re going to talk about?

Trudeau: I’ll be talking a lot about (how) as a society and a world we’re getting further and further away from balance with nature, from understanding where we come from and what we are and how we need to be living. And for me one of the ways of always having, finding that balance once again has been to get out to the wilderness.

That’s a trick I learned from my father, in the amount of canoeing trips he took us on, as not just a nice way for the family to get together but as a way to ground yourself in the universe and understand your place in it as small as it is and as big as it is. It is something I’d like to encourage people to do and if you’re going to encourage people to go play outside — the way our governments, our tourism boards all do — we need to make sure they’re doing it safely.

Pique: For someone like me who has gone through a personal tragedy and does everything to avoid ever talking or thinking about it, every time you get up there (to speak about avalanches) you must remember your brother?

Trudeau: I do. But I remembered my brother today as I was skiing some epic lines. I remember my brother whenever I’m in the woods. For me, losing him was one of the hardest things in my life. My father’s death was easier in comparison because it at least followed the natural order of things. You’re not supposed to lose a brother (so young).

But to know that I can get up there and share his passion because he loved that — I wasn’t the backcountry skier, I wasn’t the backcountry guy, that was his thing. In the proper order of business he would be the Trudeau involved with the Canadian Avalanche Foundation. This was his life, he wanted to do this, he was going to be a mountain guide and an avalanche expert and he was going to do all this.

And however in the course of that life and that love the numbers caught up with him. He was being safe, he was being careful, he had the training, he had the equipment. It was just he was involved in a high-risk lifestyle that caught up with him.

But right now by being part of this I am both closer to him and the things that he loved the most and I’m helping avoid — not other people from going… because there will always be avalanche deaths as long as we try to push ourselves — but we can avoid the stupid ones, we can avoid that which shouldn’t have happened. We can make sure that the preventable ones, which are the vast majority, don’t end up devastating more families the way ours was.



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