Live it Up with Mountain Life mountainlife

For much of his life, Michael Janyk was a professional alpine skier—a technical master banging gates on slalom and giant slalom courses around the world over a 14-year professional career that included three Olympic Games, one of them on his home turf in Whistler BC. And while saw some success (and knows what it’s like to stand on a world championship podium) Mike didn’t hit that childhood dream benchmark of Olympic gold, or "Best in the world." And while that is a common experience for nearly all athletes in every sport, not many share what that feels like from an athelete's perspective, and what keeps them going as they continue to grind it out and chase their passions. Mike does though, in first book “Go to the Start: Life as a World Cup Ski Racer”. Mountain Life editor Feet Banks sat down with him to learn more.

(Note: this episode contains occasional profanity and at one point discusses sexual abuse.)  

Professional adventurer, explorer and national best-selling author Adam Shoalts is an absolute beast of outdoor adventure. Making first descents down untamed rivers in the western Hudson Bay lowlands, crossing the arctic by canoe or traveling by human power from southern Ontario to the Arctic, he’s done it all. Beginning as a newspaper columnist, he’s mapped rivers, led expeditions for the Royal Canadian Geographic Society, tracked endangered species, worked on archeological digs and so much more. With a masters and a PHD his research combines an interest in nature, history, archaeology, and geography.  Adam sits down with Colin Field and explains why paddling upstream is a good idea.

Feet Banks hosts a little bit of inside baseball on the show today because our guest is moto-adventurer, stand-up paddleboarder, author, and inventor Todd Lawson, who also happens to be one of the co-publishers of Mountain Life. Todd has visited over 80 countries, and most of the time he arrives by moto, usually with his partner Christina alongside and, more recently, with their daughter.  He's just released his first book, Inside the Belly of an Elephant: A motorcycle journey of loss, legacy, and ultimate freedom.

For today’s guest we have a guy that’s spent a lifetime advocating for the environment. A legend in Canada’s paddling circles, Hap Wilson has created a life many of us would envy. 
Hap has been paddling Canadian Rivers for decades. He stopped counting mileage at 60,000 kilometres when he realized the numbers were pointless. He’s mapped numerous rivers and wrote the essential guide to the Missinaibi and the rivers of the Ottawa Valley; these guide books are meticulous in their detail; hand drawn maps of every set of rapids, indigeinous history and shuttle scenarios complete the pulbications. They’re incredible books and if you’re paddling any of the rivers he has a guidebook for, do yourself a favour and buy his book. The internet has nothing on Hap Wilson.
He’s a writer, an artist, a trail builder and an owner of an eco-lodge. He’s a conservationist and explorer. But to me, he’s an inspring guy who has questioned authority for decades and created a life of his own design. 

Beat Steiner is a ski mountaineer pioneer with first descents on some of the South Coast Mountain's most iconic peaks (Tśzil & Nch'kay among them), but he's also a pioneer of early Canadian ski and snowboard filmmaking. He's the co-owner and CEO of Bella Coola Helisports, and even with all that pow to play with, Beat still happily gets 20+ days a year of early morning groomer speed laps. A skier's skier through and through, Beat sits down with Feet Banks to shoot the shit.

The two-year anniversary episode of Live it Up features Derek Bird, the founding editor of Fly Fusion (Canada’s dopest fly fishing magazine). Derek is also a TV personality & producer, the mastermind behind the International Fly Fishing Film Festival. He joins host Feet Banks to talk fish, media, publishing, hot influencers, Artificial Intelligence, journalistic method and more. Our longest episode ever!!