‘I said yes to every adventure in the Rockies but missed the banter of home’

We rolled up the windows driving along the Trans-Canada highway this summer. The air quality map marked Banff as hazardous. Though the windows were firmly shut, we could smell the pungent wildfire smoke trying to nudge its way towards us.

We were coming back from British Columbia after being on holiday in Naramata, a beautiful wine region about nine hours away. The smoke, in thick white plumes, blocked out any sight of the mountains as we headed towards Banff National Park.

I thought back to 2013 when I had first landed in Banff, for a job at an arts centre. My boyfriend and I were living in Squamish, British Columbia, almost 1,000km away. But I fibbed. I told the human resources manager that I lived in Canmore, the town next to Banff. I hoped this would make the process more seamless for hiring me.

Weeks before my interview, catastrophic flooding raged through Canmore, leaving 1,200 people homeless for a time, and $30 million (€18 million) in damage. The HR lady said, “I hope you haven’t been affected by the floods?” (I hadn’t. My white lie did, however, come back to bite me, as I had to do the 13-hour drive back from Squamish for a second-round interview.)

What we didn’t know was how this foreshadowed what was to come. In the intervening years, forest fires were to become the norm, and an all too familiar part of the vernacular. Canadian wildfires burned a record 17.2 million hectares in 2023. That’s about twice the size of Ireland.

Day one of the new job, another storm was brewing. HR was in a flurry, the media department (where I would be working) was up to 90 trying to crisis control a situation. So, I offered to come back the following week when things were a bit calmer.

Strolling through downtown Canmore, it felt like something from a movie. Crisp September air and a sea of yellow sweeping across the mountains. Autumnal larch trees make a sunny day in the Rockies seem like the landscape is bathing in gold.

I went into a local shop and tried on a pair of expensive leather boots. I got talking to an American (or were they Canadian? I couldn’t differentiate in those early days) couple with their kids. The wife was striking, as was the husband, who chatted away to me. He said it was the luck of the Irish to get paid to do nothing on my first day of work. Inquiring if I was going to buy the $700 boots I had tried on, I snort chortled and said I’d probably never be able to afford them.

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I later found out that this man was in fact the actor, Matthew McConaughey. He looked familiar but gaunt, from filming Dallas Buyers Club. He left purchasing several pairs of boots for his wife. I often wonder why he wouldn’t have bought me some. Just one pair. Throw an arts worker a bone, Matthew.

I lived in the Rockies for three years and during this time I said yes to all the adventures. I took up ice hockey and played on the team in Banff. I couldn’t skate stop (for weeks) and continuously crashed into the barrier after making a sprint. Ah, but the joy! The community.

I was lucky with those I met. A very kind group of strong women at the Banff Mountain Film and Book Festival, where I worked, took me under their wing. They brought me on easy-going 300km weekends of road biking, cross-country skiing trips (edges, what edges?), and trail running the 55km in and out to a back country hut at Mount Assiniboine.

Ireland was never far from discussion – the festival director mentioned how much she admired Dervla Murphy when she appeared at the festival in 2011. The cyclist and travel writer had impressed the mountain community with her tales of pedal-powering 3,000km to India.

She had told the festival about how travel had left her hopeful. She explained how she always depended on people’s kindness as she travelled. She found “the majority of human beings are helpful, kindly and honest ... you’ve got this enduring sort of goodness in people”.

Although my adventures were a walk in the park next to Murphy’s, her words reflect the kindness of those I encountered.

A few weeks into the job, I came to work to find a new colleague sitting across from me. Canadians can come off as a bit standoffish at times. But not this one. Kristy was like the best of Canada packed into one person. Immensely creative and artistic, so kind, and full of the divilment and banter that you so sorely miss when you’re far from home.

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Thirteen years later and we still try to see each other every two years if we can. We went mountaineering in the Bugaboos four years ago, and this summer did a t’ai chi course in Naramata. We are as comfortable reading books together in silence for hours, as we are cackling in laughter, replaying out scenes from Monty Python, and supping a margarita as the sun goes down. She sent me a photo two weeks after our holiday, showing the area around Naramata ablaze with wildfire, mass evacuations under way.

As a wise friend told me this week, be grateful when there is ease in life. Above all, I am most thankful for the ease of friends like these.

Louise Healy is a writer from Dublin who has lived in New Zealand, Japan and, most recently, Canada for three years, working at the Banff Mountain Film and Book Festival. She returned to Ireland in 2017