Today was an incredible first day at the Banff Mountain Book and Film Fest. Not only did one of my own film’s get screened to laughter and applause- but I’ve been surprised and delighted by the variety of films on offer. They’ve all made me think, question, ponder, dream, wonder, yearn and have great discussions. (Side note: it’s only at the Banff Fest Film Fest that during intermission you’ll find a group of people doing yoga in the hallway. Yup. This ain’t no TIFF.)

Some film highlights:

1. An epic film (and really the word epic doesn’t even do it justice) of a young Australian man (Tim Cope) who traveled by horseback from Mongolia, through Kazakhstan, through Russia, through Ukraine, to Hungary, retracing the footsteps of the nomadic tribes of Genghis Khan, documenting the preservation of countless histories and cultures, and all the while making real the geography and the extent of what the Mongol empire once consisted of (the largest in history). It took Cope three years to complete the trip- and three years to edit it. He drank countless shots of vodka, his father died in a car crash in Australia while he was on the journey, and he filmed the whole ordeal by himself. So if you think about that, he basically did the trip twice and more because he kept retracing his steps so he could get the right shot. Truly incredible from both an adventurer and filmmaker’s perspective. My friend said that it was comparable to a Lord of the Rings epic. And yet despite the obvious wow factor of this film and of him, it was never self-agrandizing. After the film was over, I chatted with Cope and he’s such a modest, soft-spoken guy. I’m really in awe of his bravery. Still, the sometimes desolate and always remote communities he went through reinforced that if a woman were to do the same traverse it would be markedly more dangerous, especially in the communities that were run rampant with poverty-stricken, starving, wild-eyed, vodka-binging alcoholics.

2. Forty days at Everest base camp and all that comes with it- the commercialization, the egos, the garbage, the fear, the money, the danger, the stupidity. I saw this on Saturday night and thought it was pretty good and very interesting, especially because it’s about the types of people that are drawn to Everest and the climb and it does not show them as anything but human. But after seeing On the Trail of Genghis Khan, I’m wondering, what’s the point of climbing Everest? Sure, it’s a great personal accomplishment, it’s beautiful, but so what? What people do you meet? Of what cultures and history do you learn? Yes, you learn the culture of the mountain, but incomparable to the people and the bonds that Cope made friends with. Cope taught me something about the nomadic life: the people follow the needs of their animals, not their own. This makes them resilient like no other, but soft at the same time because they love their animals and they never complain. And neither does Cope. It’s a pleasure to travel through his eyes, with him. And then back at Everest Base Camp you almost see an ugly side of humanity, people who are drawn to a place that should and was and is epic, but in a Walmart way. The people are there for personal greed, ambition, and accomplishment, and one that only the rich can take advantage of (it costs around $10,000 to ATTEMPT an ascent). There’s inherent danger and a sort of carelessness about what this might cost to ones life. (Although, the statistics show that way more people make it to the top than do die in the process.) Examples: an 18-year-old non-climber with money attempts, and fails. A 16-year-old boy whose parents call everyday (yes, you can now make calls and send emails and blog from Everest) pay for his ascent and then get a helicopter to pick him up from Base Camp once he completes his attempt because what’s the point of climbing down once you’ve already climbed up and achieved what you were there to do?

Anyway, my ramblings… and it’s only day one! Okay, back to my [school work].

So when I decided to try out for Ryerson’s competitive Bollywood dance team it was more of a personal challenge and a personal joke. And because I love Bollywood music and dance. When I turned up at the tryout, in a random Ryerson hallway, the organizers said they’d heard of me. I was apparently the first white person to have ever shown an interest in trying out and to have actually followed through with it. When they asked me what my dance experience was I told them that I’d done a few years of modern and jazz classes in high school and, “I danced Bollywood-style at the clubs in Mumbai when I lived there.” (<Go and brush your shoulder off.)

The practice began. The choreographer taught me four different styles of dance: bollywood, bhangra, classical Indian dance and fusion (hip-hop). Traditional Indian dance is spent, for the majority of it, in a plie-squat-like position with about 10-different hand moves to each foot move. My thighs were burning; sweat was dripping down my face. Bollywood and fusion consist of a lot of “body rolls” and chest pops. I’m half-British (read: rigid) and so at one point the choreographer just said, “Okay, forget the chest part, just focus on the hip roll.” It was as complicated as any routine they perform on Glee. My brain trying to keep up and figure out which hand and arm motions went with which opposite leg movements. For an hour, I gyrated, bobbed, popped, leaped, jumped, swiveled, squated, etc. in skinny jeans (so stupid). It was fun and embarrassing and must have been generally hilarious to watch, but I left feeling ecstatic and thinking, phew, well, at least I tried out and I sucked, so I’ll never have to do that again.

Low and behold, I made the team! (Affirmative action?) It’s a serious commitment and in my fourth-year of J-School trying to keep my GPA afloat, save money for my internship in London, get published as much as possible, joining the team is probably a stress-breakdown-to-come. They practice three times per week with the big finale competition (Bring-it-On-style dance-off, maybe?) a week before I leave for London in Niagara Falls. I’m also petrified to join because I’m seriously not very good. But then again, when am I ever going to get a chance to be in a *Bollywood* dance competition ever again? The answer is clear. It’s my last year at Ryerson. I’ve got to seize it by the… Bolly?

You’re all welcome to come laugh at my expense in Niagara Falls in February. It should be fun for you and embarrassing as hell for me.

I owe you a pretty massive apology. But I think you got me back good. You proved to me (and my readers) that maybe I was the one who was closed-minded, who was being an ignorant city-slicker, and it was I that made a fool of me for wrongly accusing you of small town thinking, all before I even got a chance to know you yet. The truth is, after I got to know you a little better, you not only surprised and delighted me, but you definitely rank as one of my most memorable experiences of the summer. So, thank you for challenging me in more ways than one.

Corrections:

-There’s a reason people have trucks here: a Prius just doesn’t cut-it when you’re driving off road in fields and also when it just happens to start hailing. (My windshield has battle scars.)

-The downtown was not right, but left… and so it actually does exist. And while it is a bit eerie in its calm, it’s also kind of charming, like a strip from a Western film, with a mountain backdrop and dramatic clouds like you’ve never seen ‘em before.  Sure you may be surrounded by big box stores and lots of gas stations, but you can easily forget about that when you’re here, find a good home-cooked meal to eat. I’d shoot a movie in your downtown if I could. It’s definitely got something like character. (And apparently, while I was sleeping, you also turned into quite the party town. My co-workers came to work the next day bleary-eyed, but content about a night well spent.)

-The people here are winners.  Curious, friendly, smart, artistic, hospitable. Thank you for letting me shove my camera in your face for the past four days. It’s you I owe the biggest apology to. I’m really sorry for bashing your town.

-The Rocky Mountain National Historic Site is one of the neatest, most interesting historic sites I’ve ever been to. The people here put 150% into their jobs. Not only did I learn a ton about archaeology (and how to spell it), the fur trade, First Nations people and traditional Canadian arts & crafts, but I’ve had fun learning it too. History at its finest.

And finally, as my sister pointed out to me, there’s a reason these oil-and-gas towns exist and that’s because their resources are in demand, especially by us city-dwellers. Even though I may be what my boss calls, “a Toronto Hippie”, I am also a consumer of what small towns like Rocky produce and without them the city and its lifestyle would never exist. “We are all responsible for making the oil and gas industry more environmentally friendly and the towns where the workers live, more livable. We are all responsible for reducing the demand on that industry so that a more diverse economy can develop with all those other small businesses you were talking about. I don’t think we should see this as an Albertan issue or as a rural issue but as a pan-Canadian issue.”

This place started as a fur trade post, a place of respite before the long haul up and down the North Saskatchewan River, and sometimes before an ascent of the Rockies, a place that was torched and re-built more than once, a place where the iconic explorer, David Thompson, once lay his head. It’s now making a new history for itself, one that I may take some issue with, but one that I’m grateful to have experienced because now I have to ponder more deeply the role small towns play in allowing my city privileges.

So for the next four days I’ll be in middle-of-nowhere Alberta in a typical oil-and-gas town. The like of which I haven’t seen because I’ve submerged myself in my Banff bubble for the past three months, living a luxurious life of privilege, that I know, of mountains, fresh air, safe streets, and eco-friendly, tea sipping lefties. What a joke our BBQ’s have been. My Banff-slanted impression of Alberta is beef and beer, but I think I’ve finally stumbled upon something a little more authentic and telling. And my immediate, superficial reaction as soon as I drove in was panic. Small towns make me panic (and some big cities too, actually that’s only happened once, and it was when I drove into Calgary.) These places make me panic because they represent everything I fear, dislike, don’t understand and hope to God I’ll never have to live in: suburban cookie-cutter homes, fast food restaurants/no local shops or markets, one person driving a huge gaz guzzling vehicle the norm, no public transportation or safe places to ride your bike, little public green space, empty streets (where are the people?), highways cutting through the town, probably a church per person who lives here, no paths or evidence of outdoorsy activity. Gulp. Basically a recipe for depression.

Maybe during my four day stay I’ll find out what goes on behind the scenes and maybe I’ll be surprised and delighted. But as far as the eye can see, the only thing this place has going for it are the dramatic clouds, which you start to actually notice when the mountains aren’t stealing your attention (and breath away). And this spiffy hotel room with a jacuzzi! that will definitely offer a welcome distraction from the hotel parking lot that’s filled with pick-up trucks (first of all, why is the parking lot full? What are people doing here?) glaring down on my little loaned Prius. Ha-ha.

As I was hiking up the Iceline trail on Saturday I kept reminiscing about the trail crew who installed this path (and maybe my uncle was one of them as he worked on the Yoho trail crew in his youth) and of the warden’s who’d come up here on horseback or on skis in the winter, making the 20 km trek to-and-from the sliver just above treeline and just below the glaciers, along the moraine. I now understand what a moraine is (I guess I didn’t pay much attention in Grade 7 Geo) and what it looks like: it’s the desert of rock debris formed by the push and pull of the glaciers, forming unsteady footing for hikers and small pockets with enough nutrients for tiny plantlings to sprout. But in this desert there are crystal clear pools of turquoise and jade green. You come upon them so suddenly that they remind me of the pools the kids find in the forest that lead them to Narnia. These pools are my favourite, and, in my opinion, they are the treats of the mountains.

Two unknown hikers, Yoho National Park

Crystal Perfection, Yoho National Park

Yoho National Park, Iceline Hike

2. The Calgary police wear cowboy hats as part of their standard uniform.

3. Streets are instead called trails (e.g. McLeod Trail in Calgary)

4. You know you’re in the Rockies when… A backpack costs nearly a day’s wage and comes with a users manual- exactly why you don’t buy an ‘alpine’ bag if you’re not an alpinist.

5. Hail the size of ice cubes is kept stored in the freezer as proof: it does damage to roofs and cars. (And it can and has hailed in June.)

6. And you know Calgarians have a good mayor when a donut is named after him (salted caramel).

7. The only thing that seems to grow here is rhubarb. And men who drive trucks.

A: Well…

This afternoon I filmed a how-to-use bear spray video with one of the Resource Conservation staff. That part of the afternoon was pretty standard, but in the back of his pick-up truck were a bunch of frozen deer carcasses, one of which had a fetus in its belly.

When an animal is killed by train or cars, Banff National Park (BNP) recycles the carcasses. Sometimes they go to the abattoir (aka. lab) where a necropsy might take place (aka. animal autopsy). In other cases, they are stored in a giant freezer and then they are eventually put back out on the landscape for lunch, so that some semblance of the predator-prey relationship can be restored and maintained.

Today the carcasses were being roped to trees so that the animals couldn’t drag them away from that fixed location. The purpose of this was so that as the animals feasted, they could be observed and documented via remote cameras attached to the trees just opposite.

After the Res Con staff scattered the three carcasses in various locations (away from human activities), we saw a 22-year-old mama grizzly bear and her three young cubs. This was pretty exciting for the staff because it was the first time that they’d seen Bear #84 since last summer and the fact that she had babies was good news all around.

Bears here are a threatened species, largely because of the trains that leave wheat and other food residue (dried beans, etc.) on the tracks making them a big draw for animals desperate, after many months in hibernation, to put on weight. When a mama bear dies, it’s extremely challenging for her cubs to survive without her. They become easy bait for male bears who eat the cubs so as to trigger the female back into ovulation. It’s fascinating stuff, biology!

Just wrapping up the day now, at 10 pm, and what a day it was!

Here’s some raw bear footage to check out: 

I spent the other night with a 50-something year-old woman and had a blast. We were working on a time-lapse video of a bicycle being painted. We sat outside her garage laughing our heads of, talking about travel and adventure, women’s role in  ’handyman’ culture, and of course, of two-wheeled vehicles. And all around us, we were surrounded by a backdrop of bright and brilliant snow-capped mountains. I wanted to twirl, Bollywood-film-style, in the middle of the street because it’s been less than a week and I’m already in love with this place.

This was not something I was expecting when I first moved here on a rainy, cold day, to an empty apartment with the ugliest chocolate-brown shag carpet covering nearly every square inch of the floor (and apparently no vacuum cleaner). I knew no one, had no friends, no family and no roommate. I had no Internet and no CBC to keep me company. And then, two days later, I woke up to fluffy white stuff tumbling from the sky (in May!?).

But now all I can do is stare and stare because I can’t believe that this beauty exists in my own country. I’m so happy for it, and so proud, and so ashamed that I’m only getting to know it now at 21. I’m jealous as heck of everyone else around here, all of whom seem to know how to enjoy and use this land so much better than I. I envy their outdoorsy skills and hobbies: kayaking, rock climbing, paragliding, and skiing- as if all these activities were as common, accessible and affordable as going for a jog around the block.

And I’m so baffled that such beauty exists in the same province where the oil sands do, in the same province that has been stereotyped as so conservative and red-neck-y. What is this place? Where am I? Who are these green-CBC-loving people?

All I know is that I’m lucky- that we’re all lucky because this land exists and it’s ours to love and share and admire. This is the beginning of my odyssey, my discovery, my foray, into Canada’s natural treasure box.

The shopkeeper unfurled billowing sheets of silk, chiffon, and cotton in all colours and patterns for my eyes to devour. I was greedy: that one, that one, that one, I said, pointing to the slices of brilliant colour folded on the shelves. It was all candy. I was smitten with everything I saw, especially this brilliantly unique sari from Kashmir that cost upwards of $300 Cnd. I had never seen anything quite like it: iridescent, like a mermaid’s scales, but with such modern and original patterning.

I wasn’t so sure it looked as good on… it looked maybe a bit too dark and my goal was to get something bright, something that would really represent and speak loud and clear the colour of India.

Wearing the Kashmiri sari. (Swati Sharma)

In India saris are considered to be extremely sexy (N.B. you’re not supposed to wear a baggy red shirt underneath it, like I was that day). I was always a bit doubtful of the sari’s sexy appeal. How can a long piece of cloth that’s draped around the body several times feel or look sexy? Well, when done properly it hugs the right curves and hides the other stuff… Jane Fonda would call these the jiggly-jangles (or something like that). Plus, once you’re all done up with makeup and bangles, it’s really a beautiful production. (I’m not a very good example, but bellow you’ll see the possibilities.) I remember my male friend once saying to me, “She looks damn hot in a sari.” I can’t remember who he was talking about, but it was a phrase that sort of stuck with me.

So the ultimate goal is to one day look as hot as Ms. Katrina Kaif in a sari, a very popular Bollywood actress notoriously known for this music video. 

Katrina Kaif... looking damn hot in a sari. Photo courtesy of Bollybest.com

As you can see, the little blouse you wear underneath can be very short and revealing, with halter backs, strapless, or big circles cut out. “Also due to liberalization and changing global markets, saris are reemerging as an erotic wrap which can expose as much as it conceals.” (Wikipedia) There’s now such thing as the low-rise sari that wraps at the hip instead of the waist.

Black and gold. (Swati Sharma)

This one, I was told, was more of a classic evening wear type sari. Good for cocktail parties.

The back details are really the best part. (Swati Sharma)

Saris aren’t just an Indian outfit. I saw women wearing them in Nepal and apparently they wear them in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Burma, Malaysia, and Bhutan as well.

It was once common for women to wear saris in what is now Pakistan, but that was before partition when Pakistan was part of India. The sub-continent was split in 1947 with most of the Muslims staying in Pakistan and most of the Hindus re-locating to the new India. Because the sari is traditionally associated with Hindu culture and may expose the stomach or naval, it’s become much less popular in Pakistan in modern times. Apparently some right-wing Islamic groups have tried to ban the sari in Pakistan. Still it’s seen a resurgence as a wedding outfit worn by Kashmiri Muslims and others. And as you can see above in the first picture, the Kashmiri people are still incredibly talented at making the material even if they might not wear it themselves.

Blue for my eyes. (Swati Sharma)

If you haven’t been trained in how to dress yourself in a sari, it can be pretty tricky. Luckily the store had its own dresser and my friends taught me how to put on the one that I bought… let’s see if I can do it without their help. Youtube, here I come.

Once again, the back details are what blow me away. (Swati Sharma)

There are different ways to drape a sari depending on what style you want to achieve or where you are from. See below.

All different sari styles. Photo courtesy of Wikipedia.

This reminded me of a night sky for some reason. (Swati Sharma)

See those folds the dresser is holding up? Yeah, it's a damn long piece of cloth. (Swati Sharma)

Me. (Swati Sharma)

Bottom detail. (Swati Sharma)

The green one. (Swati Sharma)

I never thought pink would win me over. (Swati Sharma)

So in the end, after trying on about a dozen saris, hemming-and-hawing over all of them, falling in love, shortlisting, re-trying, and about ready to either buy two or drop a nice dime on the Kashmiri one because I couldn’t make up my mind, I did something that surprised me: I chose pink. I’ve never been a big fan of the colour but something about this silk sari in that colour seemed to match nicely with my skin tone and it suited my goal of finding something bright, punchy and typically Indian. Unfortunately the lighting in the store wasn’t the best, so this photo doesn’t truly do the sari justice, but trust me, it’s beautiful, especially the back…

The back part is supposed to look like a temple in South India. (Swati Sharma)

And ta-da, that is all! (Swati Sharma)

Update: The sari is now sitting all wrapped up in a drawer in my bedroom. I haven’t worn it yet, but I hope to wear it this summer to a wedding or two. And even if I don’t get a chance to wear it this summer, every time I open the drawer it smiles at me and we remember why we’re in love.