It’s the early risers and the dedicated adventurers that get to take advantage of the pristine conditions that come the morning after a night of fresh fallen powder up at Marmot Basin. New snow beckons like a sheet of flawless white paper, tempting skiers and snowboarders alike to scribble new tracks all the way down the peak’s unblemished runs. Poised at the top of Charlie’s Bowl on a blue bird day, warm despite it being the dead of winter thanks to the natural wonder that is inversion, Erin Reade takes it all in.

It’s the steepness and the depth of powder that makes this one of Erin’s favourite runs. Before diving in, she looks down into the valley at the small town site she has called home for the past three and a half years. She’s a long way from where she started – both literally and figuratively – but she’s doing what she loves, and that’s made it all worthwhile.

In some ways, Erin’s story started in a place not completely unlike Jasper: a small town in the snowy mountains of Cooma, Australia. Not that she stayed in one place for any lengthy period of time; from Cooma to a tiny island in the Barrier Reef, then onto Yamba where she attended high school. Yamba was also akin to Jasper in its own ways, a small town with natural attractions that draw visitors on holiday throughout the year. 

It was in her first year of high school that Erin took to skiing. For her, that initial experience was like a planted seed that would take root and bloom steadily throughout the rest of her life. Every year her family would make a point of taking a week off for a ski holiday, and after she graduated from high school, an uncle took her on her first international ski trip to Austria. 

Ski undoubtedly had solidified itself as a passion for Erin very early on. She also took eagerly to travel, crossing the likes of Japan, Thailand, the United Kingdom and much of Europe, the United States, and even Canada off her list by her mid-20s. 

The only other thing that may have rivalled these two great loves in her life was her unwavering focus on establishing her career.

Before coming to Canada, she worked in law and property settlements, dealing with finances and brokering mortgages. She had a keen eye for business and eventually landed a job as the manager of a shopping centre in Brisbane. She was busy and always on call. It was a demanding way of life but one that she happily embraced. Although she didn’t have a lot of spare time, she kept hitting the slopes whenever she had the chance, even completing her level 1 Ski Instructor qualification while on a quick holiday from work.

“I am a very career focused person,” she says with a smile. It’s a point she’ll stress because, to her, it matters deeply.

Still, as satisfying as success always has been for her, those years of constantly pushing forward left something to be desired, even if she couldn’t quite put her finger on what it was.

“It was only when I went skiing that I realized that something was missing,” she recalls.

It would take some time before she’d end up inadvertently finding out what that something was. One evening, after being called to the car park of shopping centre she managed to deal with a particularly messy incident, she realized that it was time for a change. She was tired, she was stressed, and while she still wanted to grow her career, she was ready to shake things up.

Erin had harboured a love for Canada since her earliest visits. Great experiences in cities like Vancouver and Whistler, and of course, the excellent skiing all made it a prime candidate for her big escape. She applied for work throughout the Rockies, eventually accepting the position that would ultimately bring her to Jasper and begin a change in herself that she had never anticipated.

She took a job in business support and IT at Marmot Basin Ski Area. The position had stood out among the other offers she had received because it was interesting, so much so that she was willing to take a cut in pay to chase the professional challenge and personal growth. That fall she moved from her luxurious flat in Brisbane to a single bedroom basement unit in Jasper. 

But the country, living arrangements, and temperatures weren’t the only things that were about to change for Erin.

“When I think back to the person I was that first year compared to who I am now…” she marvels, reflecting on just how much has happened in the last three and half years. “Skiing was the only sport I enjoyed back then. When I first got here, it was all about ski.”

Her first forays into a world beyond the slopes of the mountain would be the same as it is for many newcomers to Jasper,

“One of the first things I did when I got here was buy a Townie bike. I got it for $70 and I still have it to this day!” It had been years since she had ridden a bicycle and she recalls hoping beyond hope that the old adage of it being a skill that people never really forget was true, “I picked it back up right away. Jasper is perfect for cycling.”

Initially, biking for Erin was simply a way to get from point A to B. She would cycle around town or to local trail heads to go hiking. But over the course of that first summer in the park she started to ease into mountain biking at the encouragement of her boyfriend. 

“I remember my first time on Red Squirrel,” she laughs, referring to one of Jasper’s moderate trails just outside of town. “I was terrified!”

But as with any challenge she faces, Erin wasn’t about to shy away from this new experience over nerves. She kept at it, building her confidence and gradually moving on to Trail 7, then to Water Tower, thriving on the sense of accomplishment that came with conquering each new trail she tackled.

She also continued to embrace hiking as a means of exploring her new surroundings. Alongside new friends she would go on day hikes, pushing herself further and further each time.

Ultimately though, winter was the reason Erin moved to Canada, and when it arrived, skiing took centre stage. Marmot Basin is an amazing mountain to further develop skills, and while Erin was a reasonably strong skier when she arrived, within the first 3 months of skiing Marmot Basin she had really started to see an improvement in her abilities.

Unfortunately, a winter focused solely on carving fresh powder wasn’t in the cards. “It was a hard-pack day in February,” she remembers it clearly. “I was on Milk Run and I had too much speed. I hit a mogul the wrong way, I went down and I heard a pop.”

Confident that it couldn’t possibly be that bad, she initially resisted help – this was her season after all.

“It wasn’t until I was in the sled on my way down the hill that I started to freak out.”

The injury to her ACL threatened to end her season, but being passive in the face of adversity had never been Erin’s style. She used a combination of physiotherapy and gentle biking to help strengthen her knee. And while she didn’t stop being active, she did slow down just enough to start truly embracing the culture and community around her.

“I realized very quickly that this town is just so inclusive,” says Erin. “After moving around so much when I was younger, I found that this was the first place that really felt like home.”

After a lifetime of falling in with the social circles of her other friends and partners, she finally started to develop cliques of her own. She made new friends, tried new things, and traded a hardcore routine for no real routine at all.

Erin hadn’t planned on staying beyond that first ski season. Three years later, she’s joining her friends for after-work drinks at the De’d Dog where they put their heads together to plan their next adventure. Will it be ice climbing or ski touring this weekend? Or maybe they’ll race along the frozen shores of Medicine Lake on fat bikes – Erin’s favourite way to carry her love of cycling into the winter months.

Life in Jasper has become a series of pushing boundaries for Erin. While her professional ambitions and hitting the slopes are still extremely important, she now funnels a lot of her energies into embracing a wide variety of outdoor activities,

“Pushing yourself beyond your own comfort zone, that’s what it means to me to venture beyond,” she says confidently. It makes sense when you consider just how far she’s come since arriving in Jasper only a few short years ago. Where downhill skiing was once all she knew, cross-country skiing, fat biking, ice climbing and ski touring now vie for her time when winter rolls around.

“I can get bored pretty quickly, so I’m learning new activities all the time.”

In true Erin fashion, she always has her sights set on moving up and beyond the next level. When she thinks about what she’d like to tackle next, she mused on the idea of taking up mountaineering.

“I want to stand on top of Edith Cavell one day,” she announces with the air of someone choosing their next vacation destination. Given her track record, she’ll likely be enjoying that view in no time.

“I will always say yes to adventure if I can.”