Lodge based musings from snowboarder and artist, Jessa Gilbert.

Photos by Matt Bruhns.

The wood stove roared alongside Lars describing to our group the history of Whitecap, his personal attraction to snowboarders for their style in the mountains, and the tenacious local pine martin. I chuckled thinking about the pine martin having deeper roots in BC than we did, a room full of east coasters spanning from New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maine, and Quebec. How is it a bunch of sideways standing misfits migrated to the opposite coast to find home? I grew up idolising Marie for her street segments when she rode for Rome back in Quebec, and Seth Wescott, the godfather of snowboarding in Maine, owns more gold duct tape and gold medals than I can count. Hell, Burton was created in a southern Vermont barn where he’d demo his boards on the hills of local golf courses.

What is it about the East coast that helped cultivate a future connection with big mountains? Was it because the delicate East Coast dance of your edges along a 500 ft “white strip of death” between rocks, trees, tourists, and glare ice makes you light on your feet for couloirs? Or the fact that retiring to the backcountry is a lot easier on the body than hitting hand rails? Maybe something between – something felt within the metal roof on this BC backcountry lodge, and the stories from its local honey badger.