Stories from the path less travelled surface at the North Shore's annual Fascinating Expedition and Adventure Talks, better known as FEAT to the local endurance and ultra-sport community.
Voices from the West Coast community are invited to speak about their amazing endeavours, hoping to inspire attendees to get out, get active and explore.
"I would say the Lower Mainland has a wealth of people who can talk about different types of adventures, expeditions or learnings along the way," said Sean Verret, organizer of the Canadian edition of FEAT.
For the first year of presenters in 2011, he pulled the event together by sourcing speakers from personal connections, drawing from his background of adventure and mountain bike racing. Now, his network has grown to hundreds of adventurers and he says the variety of topics covered by this year's nine speakers offers something for everyone. "Like I say to every single one of the speakers, we invite you up to speak because you've done something awesome or amazing and they all have done something really significant depending on who they are," said Verret.
A highlighted speaker from the North Shore is Meyrick Jones who recently completed the historic ultra-cycling event, Paris-Brest-Paris (PBP) Randonneur. The race is the oldest cycling event in the world, the first taking place in 1891, and runs 1,230 kilometres in just over three days. It runs every four years, and last year the event landed on the 20th anniversary of the accident that cost Jones his left leg.
In 1995 while travelling in San Francisco, a runaway cable car slammed into the one Jones was riding and crushed his leg, which was later amputated just above the knee. At 21 years old, a competitive rugby player and athletic enthusiast, Jones had a challenge ahead of him concerning his future identity.
"I was just sitting there in a hospital bed, wondering what life would look like. Now you don't have to wonder about anything, you can just open up your phone and get your answer," said Jones. "But back then I was just lying in bed going, wow, I've been an athletic guy all my life, all my friends are my teammates and ... what now for me?" After a long period of rehab, Jones' first goal was to be able to walk normally wearing pants over his prosthetic limb, not thinking he would want anyone to know about his disability.
"It just shows where my mind was at, at the time, and now I almost never wear pants, I'm wearing shorts all the time," he said. "Eventually, the first thing I did was a mountain bike race. I really enjoyed being back out there and competing, even though, being my first one back after my accident, it was really hard, but I liked it so I stuck with it."
Jones lives to push his limits and since that first mountain bike race has competed in crosscountry skiing, completed three different Ironman competitions, and participated in triathlons nationally and internationally.
"I ended up going kind of bananas on endurance sports and it was just sort of a way to be OK. It's just grown to this ridiculous level where you're doing 1,230 km bike rides," Jones said. "It's kind of a fine line between dissatisfaction and pushing yourself. There's a very fine line there, because to find that drive to push yourself you can't be happy, or else you'd just sit at home patting yourself on the back all day."
Within Jones' talk, he guardedly explained that he'll be getting into the mental aspects of endurance sports and relating the struggles he faced within the final half of the PBP race with the adversities he has plowed through in the last 20 years.
"The endurance sport community is such an interesting group of people and their stories, I don't think they hit the mainstream media very often," said Jones. "Events like FEAT do a really great job of putting the spotlight onto some of the amazing things that are going on out there and on less typical ways to lead a life. For people who are already part of the community it's a great way to celebrate achievements and hear and swap stories, but for people in the building who are not part of that community yet, I think it's quite inspiring."
Contributing to the production of the event and the growing population of explorers on the North Shore is Argyle secondary's Digital Media Academy. Co-founder of the academy and instructor Murray Bulger helps lead a group of approximately 14 Grade 11 and 12 students in creating promotional material for the event with their graphic design skills, live editing of video on the day of the event and new this year is the responsibility of social media.
Verret connected with Bulger last year and invited him and his students to contribute to the production of both the adult and kids FEAT shows. It turned out
to be a learning experience for everyone on communication, professionalism and employee turnover. Once the kids in their senior year graduate, a group of new faces replace them, offering new obstacles and learning opportunities.
"The kids who are in their first year now will be able to carry forward, but that is one of the challenges is that you have to figure out who you have on the plate," explained Bulger. "We have some kids who are really good with web-based stuff, so the social media stuff took off and perhaps if they don't show up next year we might have to rework it. It's like having a company where every two years the staff is gone."
Learning how to communicate with the students and put them on a realistic timeline was the learning curve Verret had to juggle, but staying in close consultation with Bulger, he was able to involve the kids in about 90 per cent of the operations.
"It's definitely a challenge, but it's so much fun and they get a great experience out of it as well. They're doing something different and it's actually for real," said Verret.
Join in to vicariously explore the world of endurance and ultrasport adventurers for the 2016 edition of FEAT Canada set for April 12 at Centennial Theatre in North Vancouver.
FEAT Canada 2016: April 12 at 7:30 p.m., at North Vancouver's Centennial Theatre. Tickets: $23, visit featcanada.ca.
