about us

When I was a young adult, I had some traumatic events that led me back to the outdoors. I found peace in the outdoors. I would close my eyes and envision being in the mountains. This was when I decided that I needed to move to the mountains full-time. However, first I set myself on a journey of learning and returned to school to study biological and environmental sciences. I wanted to give back to the thing that I felt gave me my life back: the outdoors.

I ended up moving to Crowsnest Pass in 2014 to run a disaster relief program for the government after the 2013 floods that impacted the eastern slopes. Previously I lived in Jasper, worked for 7 years for a large tour company, and worked in oil and gas doing reclamation and remediation. I knew Crowsnest Pass because we would stop briefly on route to Fernie or Whitefish when I was a tourguide, and I ran in Sinister 7 before living here. I remember sitting with my husband at Rum Runner and as I looked around, I said, "I can live here.” Little did I know at that time that I was going to buy a house stumbling distance from Rum Runner.

I moved here and have a clear memory of being shown my work area, which was the Castle, Livingstone, and Porcupine Hills, and turning the corner to look up at the Flathead Range along the Great Divide. I thought, “Wow! I can’t believe I get to work here and few people even know about this area.” I had spent so much time exploring the mountains and yet knew little at that time about this area. It blew me away and I was hooked. I fell in love with the South Canadian Rockies.

While I worked for the government, I knew that I wanted to start an adventure tour company. I wanted to share this beautiful part of the world with others and help build a sustainable economy in Crowsnest Pass. I had started a local outdoors club too and grew that club before starting Uplift Adventures. I researched what it would take to start a company and found the Association of Canadian Mountain Guides (ACMG). I started taking courses and doing my mentorship so that I could start a company. This was exceptionally hard because I could not find any guides locally to mentor under, so it meant constant travel to other areas in the mountains. I will admit though… I wasn’t complaining. I love to explore and see new places. That is part of being a guide. I worked in the environment field for over 10 years at that point, worked in the backcountry, trained staff to work in the backcountry, and managed multi-million-dollar projects in the backcountry before starting Uplift Adventures. Yet, when I did my training with ACMG, I learned SO much! I highly recommend hiring ACMG guides and strongly believe in quality with high standards. Being a guide is awesome, but what a lot of people fail to understand is that professional guides are trained to take care of people and it no longer becomes about us – it is about YOUR experience. While we have a lot of technical skills, the biggest difference between a recreationalist and a professional is the well-being of who we are adventuring with. You come first.

The process to become a guide with ACMG took about 3 years for me. In the meantime, I was already starting Uplift Adventures. As I was writing the business plan, I realized that I needed a name for my business. That was actually the hardest part of writing a business plan (well, and cost forecasting). I had such a hard time with making a decision, so I invited my friends over for a party. I served liquid creativity in hopes to get some unique ideas. It sort of worked but Uplift Adventures was not created that night. I still didn’t have a name after a night of brainstorming, but the next day I sat down with a friend and we looked at a thesaurus. We looked up the word: mountain. Uplift came up as an option. Uplift is the geological process for mountain-building – the rock is uplifted because of tectonic plates pushing against each other. But uplift is also a feeling I get when I’m in the mountains. This was perfect – it is nerdy and a feeling – and Uplift Adventures was named.

After I wrote the business plan, I entered a competition with Growing Rural Tourism that was funded by Travel Alberta. My business plan was selected in the top 3 and I was invited to a conference to speak in front of 200+ audience members. I got to speak for 10 minutes about my project, as well as the other 2 contestants. The audience did a live vote on who was their favourite, and I received more than 70% of the votes. I won $10,000 and a business mentor for my first year of business. Uplift wasn’t even a registered business yet, but it went from a concept to a business very quickly after that. Uplift Adventures became an official business March 5, 2018. I left my job with government August 2018 to focus on building a business.

Since 2018, I have taken a concept and grown Uplift to include year-round trips, tours, and courses. I’ve expanded into Waterton Lakes National Park which included even more training and I can happily say that I also became a Professional Interpreter with the Interpretive Guide Association for all of the Canadian Rocky Mountain National Parks. I loved this certification and it taught me even more about mountains!! I want to know as much as possible. I have also expanded the company to include outdoor rock climbing, backpacking, cross-country skiing, day hiking, snowshoeing, wilderness first aid courses, navigation courses, and MORE! One of my favourite things to do is find smart and passionate people and showcase them to the world. There are currently 16 professional guides and instructors that work with Uplift Adventures, and several more partners. It’s been a rollercoaster of a ride to get to this point. Some major highs and some major lows. So, I celebrate those highs with all of you because that is what uplifts me.

Uplift Adventures is guided by our four main principles to create these outdoor experiences and knowledge for all types of people:

1. To inspire people to CONNECT to the outdoors.
2. To build CONFIDENCE in people to explore the outdoors safely and responsibly.
3. To encourage an outdoor COMMUNITY to include all types of people.
4. To CONSERVE the outdoors for people now and into the future to enjoy.

Our ultimate goal at Uplift Adventures is to create something we call: Conservation Tourism. We want to create either reclamation or sustainable development projects where people can give back to the places they are visiting. We have members of our team who are environmental scientists with a lot of experience in development and reclamation, and have worked on recovery programs. We want to take this experience to rebuild some of the damaged landscapes from historical mining, exploration, and neglected trail use in the Canadian Rockies and encourage people to explore with purpose.