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Ski Lake Louise, Alberta

It was 1892 when a young employee for the Canadian Pacific Railroad came upon a gem of a lake in the Canadian Rockies that sat beneath a towering glacier. He would write in his journal: “As God is my judge, I never in all my explorations saw such a matchless scene.” Taking his recommendation, Canadian Pacific would build a one-story log cabin that would serve as a hotel for guests who savored the outdoors. By 1912, word spread about this majestic spot in the mountains, enticing more than 50,000 people to reach the shores of Lake Louise. It was time for Canadian Pacific to build a grand chateau with blue roofs and turrets, and furnished with the finest craftsmanship of the Edwardian era.  A place that royalty, heads of state, and celebrities could hobnob in comfort. Today, the 513-room Chateau Lake Louise is run by Fairmont Hotels and is still considered the premiere address in the Canadian Rockies. In winter, the chateau stays open so you can take a horse-drawn sleigh ride over the lake, cross-country ski in shaded forest below the peaks, or downhill ski at one of Canada’s largest ski areas at Lake Louise. Then return to the grand lobby where the fireplace is always roaring to warm you up.
 

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Ski Jay, Vermont

When it’s balmy in Boston in winter, you can still expect a blizzard at Vermont’s northernmost ski resort, Jay Peak. Bordering Quebec, Jay gets more snow than any other ski area in New England (about 350 inches of powder). Being this far north, Jay also accommodates far more Quebecois than New Yorkers. The ski area is cherished for its glade skiing. Black diamond lovers will enjoy the steeper tree runs off the tram while novices will find the trails in Bonaventure Basin to their liking. New this year is 57 luxury suites in the Tram Haus Lodge, opened last December. Also making its debut this past May is the 700-seat Ice Haus Arena, featuring an NHL-sized rink that offers skating lessons, hockey games, and curling tournaments. Phase two of the $120 million revitalization includes the unveiling of 170-room Hotel Jay and an indoor water park, expected some time in 2012.
 

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Ski The Ditch, Milwaukee

It has a vertical drop of 245 feet and is situated about 20 minutes from downtown Milwaukee in Franklin, Wisconsin. But since it was built atop a garbage dump in the mid-80s, skiers and boarders have been making their way to the Ditch, otherwise known as Crystal Ridge. There are two lifts for the intermediate and expert terrain and a tow rope for the bunny hill, totaling 7 runs altogether. But hey, you can’t beat the price, $25 for adults, $22 for children on weekends, $20 for all on weekday nights. And how many times do you get to ski atop a former garbage dump?
 

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Wife Carrying Championship This Weekend at Sunday River, Maine

Still no plans for Columbus Day Weekend? Head on over to the Sunday River Ski Resort in Bethel, Maine, tomorrow and watch the 11th Annual North American Wife Carrying Championship. Winners qualify for the World Wife Carrying Championship in Finland, held next July. Last year’s winner, Dave and Lacy Castro of Lewiston, Maine, beat out 46 other couples from as far away as California. Their time was a speedy 54.45 seconds. Whatever you do, have a great weekend and do something active!
 

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Writing Esoterica

I was guest lecturing at Emerson College in Boston last night when a student asked me how I take notes when I’m out there in the wild, backpacking, canoeing, mountain biking, etc..? It’s actually a very good question. I used to carry a microcassette recorder until I went on a backpacking trip through the Mojave Desert for Men’s Journal magazine. On day three of that trek, I reached down for my recorder and saw that the tape had melted in the sweltering heat. I never liked transcribing notes upon my return, so I switched to writing in a CVS-bought notepad that fits easily into the one of the four pockets on my canvas shorts. That also has its problems. It sometimes gets wet from rain, water, or sweat and I can’t read my notes. Other times I simply lose  the notebook. When I returned from a biking trip to Prince Edward Island for Canadian Geographic, I couldn’t find my notebook anywhere. After freaking out, I wrote the story from memory and called the people I interviewed to confirm their quotes were correct. The magazine loved the piece. It just goes to show you that your memory works far better than you can possibly imagine. In fact, I still remember the waves of nausea I felt the first night of that Mojave Desert trek after hiking 15 miles in the heat and carrying a 50-pound pack. Freeze-dried noodles was not exactly my idea of comfort food, but my body craved carbs so I ate every last morsel.
 

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Marsh, Billings, Rockefeller—Quite the Trio

“Every middle-aged man who revisits his birthplace after a few years of absence looks upon another landscape than that which formed the theater of his youthful toils and pleasures,” said George Perkins Marsh in 1847 in a speech at the Agricultural Society of Rutland County, Vermont. Growing up in Woodstock, Vermont, Marsh had seen three-quarters of Vermont’s forest cover destroyed for potash, lumber, crops, and pasture.  17 years later, Marsh would delve further into these egregious practices in his epic book on the American environment, Man and Nature. Reflecting on what he had seen, Marsh wrote about a concept of sound husbandry where men could mend nature.

A generation younger, Frederick Billings was deeply touched by Marsh’s writings and, in 1869, purchased Marsh’s childhood home in order to make the estate a model of progressive farming and forestry. Beginning in the 1870s, Billings designed a forest with numerous tree plantations and constructed a 20-mile network of carriage roads to showcase his work. On the lowlands, Billings developed a state-of-the-art dairy. In 1982, Billings granddaughter, Mary French Rockefeller and her husband, the conservationist Laurance Rockefeller, established the farmland as the Billings Farm & Museum. In June 1998, the Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller Mansion and the surrounding forest became the Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park.

Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller is the first unit of the National Park System to focus on the theme of conservation history and stewardship, the main concern of Marsh and Billings. With their emphasis on the careful cooperation of man and nature, they had the utmost desire to pass land on, undiminished, even enhanced, to the next generation and generations to come. The Park Service will continue a program of forest management on the site, offering workshops on how to use the forest most efficiently.

Tour the exhibits in the Carriage Barn, then hit the carriage path trails like my family did this past weekend through Billings’ dream 550-acre forest. 11 of Billings’ original plantings remain including groves of Norwegian spruce and Scottish Pine from the 1880s, mixed in with the an indigenous Vermont forest of white pine, red pine, and maples. The longest carriage path trail circles around The Pogue, a shimmering body of water backed by the foliage of Mt. Tom.
 

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New Vermont Spas Help Skiers Rest Those Weary Legs

The rap on Vermont skiing was that the ski resorts were based in historic New England towns that lacked the modern amenities of the resorts out West. Not any longer. The Woodstock Inn, close to the skiing at Killington and Suicide Six, just unveiled their $10 million spa in September and it’s a beauty. Two well known Vermont artisans, glassmaker Simon Pearce and furniture maker Charles Shackleton create the hanging lamps and chaise lounge chairs in the Great Room waiting area, where floors are made of soft Vermont white oak. Just outside in the courtyard is a large outdoor hot tub and sauna, with heated stone floors to keep those tootsies warm in the winter months. That’s in addition to the eucalyptus steam rooms found in both the men and women’s changing area. Woodstock Inn’s state-of-the-facility comes on the heels of Stowe Mountain Lodge’s spa, the first offshoot of the highly regarded Cooper Wellness spa in Dallas. The new space features every treatment imaginable, including music, water, and aromatherapy, nutritional and fitness counseling, and seminars on maintaining a healthy lifestyle.
 

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Tauck Tours Announces Partnership with Ken Burns

Ken Burns, the documentarian known for his PBS series on the “Civil War,” “Baseball,” and “The National Parks: America’s Best Idea,” has just teamed up with Tauck World Discovery to create tours based on his documentaries. Burns will also create a series of short films to help supplement the itineraries, which are located throughout the US. Tauck, who has been bringing guests to the National Parks since 1926 and currently has 12 parks on its itinerary, seems like a perfect fit for Burns’ wealth of history. Stuck on a bus between sites, you might as well learn everything you need to know about the creation of Yellowstone National Park before you arrive. The first tour starts in 2011.
 

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Beyond the Craft

Each semester, I’m asked to speak at classes at Emerson College and Boston University on both magazine writing and screenwriting. On Tuesday night, when I return to Emerson, I will bring a thick folder of more than 200 rejection letters. It includes my favorite from Mad Magazine, a check next to a line that reads: “It just didn’t tickle our funny bone.” Universities do a wonderful job of teaching the craft of writing, but rarely touch on the psychological aspects of rejection and the necessary business skills to market your wares. Close to half my time, especially in those early years, was spent peddling my writing to editors and production companies. And almost every day, I would return from the mailbox with a stack of rejection letters. It was an incredible struggle, the reason why many of the creative people I met in New York are no longer in the business.

Dealing with rejection and building a strong support group to help attain your creative aspirations is just one of the numerous topics my brother, Jim, and I will discuss in a 3-hour seminar we’re doing in Boston, Providence, Portland, New Bedford, and Stamford this October. Called Beyond the Craft: How to Be Proactive and Take Charge of Your Creative Career, the motivational workshop will also delve into finding mentors to guide you, distinguishing yourself from the rest of the pack, the art of schmoozing, creating an effective networking system, finding time to work on your craft while paying the rent, and getting your work out there any way possible.

For close to a decade, Jim worked as a talent agent at ICM representing some of the entertainment world’s greatest success stories—Academy-Award winning actor Alan Arkin, the grande dame of Broadway, Helen Hayes, and the most popular man on television in the 80s, “the Fonz,” otherwise known as Henry Winkler. When he left that job to pursue his creative ambitions as screenwriter, director, and producer, he would face wave after wave of rejection, often wondering how people like Alan Arkin and Helen Hayes could endure such negativity and hardship to make it to the top. His relentless perseverance and serious dose of patience have paid off with the release of the critically acclaimed Samuel Goldwyn film, Passionada (which I co-wrote), in 2003, and the heart-wrenching, Em, winner of the Grand Jury Prize as best film in the 2008 Seattle Film Festival. Please help spread the word. Thank you!   
 

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Couple Paddles the Northern Forest Canoe Trail and Hikes the Appalachian Trail…in the Same Sum

In August, I had an assignment to write about an inn-to-inn bike trip in Vermont. After biking up and down short steep hills for a good 40 miles, I arrived at the first inn exhausted but proud of my accomplishment. That was until the owner of the B&B told me that she had another biker who just came through last week, one who was biking the entire country from Seattle to Boston! That’s what I thought about when I first read about Catherine and Ryan Thompson, from Old Forge, New York. On April 15th, they began paddling the 740-mile Northern Forest Canoe Trail and arrived at the northern terminus of Fort Kent on May 10th. An incredible feat for most humans, but that was just the beginning for the Thompsons. After completing their paddle, they walked 100 miles to Baxter State Park and started the Appalachian Trail. They completed the 2,179-mile trail last Thursday! As they said in their final blog entry, “We made quite a scene at the summit. Poles were flying in the air, as well as Toofpick’s pack. It came down with a thud – a satisfying thud that signaled our end. It was a burst of celebration, and then suddenly we were standing there in silence. We were there…” Congratulations! You deserve a Couples Massage!