Canmore's Meanderthals hiking group brings seniors to the summit
by Shari Bishop Bowes
Canmore is home to a group of exceptionally fit, very active senior citizens.
They call themselves the Meanderthals, and you'll find many of their 130 members enjoying the outdoors on foot, snowshoes, or cross-country skis any month of the year. While there are quite a number of Meanderthals in their mid-50s to early 60s, the group includes a healthy - and we mean that literally - number of active members in their 70s and 80s.
I first heard about the Meanderthals soon after I arrived in Canmore nine years ago, and marveled at the list of organized hiking destinations listed each week in the Canmore Leader's seniors newspaper column. It soon became clear the Meanderthals were the most organized, ambitious and passionate hiking club in the entire Bow Valley.
Maureen Martel and her husband Paul moved to Canmore from Montreal to retire in the summer of 2001, and got involved with the Meanderthals through the Canmore Seniors Association (CSA) right away. The CSA, at the urging of senior hiker Pamela Grigg, launched the Meanderthals group in 1993.
The Martels had been frequent visitors to Canmore over the years, as their two daughters, Lynn and Daisy live here and are avid outdoorswomen.
The reward at the end of the trail is always a bag lunch, a fabulous view and a chance to rest before heading home. This group of Meanderthals takes a break for lunch beside the river in Banff.
"When I would come out in the summer, the three of us (Maureen and her daughters) would go hiking somewhere," Maureen says. "Some hikes were easy, some were a little more challenging, but even being a city girl, I managed somehow."
Before the permanent move, daughter Lynn would save the weekly seniors columns to show to her mom and dad, who soon were intrigued by the possibility of becoming not only permanent residents but also members of the Meanderthals.
Flash ahead a few years, and Maureen is now involved not only as a hiker, but also as a volunteer coordinator for the Meanderthals' hike sign-up sheets that are posted in the library and advertised in the seniors column every week.
"We start (the hiking season) around mid-May if the weather's good," says Maureen, "and we hike until the snow comes. We try to make the season as long as possible."
Each week, Meanderthals have a choice of four hikes that are graded for length and difficulty. Choices range from the "A" hikes that can take upwards of eight or more hours, and involve a quicker pace, to the less strenuous (but often just as scenic) "D" hikes that may take a few hours or so on a less strenuous grade. In many cases, the latter group makes the choice to move at a leisurely pace in order to enjoy photography and wildflower identification.
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A group of Meanderthals enjoy the view enroute to Helen Lake, during a hike in the Canadian Rockies.
A huge benefit of hiking with the Meanderthals - particularly for relative newcomers to the valley - is the wealth of experience shared by volunteer trip leaders.
Maureen mentions hike leaders like Bob Smith, a Canmore resident who has lived in the Bow Valley his entire life. "You go on a hike with him, and it's amazing the information he's got stored up there," she says. "You ask him a question about a flower and he knows the answer."
The Meanderthals' weekly hikes take members as far afield as Yoho National Park in British Columbia, and to the far reaches of Kananaskis Country. Hiking groups car pool and share gasoline expenses.
A particularly fond memory for one group of Meanderthals was the August 1999 hike to Middle Sister Peak - the 2,694 m peak in Canmore's famed Three Sisters Mountains - to celebrate International Year of Older Persons (IYOP).
While considered a strenuous hike for people half their age, this group of 21 hardy seniors are pictured smiling atop the Middle Sister Peak in a book titled "Canmore Seniors at the Summit". This book was published in commemoration of IYOP and contains the personal stories of Canmore seniors who have grown up in the valley, or who have moved here over the years.
In his recollections on life in the valley since retiring here, Dr. Gerald Hankins talks about a list he'd begun to draft titled "Gems of My Life".
"Hiking is not at the top," he wrote, "but it's not far down. I'm still hiking, and although the hills have their charm, they seem to be getting steeper and my rucksack heavier. But I don't want to give up, at least not yet. I still delight in breathing the fragrant air of the pine forests, kneeling by a cluster of mauve moss campions, and marveling at a shimmering green mountain lake or the silhouette of a mountain peak against the twilight sky."
Maureen believes the Meanderthals are a group of seniors who not only enjoy spending time together while hiking, but who also share a positive attitude about life and about what can be accomplished at any age.
"It's a positive attitude, and it's a very positive feeling that everyone seems to have. We say we're just going to do it, and that's it," she says.
In many a pretty town the world over, there's always a club that everyone yearns to attain membership in - be it a golf club, a country club or the like.
In Canmore, the group that local residents yearn to be part of is closed to many. Until they turn 55, that is, when they can join the Meanderthals hiking club, and enjoy an unlimited supply of camaraderie on some of the most beautiful trails in the world.
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