There’s snow pun in this title
Onboard a tiny 2×2 plane, forty eight ski and snowboard famished peeps are on their way to Calgary from Denver airport. Two of those people are especially excited, but feel wrenched from the rooted soil of Denver and the extreme loveliness of the Christmas Parkes experience. That couple’s view from the window is of a seemingly vast drugget of white encrustment with the excessively ample powder of Canadian snow. It looks absolutely delicious, reminiscent of a badly iced cake that you just simply want to devour. Rivers disappear into and underneath the flatness of the thick snow with the cleared road grid system being the only clue to land of any sort. Those plucky two sort of land (we weren’t flying the plane) and suddenly they’re in Canada.
Those people are us! Wahey! 
We get our first taste of the famed Canadian politeness as the friendly cowboy hat’d help desk ladies point us to the vicinity of the Non-Stop travel, meet up point.
“How far is it to the meet up point?” I ask.
“It’s aboot five minutes” said the very helpful lady.
I look at Lucy and communicate a subtle air fist-clench as the stereotyped colloquialism actually rings true.
We are about to experience what is the dream snowboarding trip, a month of snowboarding in Fernie (the best kept snowboarding secret location in North America). I am booked onto an instructor course, while Lucy is on a three week improvement course and we can hardly wait to strap into our gear.
We meet our Non-Stop rep’s Mark and Goff. Both are fun and show off fresh lines on their faces, you can tell instantly these fellows have seen gnarly seasons in the powder. Indeed a friendly pair who meet and greet a lot of extremely jet lagged individuals looking haggard by their travels. In his introduction, Goff the guide sets the tone in what is to become his inimitable Aussie in Canada, snow bum tone. He’s kind of a rascally loveable swear-pot and becomes the warden for the duration of our stay. We notice the large proliferation of Australian accents and overhear stories of travel times exceeding forty hours. For once we feel sparky in comparison to our new snow buddies. Bzzzzt!
The scenery creaks and bows with heavily snowed upon characteristics and as the low sun arcs through the sky, the whiteness of the frosted landscape dazzles the noggin. The coach windows are tinted and curtained to prevent mass snow blindness (and coach crashes).
Recently purchased and taken over by Non-stop, the Red Tree Lodge is extremely well kitted out for the powder hounds we are. Everything at the Red Tree Lodge is geared towards skiing and snowboarding and the place has an incredibly easygoing vibe to it. Eating and drunkenness quickly ensues while we scope out who we want to hang with for the next few weeks. There is a massive divergence of characters and personalities. Most are really up for socialising heavily and we tend to gravitate to the ones that like to booze (total shocker).
Our next taste of the famous Canadian politeness prevails. Friendliness is inherent to the slightly old fashioned feel of Fernie, a lovely phrase: ”Hello” in the street is commonly uttered by actual strangers.
The day before our lessons start, we are insanely excited about buying new snowboards from the Edge of the World shop in the centre of Fernie. We spend a good couple of hours with James the instructor and Lars the shop manager. We listen to their advice and labour our purchase decision. I buy a Lib Tech Attack Banana with a sweet Japanese pre-manga early 80s Sci-fi/fantasy design. Lucy’s is a coral pink Nikita board made by Salomon. Importantly it matches Lucy’s snowboard trousers perfectly. This makes Lucy very happy.
Our first day of snowboarding means separating into our allocated groups. I join a pretty laddish group of lads that are leagues more laddie than me. Even the Lady (Natalie) is loads more laddish than me (I mean this in the best possible way, she shreds like an absolute demon and is one of the best boarders in the group). James is our uber cool instructor who is a snowboarding deity and I think has spent more time on snow than off it. We’re talking world class with an injury being the only barrier between him and a shot at the Olympics. An incredibly likeable chap with a ton of charm.
It is today I realise I absolutely suck at snowboarding. I am so far beyond ‘rusty’, I am corroded. I have been put into the top skill level snowboarding group and realise I am WAY out of my powdery depth. I spend the entire first day falling over and realise everybody else has been out snowboarding for weeks prior to the beginning of the course. I totally eat their powdery dust as they unleash a ridiculous pace which intensifies as the day goes on. I also realise having set up my new board in a hungover state, it is completely ruining my balance/stance hence the repeated eating snow over and over again. James our instructor tweaks the setup over lunch and I have a slightly better afternoon. The day obliterates my confidence and it takes a week to get over the setback on the slopes. Lucy meanwhile is having a brilliant time and making lots of ‘super’ friends in her group. Somehow she manages to sprinkle her magic dust and attracts great people to the now increasing circle. I realise I am physically and somehow mentally unfit at this point and struggle for the next couple of weeks to get into the swing of it all.
New years Eve gets ever so slightly lively and desperately trying to make an impact, I smash down 8 Jagermeisters in a row, finally making an impact on the Porcelain toilet (we became firm friends for about twenty minutes). Despite this performance, I could still not top one of our group’s paralytic efforts of urinating on the entire collective jackets of the bar staff of the pub we were in. This unfortunate fellow got a few death threats and was understandably forced to leave before the stroke of midnight. It is also on this night we begin to hook up properly with our now good board buddies James, Gavin and Sarah C, Sarah S and Michael. The absolute loveliest, friendly and up for it gang you could wish to meet on a snowboarding holiday.
Back at the Red Tree Lodge, during the early hours of New Years eve/New years day, the front reception desk has an embedded iPad that faces outwards to notify residents of the snow conditions for the mountain. This iPad is somehow rascally set to display pornographic websites unbeknownst to the reception staff due to it’s orientation towards the general public. This is extremely funny for everyone until the admin staff find out and threaten to block all ‘adult websites’ over the wifi unless it is rectified and/or happens again. 30 very scared looking chaps turn pale as they realise they may have to go without porn for the next 3 weeks. The iPad gets fixed very quickly.
Now if I can just get into this snowboarding malarkey…