FEAT Canada sells out for second year in a row

What can we say?  I think “thanks” is the first thing.  Thank you to our fans, thank you to our speakers, thank you to our volunteers and of course thank you to our partners.  Without any of you, we don’t have a show, without any of you, we’re not writing this post today.

As we wait for the final videos to trickle in (I know it’s only been a week) we figured we had a small amount of time to recap the night for those who may not have had the chance to join us for the show.

The night started off with an acrobatic act from the Vancouver Circus School.  After the MEC and FEAT introduction videos, Danielle Fisher and Madaleine Burkett stepped on to the stage to perform an acrobatic demonstration and FEAT in and of itself.

After the circus school’s demonstration, FEAT Producer and Director, Sean Verret, took the stage to introduce the MC for the evening Kevin Vallely.  Kevin, who previously spoke at FEAT, and recently got back from an adventure this summer was excited to host this year’s show.

The first half of the show featured mountain biker Debora De Napoli, ultra runner Adam Campbell, arctic rower Denis Barnett and alpine climber and MEC Envoy Sarah Hart.

Debora started the show discussing how many women in her family, including her mother had died of ovarian cancer and how she may have the gene that causes it.  She had the audience in tears as she explained she didn’t have the disease and was going to set off to do ride her mountain bike across the Canadian Rockies.  She had always wondered why there were so few women in mountain bike movies, so she decided to make one of her own!  Her trip started with an injury (a theme for the women of the night) but ended in triumph as she summited Jumping Pound Mountain on her last day of her ride.

Adam seemed to have it all.  He was a lawyer, a professional athlete and married to an olympic triathlete.  But he wasn’t happy.  First the marriage was over, then he quit his job and now he was a professional runner, but he still wasn’t happy.  He realized that certain parts of his life gave him joy in different ways, but he needed them all in order to be happy.  Fast forward to today and Adam is now finding more joy running in the mountains and being a lawyer again.  His heroes are those who follow their passions and make the most of every day!

Denis is not normally known for being a crier, but as this picture shows he’s been known to shed a tear or two.  Of course, if you ask Denis, he was just really tired.  Denis, admitted before the show that he was terrified to be on stage but nobody would have noticed.  He told us a tale of about 48 hours in the North West Passage where he and his team had to hit a needle in a haystack (an island the size of 4 football fields in the middle of the sea) in order to survive to tell his tale.  Denis made the audience laugh with his sincerity and gasp as the gravity of the situation they had got themselves in to.

Sarah had experienced a horrible crash into a crevasse and it instilled fear in her that didn’t allow her to do many of the simplest climbs she had previously conquered.  She learned to respect the mountains and ice and to be okay with her fear.  That was several years ago and now she is a MEC Envoy and her cheerfulness and genuine nature were portrayed in her talk about the fear she felt after her accident and how she never gave up climbing even though she was afraid.

The second half of the show featured back country skier and MEC Envoy Tobin Seagel, runner Alicia Woodside, sailor Ryan Robertson, climber Tiffany Melius and stand up paddleboarder Norm Hann.

Tobin began the second half talking about the isolation involved in several of his many back country skiing excursions around the globe.  He explained the quiet, the hunger and peacefulness.  He ended with the revelation that on earth we’re actually quite isolated in the grand scheme of the Universe and that isolation is something we can all embrace.

Alicia loves to run.  Actually she loves pretty much everything.  Her bubbly nature exploded on the stage as she talked about her figure skating dreams as a child and how she began running “not for gold”.  Alicia and her friends have run some of the toughest races but usually with a grin and some really tacky clothes.  Their thirst for the fun in an event truly resonated with the audience as everything is NOT always about winning.

Ryan Robertson started a sailing trip looking for the biggest, baddest unsurfed swells in the world.  What he found was plastic and a lot of it.  He found it on the most remote of beaches all over the world and the enormity of it didn’t allow him to pick it up, but rather changed the vision of his journey into one about educating and creating awareness about the pollution we’re causing to our world’s oceans.

Tiffany has tasted the podium a few times on her way towards climbing in the world championships, but injuries and not always climbing for the right reasons got her off track.  After the worst of her injuries, she refocused on the “why” of her climbing and enjoyed more success than ever.  She rode her success to compete at the World Championships in 2013 and continues her quest in 2014.

Norm, the Raven, has been standing up for the West Coast for many years now.  He is an honorary tribe member of a tribe in the Haida Gwaii and he has been standing up for their rights for several years.  Norm took us on a photo adventure of Haida Gwaii and showed us the amazing landscapes and seascapes that could be devastated if just one oil tanker on the new route to Kitimat should happen to spill.

We wish to thank everyone for coming to our show and for those who couldn’t make it the photos from the show and videos will be online shortly.