Generosity of Spirit — Freya Wasteneys
The Strathcona Circle is made up of six core values: More with less, Environmental Stewardship, Challenge by Choice, Living on the Edge, Generosity of Spirit and Happy Warrior. Today, we celebrate a generous spirit…
Words by Lynsey Burke
Wishing upon a chip
Hiking the Tantalus Range with a group of friends and enjoying the lookout
Children of the 90’s all knew very well about the wish chip. You know the one — it’s a chip that is folded in half. As you bite it, you make a wish that is most certain to come true.
24 years ago Freya Wasteneys put her hopes for the future into the predetermination of a wish chip as a nine-year-old whimsical soul living in Toronto, ON. At the time, she and her family of five had visited Strathcona Park Lodge for her Granddad’s 80th birthday and her yearning to return was strong.
“I remember loving it so much,” she recalls of her vacation spent with family on the shores of Upper Campbell Lake. “We returned to Toronto and I remember that whole year … anytime I’d get a wish chip I wished to move to the Lodge.”
Freya and her family’s first visit to Strathcona Park Lodge as a child
As it turns out, the future was in fact determined by those deep fried potatoes because not long after all those salty snacks Freya’s parents announced that they would be moving to the Lodge for 10 months. Her reaction? To burst into tears and plead … “But what about my friends?”
Despite the mixed emotions, the future was set. She, her two siblings and her mom moved at the beginning of the school year, ahead of her dad who would join them once he tied up the loose ends back at their Ontario home. The family settled into a cabin with minimal electricity, and as she recalls, there were many cooler nights that her 11-year-old self, her 7-year-old brother and 5-year-old sister were cozied together in their mom’s warm bed.
From the city to the forest
The original 10-month plan turned into a lifetime. Today, her parents still live near the Lodge property and Freya, now 33, lives in Cumberland and looks back onto her later childhood years growing up at the Lodge fondly. She and her siblings attended the one-room school house above the Whale Room. Freya was the eldest in the classroom by four years, and the Wasteneys were one of four families in attendance — a mixed age education that was padded with outdoor opportunities to join WYLD camps.
Freya and her two younger siblings bike training in Strathcona Provincial Park
“I got a lot of exposure to different sports and activities,” she said of her experience living at the Lodge. “When I did the COLT program I felt like that laid a solid foundation for the future,” she says of the 100-day outdoor leadership program. “I think I have always enjoyed sampling a little bit of everything. There are so many different ways to explore the world and connect with different people.”
The path to the current destination
Generous spirit Freya who was a mentee turned mentor with Mountain Mentors is today taking her Masters in Counselling and actively gives back to her community as a mentor in outdoor education
During high school she was a competitive cross country ski racer, the editorial lead for her university newspaper, a mentee turned mentor with Mountain Mentors and today is simultaneously doing her masters in counselling while actively training for another adventure race (and providing outdoor activity support for local youth). Quite the trifecta.
Knowing that she has bit off a large bite, she’s balancing the portions well. Passion has that effect.
“I think when you’re young it’s hard to imagine yourself as a counsellor,” she says. “You need some life experience.” Now ready to take the leap, she finds herself drawn towards nature-based, narrative and somatic therapies. “I think I’m realizing that the way I work best is to allow things to unfold and see where the path takes me,” she adds of her upcoming practicum in counselling and the direction it will take.
Freya and her partner or “support human” as she refers to him as, during a hike in Rogers Pass
Planning our interview, we missed each other at various times as I was seeking to find a quiet moment and she was seeking to find a time of her day where she wasn’t studying, training or serving the local youth.
Lessons in generosity through adventure racing
This September Freya and a group of three teammates who she was connected to through the Lodge will be participating in what she is calling their redemption race in Oregon. From her first expedition length race of 580 kilometres over four days, she and four other fellow “Lodgies” went in strong, pushed their bodies and made hard decisions together on whether to press through an injury or meet their vulnerability and come together as a team and make the hard decision to exit the race.
Freya’s first adventure racing team with a name “More Mayo” are eager contestants
“It was also a very beautiful moment,” she says of their 4 am huddle to come to a decision as a team. “It’s so memorable, it was one of those moments that you don’t often get to see people in their vulnerability like that. It really pushes you to those limits and to see what you value in those moments.”
Having since completed several other races, Freya says adventure racing has taught her a lot. She has learned to communicate, to check in with her body and to ask herself the valuable question “How much do I have to give right now?”
As a team, communicating that to one another allows an individual to put in more or less and to share the load — a philosophy that can be carried into daily life.
Adapting a growth mindset instead of a fixed mindset has allowed Freya to focus on the process rather than results. As a young person who had experiences managing her own perfectionism, anxiety and ADHD, this new mindset, she says, has allowed her to shed the old thought patterns.
Generosity of Spirit — being generous in the support of others
Acknowledging that self-reliance is empowering and a trait she learned from her time at the lodge, Freya says that hard moments can strip us down to our most vulnerable selves — like in adventure racing. In these moments, she has found clarity on what is important.
That is the ability to rely on a team for support, and in turn providing the support to others has been most impactful — generosity of spirit, as she sees it, is a give and take.
Keeping a positive mindset during challenging situations and being generous in your support to others is what makes Freya a generous spirit
“Having the foundation of a safe relationship can really open us up to learning in those moments,” she says. “It teaches us that it is also safe to rely on others.” This, she feels, is something that has been conditioned out of us through messages that promote hyper independence within our culture.
Looking back, Freya says that while she has prioritized her independence, allowing the support of others in and providing it to others when she has the capacity has made her life richer. “When we do this, it opens us up to so many moments of hilarity and joy in the ‘hard’ as you surrender to the process and revel in the total ridiculousness of life,” she muses.
The perfectly folded potato chip has indeed come full circle in delivering its promise of bringing this well-rounded athlete to the West Coast. Without it, Cumberland would be missing a generous spirit.
* * *
