Happy Warriors - Rob and Laurie Wood

Categories: Expedition HIstory Nature connection

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 two Happy Warriors…

Words by Lynsey Burke

From then until now

He is an architect. She’s a mountaineer. He’s an outdoorsman. She’s a homesteader. He’s an author. She’s a cook. They’re both renowned rock climbers and living legends.

Their connection to SPL dates back over 30 years, a time when SPL founders Jim and Myrna Boulding were running the Lodge. From their beginnings together all the way to present day, Rob and Laurie continue to guide and mentor the SPL COLT (Canadian Outdoor Leadership Training) program.

Today they share what was taught to them by Jim and Myrna. They’re honouring the skills and philosophies of energy, survival, environment and hospitality that was once bestowed upon them.

“We love to see groups of all ages and backgrounds overcoming obstacles with a smile, a laugh and a song,” says Rob looking back on their time spent with SPL groups.

Happy Warrior — being a positive contributor

When asked which core value resonates most with Rob and Laurie Wood, they felt that Happy Warrior was a core philosophy to their outlook and priorities in both their personal life and in their teachings.

To go at a task with gusto, including the mundane or daunting, is how Rob feels he and Laurie approach the Happy Warrior way of being. To be a positive contributor to a team and always pitch in, these are traits of the Happy Warrior.

“The rain is pouring down and camp is still a long way off,” he says as he paints a picture. “Yet the entire group is singing at the top of their lungs. These are Happy Warriors.”

We are nature, he tells me when asked about how he sees the world today. Continuing, he suggests adopting the philosophy of Holism and universal consciousness — to be more conscious of our relationship to our natural and social environment. We are not separate nor superior to the rest of the world.

Rob and Laurie in the beginning

Looking back nearly 50 years ago Rob joined a “Back to the Land” Cooperative on Maurelle Island. During this time, he and Laurie went on a blind date in a pub in Squamish. “I talked her into joining me in a community of long-haired idealists with their barefoot children starting from scratch, building a shack and carving a living on the land,” he romanticizes over their beginnings.

In a published book by Myrna Boulding, there is an excerpt published by Laurie Wood herself where she states that she and Rob met in 1975 during an Alpine Club winter ascent. “I was told a famous ice climber named Rob Wood would be joining for the climb,” she recalls of her first meeting with her now husband of 49 years.

Maybe we need to get to the bottom of the REAL story of how they met… no matter, each version has an air of ease and instant connectivity!

Laurie was working at SPL at the time and her four-year-old daughter Kiersten was happily living amid the little village meeting new friends. After their initial meeting, and some time spent with Laurie at the Lodge, he quickly became actively involved in the vision. In 1977, the two got married here with 150 of their favourite people gathering in the Whale Room, some of which (maybe foolishly) practiced rock climbing stunts on the roof.

Living a life connected to nature

Rob is now 78 and he and Laurie continue to live a full life together where they’ve created a homestead on the beautiful Maurelle Island, located between the Johnstone Strait and the Strait of Georgia.

Rob designed their thoughtfully constructed home and Laurie takes pride in their land as well as their large productive garden. She grows beautiful produce — enough to feed their many guests who stop in to stay at their guest cabin, including family including Laurie’s daughter and their two grandchildren (who have instilled into them the same love of nature by Rob and Laurie themselves).

Being remote and off grid, a life of working the land and being connected to nature remains a top priority for the pair. In spite of health struggles and a diagnosis of Parkinson’s Disease eight year ago, they’re dedicated to staying in their home which gives them purpose and the connection to the land that they have always needed.

Because communication is challenging with the combination of being in a remote location and the ability to speak with Parkinson’s Disease, Rob writes his answers to me in an email. In their day-to-day life, he summarizes what matters. We are minimalist, he says. “We are self reliant and hardworking. It’s extremely rewarding, this sense of connectivity and belonging.”

Health struggles and practicing what we teach

When asked if his Happy Warrior teachings and philosophies have impacted his outlook when met with health challenges, Rob references the teachings of Jim Boulding. To maintain a positive attitude, a gem of wisdom that he himself has been preaching for 40 years, has become a way to mitigate (at least to some degree) the worst symptoms of the disease, he says. “I find that practicing my conscious walking technique is a grounding exercise.”

Laurie grew up in Squamish and was naturally exposed to the local rock climbing desperadoes known as “The Squamish Hardcore.” And Rob, his childhood memories are in an English village nestled into the wild and beautiful environment of The Yorkshire Moors National Park, where he says he felt a profound sense of belonging.

“This was followed by a teenage life in a big city, which induced an equally profound sense of alienation, partly in rebellion — to which an introduction to rock climbing rekindled a hidden connectivity with wildness.”

Staying humble in testing times

Both humble beings, the Woods certainly have earned the right to boast. As COLT Director Julia Tashiro says, Laurie and Rob never brag about their successes in climbing and mountaineering.

“Rather, they both represent a role model for the students of staying humble and respectful in their travels and adventures and illuminate with their philosophies what is most important,” she says. “The connections we make with others, ourselves and the natural world is why we are out there.”

Rob tells me of a time when he met a personal physical and mental challenge, and how he was able to adjust his attitude through conscious attention and intention.

While making an early five-day ascent of The Nose of El Capitain in Yosemite in 1968, the first two and a half days I was riddled with doubt and fear. But in the middle of day three we had successfully negotiated a big pendulum swing after which there was no going back. We were committed. The only way out was up and over the top. At a precarious bivouac ledge that night I experienced an epiphany; my previous doubts and fears were replaced by a profound calm and confidence; we knew we would succeed. My partner on El Cap, Mick Burke attributed ‘our extraordinary’ accomplishment to “just a matter of wanting to do it and then keeping on going.”

“This attention enhances our performance by ridding our minds of a debilitating subconscious,” he explains.

Accolades for days

Rob and Laurie Wood are living legends in Canadian mountaineering with a long list of notable first ascents which include Laurie’s first all female ascent of the Grand Wall at Squamish and Long’s Peak in Colorado, Rob’s first Canadian ascent of The Nose of El Cap and six of the top twenty Great Ice Climbs in the Rockies. He did first and second ascents of the two most serious winter climbs on Vancouver Island; the NE face of Colonel Foster.

They were founding members of the most successful environmental protest in Canadian History; the fight to stop the mining of Strathcona Park’s Cream Lake and Big Interior Mountain.

When they weren’t conquering mountains or building an off grid plot of land, they were building connections and having fun. A quality that remains true to this day.

SPL President Jamie Boulding can attest to a time when he was a child in short pants when Laurie taught him to arm wrestle. Perhaps a rematch is on the table?