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Pemberton - The People

Hell’s Kitchen tastes like Pemberton

Araxi's Head Chef James Walt has been Pemberton produce's biggest champion, and now he has a cookbook so you can discover it too.   More >

Pemberton's World Class Dragonboat Team

How to cultivate a world-class dragonboat team?  Take a handful of Pemberton and Mount Currie First Nations kids, a lake the size of a large puddle and a former Olympic gold medalist turned Pemberton local.  Now paddle.  Under the coaching of Dr. Hugh Fisher, Pemberton’s Laoyam Eagles Junior Dragonboat team has been number one in North America, and has represented Canada around the world. 

Eric Pehota — A World-Renowned Mountaineer Makes Pemberton Home

Every town has a legend. Pemberton’s got Eric Pehota. Widely considered one of the most accomplished adventure skiers in North America, Pehota embodies the spirit of the local mountains – mountains that have helped make him the man he is today. “There's nothing like being first,” Pehota says. “Whether it's on the river or high up on a peak somewhere. It's what keeps me alive.”   More >

Jim Orava: An Adventure Original Calls Pemberton Home

Up rocks, down snow, along whitewater and through thin air. Jim Orava is arguably one of the most avid multi-sport mountain adventurers in Canada -- and says he wouldn’t want to live anywhere but Pemberton. Orava has scored dozens of climbing first ascents and descents, navigated extreme skiing, paddled some of the most challenging rapids in the world and been awarded international awards for paragliding distances that would tire hawks. This former Hollywood-based “critical situations manager” says he loves the freedom and rawness of the Pemberton area, and that there’s nowhere else that offers as many opportunities for adventures in such close range.  

Czech Immigrant Spreads his Wings in Pemberton

When Rudy Rozsypalek was in his mid-20s, he was an avid recreational glider pilot in communist Czechoslovakia with a job driving transport trucks. He dreamed of flying his non-motorized gliders in the skies over the country of wilderness and freedom he’d read so much about: Canada. So he booked a holiday to Cuba (another Communist nation) then snuck off the plane when it landed to refuel in Montreal. Rudy started his life in Canada with only five dollars in his pocket and a few words of English in his vocabulary. Twenty years later, Rudy is one of Pemberton’s best- loved citizens. He and his wife Tracey own the Pemberton Soaring Centre and give new meaning to the words ‘spread your wings.’ 

Old-fashioned Road-Side Farm Stand Feeds Old-fashioned Values

Goat Mountain Produce is an honour system-based road-side fruit and veggie stand operated by three local kids who have farming in their blood and business in their brains.  Pemberton high school students Trevor and Matt Van Loon, along with their fifth-grade sister Erica harvest carrots, beets, potatoes, corn and more to sell at the stand during their summer vacations. Each night they collect money from the stand’s lock-box. Goat Mountain Produce is teaching these third-generation farmers that, given the choice, the majority of people around Pemberton are honest even when they aren’t being watched. 

The Five-Mile Schramm Cocktail

Does Schramm Vodka—crafted at the only organic-potato vodka distillery in the world—wet your appetite and leave a little of Pemberton’s potato story lingering on your lips? In this produce-growing town known as “Spud Valley”, a mounting abundance of farmers, organic growers, and health-driven backcountry enthusiasts have jumped on the 100-mile-diet bandwagon, whereas vodka distillers, Tyler Schramm (with a Masters thesis in potato vodka distilling) and his two brothers Jonathon and Jake, are stirring up a lot of cocktail-related interest. And, honestly, what fun is farm-to-table consumption without something to wet your lips? So thanks to the geothermal-operated Schramm Distillery raising the bar and shaking up a few carbon footprints, the five-mile Schramm cocktail has become an overnight sensation. More >

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