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ADAM BLASBERG JULY/AUGUST 2021 BCBUSINESS 125 A rchitect Kevin Vallely has made something of a habit of taking on mind-bending expeditions. After all, he's skied Alaska's daunting 1,860-kilometre Iditarod Trail, scampered through Vancouver Island's West Coast Trail in record time, retraced a 2,000-kilometre, Klondike-era ice-bike route and broken the world record for the fastest unsupported trek to the South Pole. But the North Vancou- verite's most memorable trip isn't any of those. That honour belongs to a 45-day journey paddling the Mackenzie River (Canada's longest) with his wife and two daughters (then aged 10 and 12). "It was pretty hard," Vallely recalls with a faint chuckle. "Had aggressive wolves come up to us, all sorts of stuff. And at the end of it, these little girls were so empowered in so many ways. That's the most satisfying thing for me." Vallely's introduction to finding his way in the wild came at an even younger age, in a very different environment. Born to a pair of non-outdoorsy Irish immigrants in Montreal, he and his younger brother once lost track of their parents when they were nine and five years old, respectively. "We got separated from our folks in a department store and got kicked out onto the street Kevin Vallely has explored the farthest reaches of the planet—and broken records while doing it by Nathan Caddell W E E K E N D WA R R IOR WARRIOR SPOTLIGHT Kevin Vallely runs his own firm, Vallely Architecture, of which he's the only full-time employee. "I take on projects I want to do," says Vallely, who has an architecture degree from McGill University. "I realized a while ago that if I can pick stuff I want to do and am inspired by, the product will be better." He mostly does projects around B.C., including recent jobs in the Okanagan and Pember- ton Heights. Vallely also works as a facilitator for U.S.-based talent develop- ment company AIP Group and recently co-wrote a book, Wild Success: 7 Key Lessons Business Leaders Can Learn From Extreme Adventurers. –N.C. ROCKY ROAD Vallely's adventures include some of the world's longest and toughest expeditions Cool Story O FF T H E C LO C K ( quality time )