Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/201540
16 W e s t w o r l d >> General Stores. This is hostelling, not hoteling. For those who can embrace the difference, the payoff is a chance to experience real community. "Should we ski over and see the Maverick bunch?" Gord proposes after dinner. Maverick is the name of a high school group from Swift Current now occupying the large studio across Ness Creek. The students commune with some pristine parkland-boreal forest, and they earn their keep by maintaining the ski trails. Outside it is -16 C and dropping, a perfect crisp night for a social trek. Like most fitness skiers, I cover most of my kilometres doing dutiful laps in urban parks. How wonderful to winter 2013 p14-19_Getaway_OutAbout.indd 16 Allan Casey tells me he rarely has the place to himself. Bill is the de facto camp cook (he can also read tarot and run a chainsaw), and tonight he has baked up a feed of farmer sausage, carrots and fixings. I join a table filled with people, some of whom I know and some I don't. The kitchen is communal. I've brought my own groceries and thrown them into Gordon Olson Recreation meets ecology at Ness Creek: (right) students learn about the ways of the woods; (left) families hit the trails for a rosycheeked ride before tucking into rustic rental cabins (above). 13-10-18 10:15 AM