Almost two decades ago, Sandy Ward found splitboarding connected her to her Indigenous culture. In this Wisdom piece from The 30th Anniversary Issue, she talks about creating opportunities for Indigenous women and youth to experience the backcountry.
Kelkeláoakik
As told by Sandy Ward
A member of the Lil’wat Nation, Sandy Ward was 17 years old when she was asked to join the First Nation Snowboard Team, a program focused on training Indigenous athletes for the 2010 Olympics. She had only been snowboarding for a couple years, but she said yes. Though she didn’t go to the Vancouver Games, her involvement with the team set her on a path with snow sports—first teaching snowboarding, then creating opportunities for other Indigenous women to have the same access to sports that she had. Now a pro snowboarder, she runs the Indigenous Women Outdoors backcountry program and is working toward a ski guiding certification. —Greta Close
I started splitboarding in Chamonix, and I really enjoyed getting out on the land when I got back home to Lil’wat Territory, getting out into the Duffy, a popular, nearby touring zone, and experiencing the traditional territory. I wanted to learn more about our history as Lil’wat people. So, I started learning about the stories of the Duffy, that really connected me back to my culture.
I met Myia Antone—the founder of Indigenous Women Outdoors (IWO)—in 2020 over a Facebook post. She was looking for Indigenous women that were involved in backcountry skiing or snowboarding. Myia and I met up in Squamish. We chatted about creating a backcountry program so that we could learn and find other Indigenous women that were doing the same thing that we were doing, because it’s very rare to find those women.
We created the IWO backcountry program, and we ran that together for two years. Then Myia was working more with her language, the Squamish language, so she kind of stepped back from the backcountry program, but still very much runs IWO. I took over the backcountry program, and I’ve been running it myself for five seasons.
The first season, we didn’t really know what to expect. It kind of exploded. We got so much publicity and that helped us get grants. Every year it’s better and better. This year, I was finally able to figure out how we could get everybody from all the different cohorts throughout the years who were still interested in ski touring or splitboarding together.
We did an overnight hut trip to the Kees and Claire Hut, and that was the first time ever we had at least one person from each season. Now we have this kind of mentorship program that we originally wanted. So, we have people from previous cohorts coming in and helping me out on days, acting like a tail guide. It’s been really cool to see. This year, we partnered with Whistler Heliskiing to create a program for those people that would give them insight into what it would be like to be a guide.
We have a lot of women that haven’t been connected to their culture and didn’t really know where they came from. Joining IWO has given them that kind of spark to learn who they are. I’ve seen so many women grow and get back to their culture. Some women have gone to their own communities for the first time ever, and it’s really amazing to see.
My favorite part of what I do is getting the chance to meet other people that I’ve never had the chance to meet. Like meeting Michelle Parker, you know, these powerful athletes that I never thought I’d be in the presence of. And now here we are, and it’s been really cool. I love that, getting to meet my idols basically. And then being able to come and share that with the youth, and then inspiring them.
A lot of our programs really rely on brand partnerships, and Arc’teryx has been amazing in supporting IWO with the climbing and the backcountry program. Evo has also been an amazing sponsor for our programs. Without these brands, we wouldn’t be able to hire guides for bigger days. Having that guide, the women are able to ask questions and learn. And that’s really amazing. We’ve had a lot of support from Extremely Canadian as well, which is a guiding company out here, and they’ve been really, really helpful with supporting us with guides and doing our AST 1 courses and all of that.
I think the industry can help by opening up opportunities to Indigenous people in the area, like the locals. We had the Spearhead Huts offer us those spots in the hut, and it’s a pretty big cost. There is so much experience that goes into being able to even get out there, right? So, having that opportunity was really amazing and everybody was just so stoked. They had never done anything like that before.
My uncle gave me the name Kelkeláoakik. The literal translation is the Thunder Ptarmigan which is a Thunderbird and Transformer in our culture. The Transformers were beings that went around changing society for the better and influencing people to just be better. Kelkeláoakik was a change maker, and my uncle gifted me this name because of the work that I was doing with Indigenous Women Outdoors and Indigenous Life Sport Academy which was changing the way the outdoor industry looked at Indigenous people in sport. ❆
Go deeper with The 30th Anniversary Issue
In Issue 161, The 30th Anniversary Issue, we highlight three decades of people who’ve made this publication what it is, both in editorial and art, and the backcountry skiing community that’s developed alongside us. We remember late telemark big mountain skier Kasha Rigby, dive into the heli-skiing pioneers who drove the development of avalanche safety and recognize Paul Parker’s lifetime of contributions to the sport. And we report on efforts to make avalanche education more accessible, the apps offering better tour planning, and the Italian splitboarder dedicated to uniting his backcountry community.
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