Guts, Grit and the Businessman’s Guide to Intuition: the man behind Whistler’s top-rated adventure company.
words :: Sarah Woods & Feet Banks. Photos supplied by Al Crawford except where indicated.
Legends aren’t born. And they’re not made, either.
They arrive from the future.
Al Crawford is one of these future humans. Embedded in nature and aligned with cosmic laws, Al has built Whistler’s iconic Canadian Wilderness Adventures from a lifetime of zigging when the world zags, pushing against the “normal” way to do things and, mostly, listening to his heart.
“We just had fun and worked hard,” Al says about building Whistler’s top-rated adventure company, which is consistently recognized as one of the best places to work in the province. “But the spiritual stuff works, too—trusting your intuition, manifesting through the law of attraction, self-hypnosis, vivid dreaming and using meditation or journaling to tap into a higher consciousness. Nowadays, spirituality is trending and corporate guys talk about it, but back then, people would have thought I was crazy, talking openly about this kind of stuff.”
Let’s be clear—a future human doesn’t necessarily time travel. Instead, Al has mastered one simple thing: to be in the moment. The future is happening at the end of every moment, so the only way to truly be in the future is to be as wholly in the present as possible. And, like a kid painting on a fresh canvas, it’s about never knowing what the final picture will be—there may never be one—but the gift of imagination and the confidence in the present keeps things going, and suddenly you have an answer to a problem you maybe didn’t know needed solving.
But let’s back things up a bit. Before Canadian Wilderness Adventures, before Whistler, before all these present-moment and future-human concepts, Al grew up in his father’s welding shop in a small English-speaking Quebec town of about 600 people, many of whom never left town and that was just fine with them. But Al’s mother talked him into attending Carleton University in Ottawa by convincing him it would be the best time of his life.
“And it was,” Al says. “It was a blast. I got a Bachelor of Commerce degree with a major in marketing, but as my four years closed out, I was really worried that the fun was coming to an end and life would be something less. I discussed this with my Uncle Ken—the fun uncle—and he suggested I move to Whistler to keep the good times rolling. And he was right. I showed up in 1992 and it was the time of my life. It still is.”
Fresh in town and armed with a practical mindset absorbed in the welding shop, Al gravitated to a job where he could work with his hands—a lift maintenance helper. “I couldn’t believe they were actually paying me seven or eight bucks an hour to drive snowmobiles and ATVs up and down the mountain, delivering tools. Then I got a job driving food up to the alpine restaurants in a snowcat.
The second season I started as a groomer and life was grand. All my buddies from university were getting married and becoming well-paid managers and bankers. They’d laugh at me, but I was spending every day of the year on the ski hill. It seemed like ten years later they were all divorced and depressed, asking if they could quit their jobs and come stay with me.”
While working on Blackcomb, Al caught sight of a long row of mountain snowmobiles all lined up neatly and had a vision of one day having a fleet of his own. “That visual threw a switch in my mind. I started thinking and talking about an idea that wouldn’t go away. Then a coworker said, ‘You should connect with Doug Washer,’ who was also working on the mountain and talking about a similar vision. We ended up working as whitewater rafting guides together that next summer and that’s really how it all started.”
That coincidence (was it, though?) spurred Al and Doug to each buy three new Ski-Doo Summit snowmobiles and start an adventure company to tour people around Blackcomb after the lifts closed for the day.
“This is when Whistler as a whole was looking to diversify and add non-skiing activities,” Al says. “We fit right in. We used the kid’s camp building as an evening base and ran tours up the switchback roads we knew were empty to the Crystal Hut for a mountaintop meal—chili and soup at first, and eventually fondue with live entertainment. We were fortunate that our business could use facilities and trails already in place but not being used during those hours. Doug and I both worked four-on, four-off ten-hour shifts as groomers, opposite schedules so we could bring in income to grow the business and still each guide on our days off. Every eight days, you’d have to do a double and miss a night’s sleep.”
Over time, the snowmobile fleet expanded, the team grew, a snowcat and ATVs were added, then a basecamp south of town with a new tenure to explore via dogsled, snowshoe and more. Eventually Doug and Al parted ways, and new partners—Ute and Uli Jordan—came aboard. Currently home to more than 55 employees, with dozens of awards and a 30-plus year track record, Al grew “Canadian” (as it’s locally known) the only way he knew: by instinct and hard work, and alongside good people.
“I’d look at resumes, but I rarely needed to check references,” he says. “I’d meet someone, and if they felt right, I’d hire them. Then I’d use my intuition and hear a number in my head that seemed right for their wage. People always accepted it and I truly believe those numbers were coming from a higher intelligence. I have amazing managers to do the hiring nowadays, but the right people still seem to show up and the job creates itself for them. I love to see people grow into their potential here. That’s the gift for me, seeing people shine within their natural abilities. This whole thing—the business, the basecamp, everything—was built one person at a time.”
And so were the tours Al and his teams offer. Forget mass-market analysis studies or brand-building seminars, Al simply spoke with the people who booked his tours and others he’d meet on his own travels. Mostly he listened.
“All anyone wants is authenticity. We started growing during a time when Whistler was trying to be really polished, but most of the people I talked to, they wanted the old, rustic Canada—log cabins, snowshoes, forests and axes. We leaned into that, and people love it because a lot of times that’s what they came here for.”
Authenticity is in the heart—which is the moment—but Al found new joys in creating an aesthetic with one foot firmly in the past. “Another reason I moved west in the first place was reading about those old pioneers and cowboys,” he says. “And thankfully, from a business sense, rustic is an easy and affordable theme to pull off.”
“All anyone wants is authenticity. We started growing during a time when Whistler was trying to be really polished, but most of the people I talked to, they wanted the old, rustic Canada—log cabins, snowshoes, forests and axes.”
Particularly in a region/culture pushing hard for modernity. With a keen eye for opportunity, Al has been able to salvage much of what makes Canadian Wilderness’ Callaghan Valley basecamp so unique. From vintage axes, moose antlers and snowshoes to a reclaimed (crowd favourite) entire CN Rail caboose. “That thing weighs 40,000 pounds,” Al says. “I got it for a good deal off a couple that were getting divorced, but then the crane company said it was going to take two cranes and $40,000 to move it because there were some power lines to contend with. We didn’t have that kind of money.”
What Al did have, thanks to his childhood in a welding shop, was an ability to connect with the older generation, including a 70-year-old truck driver named John Langus. “John and his buddy—who was also 70 years old—used an excavator to roll the caboose up onto an old stump then pushed it right onto the trailer, smoking cigarettes the whole time. I mentioned it looked pretty tight with the height of the power lines, and John looked up from the truck window and said, ‘It’ll be fine. But if it isn’t, I’ll tell you one thing—I’m sure not stopping.’ It all worked out. No one gets stuff done like a couple old-school loggers.”
That sense of looking beyond the standard limitations or rules of life (and time and space) allows creation to unfold from within. And that vibe—living in the opportunity of the present while staying rooted to older, simpler times—seems to help Canadian Wilderness guests open their own connections to the nature and beauty of the Coast Mountains.
“Actually, you know what’s the craziest, simplest thing that people love the most?” Al asks. “Sitting around a bonfire—a real, wood, burning bonfire. Most places have bylaws against real fires now. So many of the people that come on our tours have never sat around a real fire, that’s baffling to me. Who wants to play pretend around a flaming propane ring? For millions of years, humans, or humanoids, have been sitting around a fire. It should be a basic human right. I’m glad we can still provide that, at least in the winter, anyhow. It’s really important, those moments for people…those can be everything.”
Legends rarely think about building a legacy, it just happens along the way. And the best way to predict the future—the only way—is to show up and build the one you want. One idea, one moment, one bonfire at a time.
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