After Jasper splitboarder Darcy Ruddy lost his home and most of his possessions in last year’s wildfire, total strangers, including the team at Nivis Gear, reached out to help him rebuild.
Words :: Bob Covey
When images of the Jasper wildfire impinging the community were first broadcast to the disbelieving public, Jasper’s Darcy Ruddy was deep in B.C.’s Chilcotin Mountains.
Months earlier, he had figured a week of mountain biking at Tyax Lodge with friends would be the perfect holiday. Ruddy runs a civil construction company in the town of 4,500 residents.
And although a fast-moving forest fire toward his hometown had made Ruddy’s July 22 escape to B.C. significantly more urgent, after they evacuated together, his family encouraged him to stick to his vacation plan.
“I thought rather than sitting around shedding tears and feeling powerless I would go get lost in the mountains,” the 38-year-old said.
The Ruddy pedigree is deeply embedded in wilderness exploration. Darcy’s grandfather, Bill, was an enterprising tourism developer in the Jasper area who helped found Marmot Basin and the glacier tours on the Columbia Icefields. His grandpa Jack Hargreaves was a pioneering outfitter in the Mount Robson area.
So when Darcy headed out of cell service right as images of a fire-consumed Maligne Lodge circulated on social media, he had to perform a fair amount of mental gymnastics to avoid thinking of how his home, his family members’ homes, and his entire community might be faring.
“I remember being on a big ride, high on a mountain pass, shivering, thinking ‘I can’t believe I’m freezing my ass off while I’m pretty sure my house just burned down,” he said.
When he got back to Tyax, confirmation of the fire’s destruction came through the WiFi. Along with a third of the town, Ruddy’s house and everything in it—save for the essentials he had four days earlier stuffed in his van—was gone.
Surrounded by his lifelong friends, Ruddy and his crew pledged to honour their losses by celebrating what they still had. After a cathartic night, they got back on their bikes; Darcy said the epic single track was the only thing keeping his anxiety at bay.
As Ruddy starts over, he can’t replace the lost family heirlooms, but he is slowly replenishing his kit. This winter, the team at Nivis Gear sent him the groundbreaking Protego Pro Shell. For Ruddy, whose time on his splitboard in winter is as important to his mental health as that on his bike in summer—the gesture was another instance of the larger mountain community having Jasper’s back.
It doesn’t hurt that the Nivis garment is “absolutely elite,” according to Ruddy. After several tours and resort days in it, he says the Protego Pro has surpassed his loftiest expectations.
“Jasper will never forget how our neighbours took us in, and this feels similar—unexpected but very much appreciated,” he said.
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