I felt like I was in the midst of a Robert Service poem. The moment I spotted Krystyna, the two dogs pulling her with such animation along the snowy path, I felt an excitement within me.

From his backyard in Fernie, B.C. Steve Morrison points out slide paths in the surrounding Lizard Range, where avalanches bring down hundreds of tons of snow, rock and tree at speeds of up to 139 kilometres an hour.

There isn’t a spring, summer or fall morning that you won’t see Lynn Jamieson hitting the pavement with her rollerblades or bike, and her faithful companion, ‘Max,’ at her side.