It's for the Earth!
by Marie-LN Fortin
April 22nd is Earth Day, a celebration to remind
us that we need to take care of our planet…every day. For the occasion,
the collaborators at Hilltrip wanted to remind its fellow mountain
lovers to be environmentally friendly...every day. To do so, we
organized, with the help of
Base
Energy Drink, the
Hilltrip Hoedown Party,
a western theme party at Garfinkel’s, one of Whistler locals’ favourite
bar.
Our
goal: increase awareness for Earth Day and raise money
for Hilltrip’s carbon offset project to make up for some of the
greenhouse gasses produced by our beloved snow sport enthusiast
with a people auction.
Our
result: Hilltrip purchased
$185 worth
of
Wind Power Certificates from Pembina as part
of its
carbon offsets project. That means, 6.37
MWh of clean energy was bought and contributed to reduce CO2 by
about 6,370kg, which is equal to not driving a car for 27,711 kilometres
or planting 32 trees! By the way, based on Pembina, the average
annual household electricity consumption in Canada is approximately
11.4KWh.
By having a western theme party, the idea was to show that even
cowboys, who like to chew on tobacco, kill things and burn gas,
can become aware of the importance of balancing our ecosystem and
be part of the solution by contributing in offsetting some of the
greenhouse gases that are produced by us, snowboarders using snowmobiles
to enjoy the pleasure of a cliff line in a remote backcountry area.

For those
who didn’t have a costume, cowboy vests made out of grocery paper
bags were provided and recycling bins were on site to minimize waste.
The highlight of the night was the people auction animated by
Scott
Musgrave. All people auctioned came with a gift certificate
from one of the best restaurants in town, including
Sashi
Sushi, Sushi Village, Caramba, Milestones, and the
Brew
House. Thanks to
Phil, Paula, Emily, Claude & Marc,
and
Rex Thomas for being one of the beautiful people
auctioned.

Through small steps towards restoring and protecting the earth, it’s possible to be part of the solutions. For example, you too have the power to do something about climate change by choosing Wind Power by Pembina. For more information on how it works, visit www.pembina.org/wind_power.asp. If you are not ready to spend money to offset some of the greenhouse gases you produce, you can also reduce your production by entering The Nature Challenge at www.davidsuzuki.org/WOL/Challenge.
Thanks to our sponsors
Base, a Canadian energy
drink made of natural ingredients;
Snowboard.com,
the world’s largest snow sports website and
Bacardi Rum,
the source and solution to all our problems…is us.
A special thank you to
Catherine Viens Charron
for organizing the best beautiful people auction from whistler and
for the amazing decor,
Kelly Saldat Brix for her
Earth Day awareness support,
Andree & Phil St-Germain
for their precious help when needed the most,
Scott Musgrave
for being such a good MC,
Eric Blouin for his great
graphic design skills and
Base Energy Drinks.