Where Wellness Meets Adventure

For those of you who do not know me, hello, my name is Danette. I have this tagline ‘Live Wild & Well’ and although the focus of my social media has been on wellness for the most part, part of living wild and well for me is about living a life where wellness meets adventure.

My story is one of a lot of struggles, traumas, heartaches, and, well, you name it, I probably have experienced it. I first entered the wellness sector professionally back in 2017 when I opened a small studio in Kimberley, BC under the name Violet Flame Holistic Healing. And from there, through a whole lot of living, learning, and growing, I moved to Creston and my business transitioned to Wild Woods Wellness.

As I stand on yet another threshold—because it seems to me that a large part of this human experience is about embracing transition—I have been spending a lot of time pondering future directions in business, career, health, and life. And although clarity still feels elusive, there’s one thing that I know I want to do in this space.

In dedicating this space to wellness, there are pieces of my life—like around adventure and parenting, for example—that I have kept to my personal accounts. I want to change that because I feel that all of these things intersect, and I want to show up more fully here, for both you and I. It doesn’t mean that you’re going to go do all the same adventures or agree with my views and tactics, but maybe it will inspire you. Maybe it will give you a perspective you never considered before. Maybe it will help you gain better clarity in your beliefs and values. Maybe.

More so, it’s helping bring me deeper into alignment in all areas of my life. And one thing that I know in my heart of hearts is that I want to write more, share that writing more, and put my stories out there. Because there are a lot of them. I talk a lot about writing a book, some of which I have started, but that still feels a way out and for now, I will start here.

I want to start with this picture. My boys and I standing at Lakit Lookout, our first ever real backcountry hike as a family. This picture was taken about seven years ago. My sons are four and seven here. I think I was in year two of divorce. The summer prior, I got myself back into hiking, mountain biking, and doing the things that I loved that I had lost touch with for so many years. As I re-discovered my passions and fell back in love with life, I knew I wanted more adventure, and I knew I wanted to bring my boys along for the ride.

Lakit is a well-known hike at the top of a forestry road near Fort Steele. The drive is probably more well-known than the hike itself because it requires navigating a road that will test your grit and tenacity. As a backcountry kid who grew up in a forestry family and has traveled more backroads than probably 95% of the population, the road up to Lakit even makes me sweat a little.

So stressful situation number one was convincing my oldest son that we were, in fact, not going to drive off the road and die on our way up. That was a whole thing. Once we made it to the parking lot, we’re then looking at 2.5-kilometres of hiking to reach the lookout, which doesn’t sound like a big deal, but you have 500-metres elevation gain so it’s substantial. Especially for little legs that had barely hiked prior.

The hike consisted of seven kids, five adults, two dogs, and a whole lot of candy. Parenting hack: you can 100% motivate your kids to hike, bike, or do pretty much anything if you bribe them with candy. Still to this day, my kids pack “boosters” for the trail. I’m not sure that I felt confident that my kids were going to make it. There were definitely some tears. Probably some yelling. A lot of motivational talks.

And here’s the thing with adventuring, with or without kids, you have to be prepared for anything. That includes turning around if it’s needed. But this day, my kids made it to the top and the sense of pride that they had in themselves was palpable. And here’s another parenting ‘secret’ of mine. I never tell my kids that I am proud of them. I tell them how impressed I am, how amazed I am, all the things, and that I hope they are proud of themselves, but I never say that I am proud because I don’t want them to feel like they need to live up to my approval or validation at any point in their lives.

Now, the way back down is where the stress picked up again. This time because my four-year-old’s little legs were worn out. Fair. I’m pretty sure I ended up packing him at least half of the way back out. The nature of the adventure game with little kids.

It was still a win in my books.  And this was a turning point for our little family unit. We have gone from this experience seven years ago to last summer, I had these two boys scrambling and climbing impressive ridges in the Canadian Rockies.

Maybe a reminder that anything is possible with hard work, perseverance, and dedication.

Believe me, I have had hikes with my kids where I had moments that I truly felt like, “I am never taking you guys hiking again.” But those thoughts are fleeting and don’t bear any truth.

So, with that, I hope that you will continue to hang out with me here, as I share more of these stories, more of adventures and parenting and life, all through the lens of living wild and well and learning and growing through this journey of life.