1. Problem Statement and Literature Review

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Professional Mountain Guides belonging to the Association of Canadian

Mountain Guides (ACMG) form an exclusive occupational group within the adventure

tourism industry. This research project intends to provide an intimate account of the

Mountain Guide community in Canmore, Alberta by examining the construction of social

identities through occupation and human-nature relationships. Using qualitative

methods, I plan to outline the distinctive qualities of the Mountain Guide community

within the larger guiding industry based on local narratives. Besides obtaining a general

and topical sense of the key characteristics that define this community, I specifically

would like to explore the blurring of boundaries between work, leisure and nature

according to the accounts of Mountain Guides themselves. To establish some context, I

write a brief literature review below which discusses these three basic themes: the

divide between work and nature; the facets of the “wilderness guide”; and the

occupational motivations and social relationships of labour intensive work. In the

following section I elaborate on what I hope to contribute to these discussions through

my research.

Before outlining the literature relevant to my research, I have provided below

some background information on the ACMG and the Mountain Guides who form this

association. The organizations president, Keith Reid, writes that the ACMG “is

dedicated to protecting the public interest in mountain travel and climbing instruction”

and “presents a strong voice for high standards of alpine risk management and the

professionalism of mountain guiding in Canada” (as stated on the ACMG website,

November 27, 2012).

There are seven hundred ACMG members (as stated on the ACMG website,

November 27, 2012). According to the website, personal ACMG membership is

exclusively open to professionally trained and certified guides. Further, certified guides

take an average of six to eight years to obtain their full certification. ACMG guides are

trained, examined and certified by an internationally recognized body, the International

Federation of Mountain Guides Associations (IFMGA), in partnership with ACMG and

Thompson Rivers University. The value of such certification is summed up in the

following statement from their website:

ACMG guides are trained to provide experience-based decision-making in the

field to balance two important facets of your trip – the feeling of adventure and

your safety from objective hazards. Guiding is an elegant blend of art and

science – a delicate synergy of experience and intuition. One must assess

factors such as weather, snowpack quality, avalanche hazard, rock fall potential,

crevasse and serac danger, route or terrain selection, daylight and distance, and

continuously weigh them against your capability and objectives. ACMG

certification is your assurance that any member guide you hire has been trained

and assessed to the accepted standard of an internationally recognized,

professional body. (November 27, 2012)

Mountain Guides form an elite professional group within the tourism industry

because of their formal and lengthy training and examination process. By becoming an

ACMG Mountain Guide, one can conclude that the professional Guide has acquired the

necessary and specialized knowledge exclusive to this group. The knowledge base or

way of knowing specific to ACMG Mountain Guides is what sets them apart from other

tourist guides and makes them worth studying.

This literature review will start by exploring the divide between work and nature

as discussed by Richard White (1996). White writes about the general inclination within

environmentalism to exaggerate the boundaries between work and nature as a way to

maintain the idea of nature as pristine. The opposition between work and nature, within

environmentalism, illustrates how human narratives remove people from the “natural

landscape”. “Productive work” like resource extraction and development are equated

with the destruction of nature. White argues that although the divide between work and

nature appears real and authentic, nature-human dualism is a fictional, cultural

construct.

The boundaries between work and nature are not always so obvious; they are

often blurred. “It is ultimately our own bodies and our labour that blur the boundaries

between the artificial and the natural” (1996:173). Thus, White identifies human activity

not in opposition to nature but part of nature. Moreover, White explores the linkages

between work and play. White remarks that play changes the natural environment far

less so than work,

We work to live. We cannot stop. But play, which can be as sensuous as work,

does not so fully submerge us in the world. At play we can stop and start. A game

unfinished ultimately means nothing. There is nothing essential lost when

recreation is broken off or forgone. Work left unfinished has consequences

(1996:174).

Ultimately, White presents a preliminary foundation for the theoretical exploration of

Mountain Guide work that is simultaneously recreation and play in nature settings.

Annie Gilbert Coleman (2011) explores the rise of professional guiding from a

historical perspective. She argues that industrialization in America led people outdoors

“to escape, recreate, and learn things with their bodies” (2011:437). In turn, professional

guiding became a form of labour. Coleman examines early twentieth century literature,

“guiding reveals an underlying economy of expertise” (2011:437) that, “changes our

view of industrialization and its relationship to the West” (2011:439). Coleman ʼs

historical attention to professional guiding and knowledge making, as it concerns

industrialization and American identity, provides a starting point for exploring current

Mountain Guide narratives about the interrelatedness between work, play and nature.

The second theme of this literature review explores the facets of the wilderness

guide, in particular by addressing that guiding is more than a customer service practice.

Research about tourism has primarily focused on the tourist rather than the guide.

However, there is a small body of research within tourism studies that explores the

guiding facet. Early research, in this area, explores the tourist experience and the

service facet of guiding work (Valkonen 2009). This body of research concludes that

“the guide needs to have multiple skills and expertise” (Valkonen 2009:167). However,

Jarno Valkonen (2009) states that tourist studies “rarely investigated the significance of

the physical conditions of natural environments in the work of guiding” (2009:167).

Valkonen argues that wilderness guiding has many facets. His research explores

human-nature relationships in particular. Valkonen looks at multiple environmental

factors that wilderness guides confront on a daily basis. By applying Bruno Latour ʼs

Actor-Network Theory, Valkonen concludes that nature is an actant. “There is ongoing

interaction between natural things and social practices. We cannot deny the influence of

environmental factors on the work of guides” (2009:178). By examining wilderness

guiding as an ongoing interaction between actors and actants, Valkonen demonstrates

that nature and technology play a significant role in the tourism practices and

performances of guides.

The third theme of this literature review is research on the occupational

motivations and social relationships of physically intensive work. Two ethnographies

were selected to illustrate some possible approaches to studying occupational

motivation and social relationships. The first ethnography “Becoming a Firefighter” by

Matthew Desmond (2011) explores the seasonal wildland firefighting profession.

According to Desmond firefighters share a set of common desires and motivations

developed and expressed by specific habitus. Desmondʼs application of habitus is taken

from Pierre Bourdieu. Desmond notes a connection between class backgrounds, which

influence an individuals general habitus, and the effect of firefighting organizations in

recruiting new firefighters by developing general habitus into specific habitus (2011:26).

Firefighting organizations utilize deep-seated dispositions to produce firefighters

whereby the social embodied becomes the organization embodied (2011:26).

The second ethnography, “The Occupational Culture of the Boxer” by S. Kirson

Weinberg and Henry Arond (2011) describes the culture of the professional boxer by

including the aspects of “recruitment, practices and beliefs, and the social structure of

the boxing world” (2011:245). Weinberg and Arond evaluate the social relationships and

physical effects of being a boxer through personal experience, primary literature and

interviews. Both Desmon (2011) and Weinberg and Arond (2011) approach their

research from an ʻinsidersʼ standpoint; Desmond was a firefighter and Weinberg and

Arond were boxers. These authors demonstrate, through ethnographic methods, that

occupational organizations operate under a unified set of practices and beliefs.

Concerning mountaineering motivation is Sherry B. Ortner ʼs (1999) ethnography

Life and Death on Mt. Everest . Although the main focus is on the encounter between

two cultural distinct groups of people, within her ethnography Ortner provides a

descriptive and historical overview of Western mountaineering. Because mountaineers

often thought and talked about what they were doing, Ortner is able to present several

key characteristics of mountaineering culture over a hundred year period. Ortner ʼs

research is in part based on hundreds of accounts of mountaineering journals and

biographies. This research highlights how mountaineers are characteristically

purposeful in their actions.

Mountaineering began as an exploratory pursuit where mountaineers climbed in

the name of science and sport. The discourse of mountaineering positions itself critically

against a “bourgeois” existence, even as the sport demands the resources made

possible by such an existence (1999:35). “Mountaineering as a sport both emanated

from and addresses itself back to the normal patterns of middle-class life” (1999:35).

Therefore, mountaineering discourse is saturated by a critique of modernity (Ortner

1999).

Although contingent, masculinity narratives, romanticism, the counter-culture

movement in the 1970s and the subsequent emergence of female mountaineers have

all contributed to mountaineering motivations and desires (Ortner 1999). These factors

may explain why mountaineers continue to put themselves in high risk situations.

In the following sections I elaborate on what I hope to contribute to these

discussions through my research. I have come to the conclusion that there is limited

literature on the subject of Mountain Guide communities. Although a significant amount

of primary literature on Mountain Guide ʼs exists in the form of journals, adventure

accounts and biographies, there is a dearth of research adopting anthropological and

ethnographical approaches to this historical material or to the living professional guiding

communities around today. Therefore I intend for my research to be exploratory in

nature. Exploratory research “examines a new area to formulate precise questions that

he or she can address in the future” (Neuman and Robson 2009:15).

I am primarily interested in Mountain Guide group identity and specific habitus.

My research will examine how Mountain Guides define themselves and their work, as

well as how they situate themselves within the broader context of the adventure tourism

industry. Due to the nature of ethnographic and exploratory research I do want to be

limited by a specific theoretical research question. Rather, my research will be topical

and will aim to have a wider relevance by exposing the shared characteristics and ways

of knowing that Mountain Guides hold. I will emphasize developing an investigative

stance to obtain an insider view of a Mountain Guide community in general.

The first problem I seek to address involves the divide between work and nature.

I hope to focus on how Mountain Guides make sense of the work they do, which is play

based and nature oriented. I will take into consideration White ʼs (1996) and Colemanʼs

(2011) work on the dynamics of work and nature, as discussed above.

The second problem I want to explore stems from Valkonen ʼs (2009) research on

the facets of the “wilderness guide”. Following Valkonen, I do not want to limit my

research to the human subject. I want to consider the relationship between nature,

technology and Mountain Guides in a way that includes all subjects as they engage and

influence each other or act upon each other.

The third problem I seek to address involves the occupational motivations and

social relationships of labour intensive work. I am primarily interested in exploring the

motivations that led to Mountain Guides choosing this often overlooked and unknown

occupation. Desmond ʼs (2009) discussion on the transformation of general habitus into

specific habitus may be useful here. Exploring some of the ideas discussed by Ortner

(1999) on mountaineering may be useful as well, such as investigating if Mountain

Guides are part of the counter-culture movement. Further, I am interested in the nature

of Mountain Guide work and want to explore whether this work is interactive or

individual. Following Weinberg and Arond (2011) I hope to explore the social structure of

the Mountain Guide community.

In sum, I intend to apply an ethnographic perspective to the Mountain Guide

community in Canmore, Alberta. Beyond the Mountain Guide ʼs role to serve tourists and

the external physical characteristics that act upon the Mountain Guide in the workplace,

my research intends to reveal the underlying characteristics of Mountain Guides -- their

motivations and lifestyle choices, their shared practices, their social structure, their way

of knowing the environment, their outlook on the ACMG association to which they

belong, and their concerns with the occupation and general direction of adventure

tourism itself. I recognize that these are very broad areas to explore; the following is a

foundational exploration of these three basic themes in greater detail. However, I

reiterate that I intend for this research to be exploratory.

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