Believe it or not, the origin of this story wasn’t a desire on Mark’s part to piss off the fine people at Yukon’s Department of Tourism & Culture. What harm could it really do? After all, it’s doubtful that anyone from Outside—potential tourist types—actually listen to the segment, with the possible exception of some ski bum in the Elk Valley of the East Kootenays who e-mailed the following:

“Hey Guys, I caught today's episode and the opening jibe at Fernie did not go unnoticed. We all know those magazine articles have to appeal to readers from the whole country - how else would Dauphin, Manitoba get a mention?”

Like so many things that Smell Like Yukon, “Harder than Hell” actually began with Thane Phillips. More specifically, the story came about as a result of Thane’s latest full-on extreme sport romance—kite skiing. (It’s not his first and it certainly won’t be his last.)

Back in mid-February, just as Wicker Hog was putting the finishing touches on “Goin’ for the Bronze,” Mark was on a morning ski with Thane at Mount McIntyre. When the subject of Smells Like Yukon came up, Thane shamelessly pitched Mark on the worthiness of kite skiing as a subject for a future segment, assuring him that the local media had yet to catch on to this hot new sport. Mark naively bought this argument, even if he wasn’t sure how the subject could be twisted to fit Smells Like Yukon’s somewhat shady mission statement.

Fortunately, Jesse had more sense. As usual.

Mark’s sister, Jane, and her partner Derek Crowe later confirmed that the local kiting phenomenon had been pretty well documented by other reporters—and real ones, at that. Like Thane, they are recent converts to the sport and had just returned from a month of kiting (boarding, not skiing) on Mexico’s Baja peninsula. But in the process of kicking the legs out from under this story idea, Jane made a comment that lit up another idea on Mark’s story radar. She said “The thing about the Yukon is it’s good for a lot of outdoor sports, but it’s not really great for anything….” Some debate ensued between Jane and Derek, both multi-sport enthusiasts who have sampled many an outdoor playground; a full-on domestic was averted upon consensus that, yes, her observation had the ring of truth—albeit with qualifications.

Jesse warmed up to the new story idea, quite possibly because it smelled like sacred cow. In other words, the story angle took aim at some of the assumptions Yukoners make about themselves and the place they live, which was one of the original goals of the series.

Soon after, the March 2007 issue of Explore Magazine landed in Mark’s mailbox with its cover story on Canada’s Best Outdoor Towns (read the article). The fact that the editors included Whitehorse and excluded a town like Fernie, BC—where the resort’s chair lifts whisk alpine skiers to great powder all winter, and mountain bikers to downhill trailheads all summer—sealed the deal. The article underscored the need to question Whitehorse’s exalted status and also provided a nice contextual hook for the piece.

You certainly don’t have to look very hard to find examples of outdoor sports that are challenging in Whitehorse’s environment. No reference was made to this sport in the radio piece, but downhill skiing is a classic case-in-point. Between Whitehorse’s marginal snow conditions, frequent and sometimes lengthy cold snaps, and short daylight hours, it can be harder than hell for local downhill ski and snowboarding buffs to squeeze out a decent season. Throw in a broken lift (during a period of ideal weather, naturally) and you just add insult to injury.

In the end, we focused on just a few outdoor sports, and not necessarily the most obvious ones. First and foremost, this was a decision based on time considerations. After submitting a couple of pieces that pushed the seven-minute mark, we desperately wanted to achieve the Holy Grail of a sub-six-minute segment. As is often the case, subsequent editorial decisions were strongly influenced by expediency. Given the tight production schedule for two guys who also have day jobs (sort of, in Mark’s case), the path of least resistance was to focus on people and sports we knew fairly well.

The first person on our target list—and the last to be interviewed—was Jesse’s former co-worker, Rob Legare, who is a local legend for his unwavering dedication and devotion to alpine skiing. That could be a whole separate story, but with mountain biking season on the way, Rob may be too busy in the emergency room to participate in any meaningful way….

The first interview was with Derek Crowe on March 23 in Mark’s home office. The photographer and former mountain bike racer provided about 10 minutes of great material on the Sam McGee Trail. Later that day, Mark popped into Coast Mountain Sports to get a climber’s perspective from store manager Steve Brewis, who also has a well-deserved reputation as a hammerhead mountain biker and runner. When Steve said “Moving to Whitehorse pretty much killed my climbing career,” Mark’s heart did an instant cartwheel—it was a killer sound bite that perfectly fit the theme of the piece.

Mark’s partner, Stephanie, played matchmaker with for the interview with Bruce Todd, a rabid kiter (though “rabid” is arguably too subtle a description for his condition). Not only did Bruce get a free dinner out of the deal; he had the pleasure of an audience eager to hear all about his kiting adventures. Apparently, this kind of audience is about as rare as a lynx sighting in the Tim Horton’s drive-thru.

Somewhere in the midst of these various interviews, Stephanie also chauffeured Mark around town to capture some images for the website, including one of Whitehorse’s “Larger than Life” highway sign, which Mark later touched up in a gleeful Photoshop session.

After Jesse bagged the interview with Rob, the transcript was fired off to Mark—and the writing began. The script for “Harder than Hell” was actually one of the more difficult to write because it didn’t have a great deal of action by Jesse and Mark to drive the narrative forward; we didn’t really do anything or go anywhere, as we had in previous segments. At the same time, we wanted to walk the fine line between poking gentle fun and beating up on Whitehorse; after all, we both choose to live here and love its outdoor opportunities, even if other places seem to make life a little easier for a hard-core you-name-it. (Just ask that guy in Fernie). This goal put some pressure on the narration to deliver a balanced piece that reflected our perspective, which was more or less shared by our interview subjects.

The first draft of the script was completed on April 14, four days before airtime. When we first started, this timing would have implied full-on panic mode with a lot of midnight oil burning in the Garage Band. Not anymore. After some quick script polishing, Jesse recorded his voice track, loaded the clips and began to mix the piece. As he sometimes does, Mark passed along a few musical suggestions to assist with that process. As he often does, Jesse had better ideas and a note of apology: “Sorry man, I didn't use your picks. I had a bit of a sound theme going on and found a good batch of tunes that worked well.”

When Mark finally heard the piece on the radio (five minutes and fifty-two seconds, thank you very much), he was in complete agreement.

He was also very impressed by the contribution made by a certain special someone of the muted variety.

Nice work, indeed.

(Posted April 18, 2007)