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Vancouver Festival of Ocean Films
The ocean’s not only a place for recreation – it’s also as a place of sustainable and responsible commerce, and a wilderness to be respected. To inspire and stimulate people to explore their...
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Tales from the Trails
In 2012, Expresso was the trail adopted by MEC through the NSMBA’S TAP program. Over the course of the 2012 season for MEC there were: 6 trail days, 47 volunteers, 380 volunteer hours, 30+ feet of...
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My Big Wild Challenge: SUP from Vancouver to Victoria
Six months ago, the phone rang, and Duff Gibson – Olympic Gold Medallist, Torino – was on the other end, asking questions about paddling stand up paddleboards on the West Coast of Canada. I told him...
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Keeping Canada’s Water Safe for Play
If there’s one thing that has the power to draw Canadians into the wild, it’s our water. From coast to coast and every lake, stream and river in between, Canada is home to some of the most remarkable...
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The Big Chop: MEC’s paddle fun races
A few weeks back, I dropped by to share the excitement of Vancouver’s first Big Chop paddle race of the season. A full crowd of paddlers turned out, from serious Type-A competitors to first-timers who...
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The Making of Parkbus
Boris Issaev fills us in on the story behind Parkbus, a bus service in Ontario that gets people from the city to the great outdoors. He co-founded Parkbus with Alex Berlyand in 2010. Hard to believe,...
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The sun sets on The Big Wild but rises to a new challenge
As summer gives way to adventure and more time spent outdoors, we reflect back on five years of The Big Wild and its impact on Canada’s conservation landscape. The Big Wild began as a partnership...
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Contributions that count
When CEO David Labistour is on the road, he’s often asked about MEC’s commitment to sustainability, and if it’s still a priority for our co-op. His answer: yes. Ethical conduct and helping everyone...
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Community Contributions by the Numbers
We invest 1% of our annual revenue in grassroots conservation and outdoor recreation, meaning we try to do as much as we can to make sure wild spaces continue to exist and people continue to be...
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Trail Adoption Program: Getting Our hands Dirty
MEC is a proud supporter of the NSMBA’s Trail Adoption Program and since the spring of 2012 has been working hard with NSMB.com and RockShox on improving the Expresso bike trail on Mt. Fromme in North...
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Park Love with Plenty of Trees
Apodaca Provincial Park is tucked away on Bowen Island, off the coast of British Columbia. This small protected piece of wilderness is less than an hour away from the big city, yet it’s quintessential...
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Living Water: Celebrating World Rivers Day
September 29 is World Rivers Day – how are you celebrating your local waterways? Andrew, Community Program Manager at MEC, has some ideas for helping out (and having fun in) freshwater near you. I grew...
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Going Through the Garbage in Calgary
Twice a year, teams at MEC stores don coveralls and jump in the dumpsters to do a waste audit. Seth from MEC Calgary gives us a breakdown of what kind of stuff they found out in their latest audit, and...
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2013 Banff Mountain Film and Book Festival Highlights
It was nine crazy days of films, books, panel discussions, whiskey-tastings, live bands, and galas. It was jaw-dropping inspiration, rubbing elbows with legends, and making new friends. It was milling...
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Getting Our Hands Dirty: MEC vs. Arc’teryx Trail Building
When Arc’teryx challenged MEC to a trail building competition, we jumped at the chance to get dirty… plus we couldn’t resist a little friendly competition. So on November 17, dozens of MEC staff and...
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Fair Labor Association Accredits MEC’s Social Compliance Program
An embroidery room at a hardgoods factory we’ve been working with for almost 20 years. Taken by Nicholas Lagopoulos, our Production Coordinator, on a recent factory visit to Vietnam. Our goal is to...
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By the Numbers: How We Showed Up in 2013
Association Recreative Milton-Parc We talk a lot about conserving places and enabling people when it comes to our community contributions. Focusing on these two elements helps us to keep space for...
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A Conversation About Conservation: Éric Hébert-Daly
Éric with his nieces Sofie and Katalina, who he is trying to introduce to nature. We read a Salon article not long ago that reported “people don’t want to be associated with environmentalists” due to...
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MEC Dirt Search
What’s your top spot to ride? Vote for your favourite mountain biking area in the east and the west, and we’ll give the top-voted spot in each region $10,000 for trail improvements. You can vote every...
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Snow Pentathlon: Race Management, Transitions and Strategy
The Snow Pentathlon interests you, but you’ve never done one; you’re not sure what to expect, and you wonder how to manage it? Understand that race management begins long before the day of the event....
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