The life of Guy Lacelle, a world-class ice climber who made his home in Prince George, was celebrated Friday at the Bozeman Ice Climbing Festival in the United States.
Lacelle, 54, was killed in an avalanche accident caused by other climbers at the Idaho ice-climbing event on this day last year.
A showing of director Chris Alstrin's moving film, La Vie de Guy Lacelle, was held Friday evening in Bozeman. Lacelle's widow, Marge Lachecki, has travelled from Prince George to Bozeman to take part in the showing of the film. The film can be viewed anytime at www.arcteryx.com/Video.aspx?EN.
Lachecki told The Citizen that when she asked the filmmaker what he hoped to achieve in making the film, he responded that he wanted viewers to say they wished they had known Lacelle.
The film evokes that exact sentiment.
"I've never met another human being with such a level of integrity," said Lachecki. "He was a good, good man."
Lachecki said she was looking forward to being with people who knew and respected her husband as a climber. On Thursday, she planned to join some climbers to put up an ice axe, with Lacelle's name on it, on a tree as a memorial along the route that he was climbing.
Lacelle, who worked as a tree planter based in Prince George for the past two decades, was not a self promoter, so few here were aware of his world-class ice-climbing feats.
Lacelle had established and repeated many of the most extreme ice climbs in the world, including in the Canadian Rockies, but also in places like Norway, Alaska and China.
A native of Hawksbury, Ont., Lacelle started climbing while pursuing a physical education degree at the University of Ottawa.
His first climb is reported to be the 100-metre La Congelee outside of Quebec City, which he completed with a partner in seven hours. It's a climb he later soloed in less than five minutes.
In 1999, Lacelle was honored with the Bill March Summit of Excellence Award at the Banff Mountain Film Festival.
However, it's not Lacelle's climbing accomplishments that his friends and family dwell on, but his honesty, integrity, love of life and the joy he took in climbing.
Dave Wilson, who heads up Prince George-based Celtic Reforestation, had known Lacelle for nearly three decades. Lacelle was an incredible tree planter, several times planting more than 5,000 trees a day, but it's the way Guy smile at you that Wilson remembers.
"He was the most present person I have ever met. When you talked with him he was absolutely focused on you and what you were doing together. No distraction or B.S. about him," said Wilson.
"He had this same focus with everyone he spoke to including my two daughters who he spoke to as equals from the time they were old enough to talk."
Steve Browning, a fellow tree planter from Prince George who also knew Lacelle for decades, remember him with a grin on his face whether he was tree planting or climbing.
There's no doubt that Guy was serious about his climbing, but climbing was play for him, observed Browning, who had done a little climbing with his friend.
"He was childlike in his enjoyment."
Lacelle's former sponsors, Arc'teryx, Petzl and La Sportiva, have established an awarded to recognize Lacelle.
Called the Guy Lacelle Pure Spirit Award, it is to be given annually to a Canadian who climbs with the same kind of joy, humility and integrity that Lacelle did.
"Guy Lacelle embodied the essence of climbing. He was honest, bold without fanfare and loved what he was doing. His actions spoke for themselves. I have tried to follow a similar path in my love of the mountains," said Canmore, Alta.'s Eamonn Walsh, the first recipient of the award.
