Patrick is a community planner, writer, storyteller and passionate mountain bike and trail enthusiast. As the founder of the Indigenous Youth Mountain Bike Program, he has spent the last decade working with dozens of First Nations and Indigenous Peoples throughout the province, training trail crews and building pathways that support healing and community development. He is widely recognized as a trusted voice and advocate for reconciliation.
From record breaking wildfires, heat domes, atmospheric rivers, catastrophic flooding and a global pandemic, our world is experiencing a crisis of climate disruption and instability driven by fractured relationships between people and the land. From Wet’suwet’en to Pacheedaht and Fairy Creek, Indigenous land defenders are fighting to protect the land and water that makes all life possible. Throughout all of this, trail and outdoor recreation and mountain biking in particular, have become even more important as a means for enhancing mental and physical health and resilience.
Patrick will explore the history of the bicycle, mountain biking, trails and reconciliation, to reveal how a simple and elegant technology is the manifestation of one of humanity’s most critical and enduring skills: our sense of play. Our capacity to utilize balance and momentum, has pushed ourselves beyond our comfort zones. It has allowed us to become the dominant species on the planet and may represent our best strategy for finding a path through this time of crisis.
