They say cats have nine lives. Peter “Peru” Chrzanowski has burned through at least a dozen.
An immigrant to Canada from Poland, Peter has spent more than four decades chasing speed, altitude, and stories at the outer edges of adventure. Before the age of thirty, he had driven a van from Canada to the tip of Chile and back, soloed a first ascent, launched himself off remote peaks under fabric wings, and helped pioneer new approaches to ski and adventure filmmaking—often with little more than borrowed gear, stubborn creativity, and a tight circle of friends.
That minimalist, self-sufficient way of moving through the world eventually carried Peter to Colombia’s Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, where he spent time among the Kogi people. Welcomed for their shared respect for simplicity and balance, Peter and his ski-bum companions found themselves immersed in a worldview that would quietly but profoundly reshape how he thought about adventure, community, and what truly matters.
Introduced to paragliding in 1986, Peter spent 15 years hiking and flying off mountains across the globe, drawn to the weightless freedom of flight. A serious paragliding accident in Mexico finally forced him to slow down—just long enough to write. The result was
I Survived Myself, a raw, relentless memoir drafted in six intense weeks of recovery.
Now in his seventies and based in Pemberton, BC, Peter still flies, still creates, and still proves that some people aren’t built to live just one life.
Peter “Peru” Chrzanowski has never followed a conventional path, and this presentation is no exception.
In this wild, hilarious, and deeply personal talk, Peter recounts the years he spent travelling, skiing, and living among the Kogi (often spelled Koji) people of Colombia, an experience that left a lasting mark on his worldview. As a self-described ski bum moving light, living simply, and chasing mountains rather than money, Peter believes he and his equally scruffy friends were accepted not in spite of their lifestyle, but because of it.
Through a rapid-fire mix of stories, photos, and hard-earned perspective, Peter explores the unlikely cultural overlap between a minimalist Indigenous worldview and a group of dirtbag skiers sleeping on floors, stretching meals, and measuring wealth in days spent outside. The result is a string of outrageous adventures, near-misses, and moments of genuine connection, told with brutal honesty and a sharp sense of humour.
This is not a lecture. It’s a ride: a celebration of curiosity, humility, and the strange places life can take you when you travel light, stay open, and say yes a little too often.
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