Like the river, Gill goes with life's flow
The river that runs through the middle of Jasper also runs through the middle of Gillean Thomas's life.
In a busy 42 years on Earth, the Jasper native has juggled a mind-boggling assortment of career, academic and travel exploits. But in each of the past 24 summers, she's found time to return to her hometown and guide rafts down the river she's been riding since she was 10.
"I'm the only raft guide to have ever flipped a raft in the Athabasca," Thomas says with a laugh. It's a tame river, but not without danger, as Thomas learned one day...
"I was 18. That was my first season rafting," she says. She was a nursing student at the University of Calgary then, and rafting was her summer job.
Thomas quit nursing after two years, took a seven-month trip to Europe, then retuned to the U of C for a psychology degree. ... She worked with young offenders at a wilderness camp, got a education degree, taught on Baffin Island, then traveled to Central America, "to get more sunshine back in my system."
She married an American guide she met while mountain climbing outside Mexico City and they settled in Canmore, where Thomas spent her last year as a teacher.
In 2000, she began the career that remains her main focus today, as a licensed therapist in the Rubenfeld Synergy Method, a mind-body therapy involving light touch and emotional exploration. She has offices in Hinton and Jasper, where she and her husband moved five years ago.
They're divorced now. They held it together as long as they could, Thomas says, but his guiding career took him away from home too much. Still in Jasper, they're both active in raising their 11 year- old daughter.
Last year Thomas made a calculated effort to pass on her love of travel down to her daughter, pulling her out of school for a ten month trek to Australia, Thailand and Myanmar.
"When I decided to be a teacher, one of the things I thought is, 'If I ever have kids, I want to take them traveling because it has been such a wonderful experience any time I've gone.'"
Through out this life of perpetual change, there has been one constant fro Thomas; the river. She has returned to it every summer since she was 18, sometimes for the whole summer, sometimes for a week.
Her happy returns stem from a life-long love of the outdoors. In the last 1960's and throughout the '70's when many Jasper families were at home watching TV, the Thomases were hiking, climbing and skiing in the surrounding mountains.
And they were on the rivers. So much that national park wardens would call them if someone went missing in the water. They kept their eyes open for bodies but never found any.
In 1972, Thomas's father Bryn stated a river-guiding business with a fellow schoolteacher. They had a couple of two-set kayaks, and Volkswagen Beetles.
Today his company, Whitewater rafting (Jasper) LTD., has a dozen rafts and about 20 guides. There's enough business in town to keep them and four other companies busy.
Like her two brothers, Thomas became a licensed guide at 18, the minimum age.
"I don't think she had any trouble at all," her father says.
Actually, Thomas's early years weren't always easy. She was the only female guide around, and she heard her share of comments.
"Don't worry Gill, we'll look after this,'" she mimics. "You can't handle that, you're a girl.'"
She could and she did.
A big part of guiding is reading the water, whose ripples clearly state what hazards lie below, though it takes years to learn the language.
The aim of the raft guide is to pick a safe but entertaining route. They steer from the back and rely solely on their passengers - guides call them crew- for propulsion. Unlike a kayak, which can be removed from danger with a single stroke, a tourist-laden raft is slow and cumbersome. Guides must look far ahead and choose their line well in advance.
An equally large part of guiding is dealing with people. A guide has to connect with crew members of all ages, from all walks of life and from all corners of the world. And she has to regain control, tactfully, when some schmuck starts telling the others what to do. Her experience as a youth worker, teacher, therapist and mother has come in handy.
"She projects confidence," says fellow guide John Ward, 51.
"that's an important thing. To your crew, they have to feel safe and secure. It's an aura around good guides."
As her raft glides swiftly along the milky-green Athabasca, Th9omas sits at the rear, steering with deft dips of her paddle. Her bare arms are toned and tanned from hours of paddling and rock climbing, her main off-hours pursuit.
With her wire-framed spectacles and touches of grey in her blond hair, Thomas has a slight professorial air. She sprinkles the conversation with firm commands.
"All forward," she calls. "Left side forward, right side back."
This run's crew, a Scottish family of four, obeys instantly, the two youthful boys getting gleefully soaked as the raft spins through a splashy section.
After doing three and sometimes four runs a day for year, Thomas avoids tour-guide babble; she doesn't recite a recording of facts. Instead, she invites questions and points out whatever strikes her about the run. She's not afraid to fall silent and allow the rushing water to have its say.
Passing beneath another in a line of hulking rocks, its peak aglow in cloud-filtered sun, the Scottish crew learns that the rock is named Tekarra Mountain, Thomas's favorite in her youth and the inspiration for her daughter's name.
They learn that her own name, Gillean comes from a mountain in Scotland, where her mother grew up.
"It's always different," Thomas says later, explaining the hold that rafting has on her.
"The water level is different, the people are different, the lighting is different."
Always self-assured in the raft, Thomas is uncertain about her next step in life. She wants to continue her therapy work, but finds many Albertans aren't ready. She thinks Vancouver might be a better fit.
She isn't worried. As she once told her mother, "If I end up as a bag lady in San Francisco, it'll be the next adventure."
As long as she has her health, she has no plans to change the way she lives.
"I love to live life. I like to go with the excitement of life and not get stuck doing one thing."
That said, don't be surprised if she's back on the water next summer.
By Cory Hare
EDMONTON JOURNAL - Sunday, August 28, 2005
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