Community Visionaries: Pincher Creek’s Adaptable Outdoors

"We need to be looking at everything from a more accessible lens and that means a more inclusive world where people of all abilities are included and can access the same services as everybody else."

As rural Albertans, we’re lucky to find adventure in our backyards. We can take in the sunrise from the top of a mountain at dawn. We can feel the refreshing mist of water from a lake just minutes down the road. We can eat a picnic lunch from a backwoods trail overlooking the patchwork prairie landscape. The opportunities to explore the natural world around us in Alberta are limitless — but there are limits to who gets to experience it.

For many people with disabilities, experiencing nature and being active outdoors is difficult, if not impossible. Not every wheelchair can reach the top of a mountain, and not every person can hold a paddle or cast a fishing line. 

But with the help of a local community organization, Adaptable Outdoors, many people living with disabilities in the Pincher Creek area can now see the possibility in previously impossible activities.

It all began when Steve Holly, originally from Manchester, England, moved to Canada in 2012 for an internship with Alberta Parks in Kananaskis. After a few years there, he moved to Waterton National Park to pursue a role with Parks Canada. That’s when he met his now-wife, Sara, who shared his passion for outdoor recreation and adaptable sports. 

After moving to Pincher Creek in 2018, the two began volunteering for an adaptive downhill ski program at Castle Mountain run by Canadian Adaptive Snowsports (CADS) Lethbridge. “We met some amazing clients who got out skiing in the winter and when I asked one of them, Kevin, ‘What do you do in summer?’ He told me that he counted down the days until winter because there were no summer programs available,” says Steve. 

This realization sparked the desire to create adaptive programs to fill the gaps in the summer months. In 2019, Steve and Sara borrowed an adaptive chair that offers accessibility to wilderness areas for wheelchair users, a TrailRider, and rallied a few volunteers to help trial a summer hike with Kevin. “Seeing the impact that experience had on Kevin and hearing about friends of his that could also benefit from something like it was so inspiring,” says Steve. “Adaptable Outdoors just kind of snowballed from that.”

Since then, through the spring and summer months, Steve and the team at Adaptable Outdoors have been offering adaptive hiking, paddling, shore fishing and kayak fishing programs to people of all ages and abilities in the Pincher Creek area. “The people that we work with face unique and varied barriers to accessing nature and the types of activities that we offer, especially in rural settings,” says Steve. “Sometimes it’s a physical barrier that we can overcome with some adaptive equipment, but sometimes it can be a mental barrier where people have been told their entire lives, ‘You can't do that.’”

Steve says making the programs available for people of all abilities requires a mixture of support, encouragement, ingenuity and much-needed adaptive equipment. For example, the adaptive fishing program allows an individual to reel in an electric fishing rod independently with the stomp of a foot, push of a button, flick of the head or even a sip on a straw.



Steve says some of his favourite programs are the ones families get to enjoy together. “We see the impact on the caregivers and the family members of our clients because they come out in the kayaks and hike with us, too,” he says. “Sometimes they see what's possible and what equipment they need to make it happen and it opens a whole new world of that family being able to recreate these moments together for years to come. The impact from one experience is a lot bigger than people realize.”

Today, Adaptable Outdoors is a fully incorporated non-profit organization made up of roughly 40 volunteers, six members on the board of directors (Kevin being one of them) and three staff members including Steve as the executive director and trip leader.  “We've received amazing support from the community since we started Adaptable Outdoors,” says Steve. “Pincher Creek is only a small town of under 4,000 people, but the support we've received is quite incredible and speaks to the community spirit of the area.”

To keep growing the organization and reach a broader audience with its unique programming and equipment, Steve knew it needed a new way to transport equipment to neighbouring communities. In early 2024, Adaptable Outdoors was granted a $10,000 Vision Credit Union Helping Hand Grant to help cover the costs of a new truck. “This grant was a huge help for my staff and my clients,” he says. “The amount of people we're going to be able to help in our community and those surrounding us with this vehicle is going to be seen for many years to come.”

Although many people living with disabilities might not get the chance to experience a summer sport all the time, Steve hopes that his organization will create a trickle-down effect in all aspects of life. “We need to be looking at everything from a more accessible lens and to me, that means a more inclusive and fairer world where people of all abilities are included and can access the same services as everybody else,” he says.