Hutt-Write Voice: Traveling to Beautiful Banff, Alberta

I always relish opportunities to visit different parts of the world. Therefore, when my sister-in-law, Karen, a teacher at our school, casually asked us, 'How would you like to go to a Gordon Neufeld conference?' one of my first thoughts was Carpe Diem, seize the moment. Both, my sister and I were interested, so it was during that morning tea break that our plans were set in motion. Our community generously supported our venture.

Thus, the last week in July found us traveling to Banff, Alberta. Along the way we made many special memories - at least a suitcase full.

We traveled by car, and visited old friends along the way, and made new ones as well. First we stayed overnight at Hodgeville, a Dariusleut Colony in Saskatchewan. (For those of you who don't know, Hutterites are divided into three different conferences, Dariusleut, Lehrerleut and Schmiedeleut, which I'm part of. For more on this click here. )We’ve been friends with that family for many years, and appreciated the chance to visit them and getting to know other people on that colony. We got a tour of their colony, including their book shop, which was a treat to browse in, and a bonus to see my book, Hutterite Diaries on one of the shelves.

Judy's tasty breakfast spread

Our next stop was at the home of my dear friend, Judy, near Lethbridge. I was so excited about visiting Judy, and meeting her face-to-face! She’s the author of the cook book, At Home in the Kitchen. (She also has a blog, with the same title where she posted recipes from her book, although she doesn’t post anymore. That’s how I ‘met’ Judy. I stumbled upon her blog some years ago.) We soon saw firsthand that her book has the perfect title, as she’s an excellent cook, a gracious hostess, and definitely is at home in the kitchen. The Stromboli and mixed salad she served us for supper was scrumptious! For dessert we had jellyroll cake, topped with ice-cream.
In the evening Judy took us for a visit with her friends at Old Elm, a Lehrerleut Colony in the area. I’d never visited a Lehrerleut colony before. Our hosts, Jack and Judy and their family treated us like old friends. After serving a delicious snack they gave us a tour of their colony, which happens to be 100 years old this year. It was one of the first colonies established in Canada, when the Hutterites first came here in 1918.

Before we left the next morning, Judith prepared a lovely breakfast of quiche, fresh fruit and muffins. An extra-ordinary send-off! Although the visit was too short, it was definitely sweet. Judy, being the loving motherly soul she is, packed us each a piece of her homemade Saskatoon pie for the road. What a treat to have it as a yummy snack at one of our rest stops!

Finally, we arrived in beautiful Banff, a gorgeous location to host a conference! After settling into our hotel, we opted for more sightseeing, this time, taking a gondola to a mountaintop.

View from atop a mountain

Besides enjoying the grand view from this vantage point, we were treated to a concert by a local musician. That was an unexpected bonus! Listening to this guy's music, with the mountains as a back drop was definitely a unique experience I wouldn't have wanted to miss. I would have liked to add a video here, but for whatever reason, I was unable to do so. No problems adding pictures, though.

Trail along the Bow River

Behind our hotel, along the Bow River there’s a beautiful walking trail, lined with shrubs, pines, rocks and majestic mountains on the other side of the river. We took every opportunity to walk this scenic trail. One evening, we (my sister, Elma and my friend, Serena) met a Japanese family. They asked if they could take a picture of us. A bit perplexed, we agreed and then asked them what they’ll tell their friends about this photo. “You’re like the sisters from The Sound of Music.” One of the ladies replied. After we explained who we really are, we continued our walk, chuckling. I felt like mimicking Maria von Trapp walking and singing, The Hills were alive with the sound of muuuuusic.

Oh yes, the conference! (:

DR. Gordon Neufeld

It’s a long way to travel for a conference, but it was well worth it. Dr. Gordon Neufeld is a great speaker and certainly left us with a lot of food for thought. He lives in British Columbia, Canada and is a well-known psychologist, author and speaker. He travels extensively all over Canada, the United States and Europe doing conferences. The three-day intensive workshop we attended was, The Science of Emotion:

There is much focus today on children’s emotions. Constructs like emotional intelligence, emotional self-regulation, emotional well-being and emotional social learning are being bandied about like never before. Emotion, long dismissed as a nuisance factor, is now confirmed to be at the core of development and well-being. Yet little is being taught about the nature of emotion or the implications for parenting and teaching and treatment. In this 5-hour DVD, Dr. Neufeld does a brilliant job of putting the pieces together to make sense of emotion, revealing the emotional roots of many behavioral problems, and clarifying the challenges for parents, teachers and helping professionals.

To make sense of emotion is to make sense of us all. This material is absolutely foundational to an understanding of human nature. While the focus is on children and youth, the material applies across ages and relationships. – Neufeld Institute

I’d heard a lot about Dr. Neufeld, and was looking forward to taking in one of his conferences or workshops. It was an amazing conference, and left me inspired and with plenty of food for thought as we start a new school year.

At the conference, the organizers had Dr. Neufeld’s books and CD’s for sale. We were considering buying some, as we looked at them during one of the breaks. I especially wanted the book, Hold on to Your Kids. Glimpsing through it, I saw that it had much of what we’re learning at the conference, but in greater detail. “We have all the books and CD’s at our school,” one of our friends informed us. “If you’d like, you may borrow them.” Since registering and traveling to the conference already cost plenty, we graciously accepted her offer.

On the way home, we stayed with friends at Airdrie, Alberta. After a delicious barbecue supper, we decided there’s still time to do some shopping at my favourite second hand shop, Value Village in Calgary. One of the areas I always check out at Value Village, is the books. Browsing from one shelf to the next, and not finding anything of interest, I ambled past the parenting section and two turquoise-green spines, with the title in orange caught my eye. I stopped to take a closer look and saw two excellent copies of Hold on to Your Kids, for six dollars! I was grateful to the person who donated these Neufeld books, worth twenty-two dollars, and grabbed them both, one for Karen, and one for myself! Needless to say, this has been part of my summer reading.

I’ll sign off with other scenes I captured on this wonderful trip: