We wanted to paint a multi-faceted portrait of what it could mean to be free, that could relate to anyone, grounded by the common joy of being alive in the mountains.” “We took that idea and ran with it, and things just got weird from there, pulling in different concepts of freedom, ranging all the way from the dirty wild vibe of the psychedelic sixties to the undiluted, pure freedom of childhood. And so skiing, and connecting with the outside world on such an intimate and physical level, was for us a perfect expression of freedom,” said Sweetgrass co-director Ben Sturgulewski. For many people like us, being outdoors epitomizes what it means to feel free-we’ve all had our most memorable moments of peace and clarity there. “ Valhalla started as a simple core idea-an exploration of freedom, through the context of winter. I may be relatively new to the ski scene, but I can say with confidence that the 1,100+ people who all sat in the Paramount Theatre in Denver witnessed something bigger than themselves, and a film that just took ski and snowboard films-and adventure films in general-to a whole new level. It’s nearly impossible to find the words to convey just how I felt watching Sweetgrass-these boys who had become my family-stand on a stage last Friday night and premiere Valhalla, a film that they had poured their hearts, souls, guts, and creativity into for more than two years. I found wildness, despair, stoke, happiness, and weirdness, and yes, freedom, in those northern mountains. And you know what? I found out what those crazy boys had been talking about. And I fell in love a lot with one wickedly talented and quiet bear of a man. I fell in love a little with dozens of wild and wonderful people as they crossed our doorway and threw their boots on the floor.
I made countless curries for hungry mouths and worked, read, wrote, snuggled, and traded massages and stories by a blazing fire. I learned to appreciate the perfect combination of hot poutine and cold beer.
Over the course of the next five months, I learned to ski powder and strap skins to my skis for the first time in my life. It was a place that asked you for nothing, but to find out who you were-and to set that person free.” - from the film Valhalla “I’d heard of a place, bigger and grander than all imagination, drifting in the rhythms of the mountains and the wild surges of a tribe too weird for the world outside. The sparks shot up to dance with the raindrops. For the next hour, we danced, ran, and leapt across the roof with the red light of the hotel sign glowing down and fireworks blasting and buzzing at our feet. But that night, I didn’t have much time to ponder the journey before I was called to join the other people who had been crazy enough to agree to help out with the shoot that evening. It was a question that would pop into my head on more than one occasion over the winter. “How did I get here?” I asked myself as I shivered and took a pull from a bottle of my friend’s homemade wine.
It was raining, it was cold, and I was naked. Not a week after arriving in Nelson, I was standing atop the Hume Hotel. The snow started to fall as I crossed the Canadian border last October, the flakes dancing in the beams of my headlights as I drove the last hour to my new home-or at least my launching pad for the next few months. A few weeks earlier, my friends at Sweetgrass Productions had invited me to spend the winter in a place called “Valhalla,” otherwise known to mere mortals as Nelson, British Columbia. About a year ago, I made the wild and-now that I look back at it-very wise decision to pack up my belongings and point my Subaru north.