Instead of panicking or shutting down the course (which would have cost the company thousands in refunds), Freya improvised a solution. She called the owner on speakerphone, walked him through the visual inspection via video link, and then meticulously re-torqued four loose cable sleeves herself using a manual winch—a tool she had only watched YouTube tutorials on the night before.
Freya didn’t spend her summer in a sleek downtown internship. Instead, she could be found at 6:45 every morning, keys jangling on a carabiner clip, unlocking the gates of West Coast Canopy Adventures —a high ropes and zip-lining course nestled in the old-growth forest of Lynn Headwaters. freya mayer - summer job
"She didn't ask for permission to solve the problem; she asked for guidance on how to solve it," says Marcus Tolland, the owner of West Coast Canopy Adventures. "That’s a rare filter. Most people see a broken system and walk away. Freya saw a broken system and asked for the wrench." The group of 30 arrived—a corporate team from a downtown tech firm. Half of them were terrified of heights. Freya’s environmental design coursework focuses on human behavior in physical spaces. She realized the zip-line platform was no different from a badly designed transit hub. Instead of panicking or shutting down the course
And sometimes, that bridge is made of rope, suspended 80 feet above a creek, swaying gently in the wind. Freya Mayer is a student at the University of British Columbia. West Coast Canopy Adventures will be hiring for the 2025 season beginning in March. Instead, she could be found at 6:45 every
Her official title was “Adventure Guide.” Unofficially, she was a safety inspector, a crisis negotiator for terrified tourists, a knot-tying savant, and, on one memorable afternoon, a minor arborist. "I’m not going to lie," Freya says, peeling off a pair of well-worn leather gloves. "The first two weeks were brutal. My hands were shredded. I was coming home smelling like pine resin and sunscreen, and my shoulders were screaming from hauling harnesses."
By J. Harper