Braiden McDowell and his 6-year-old have climbed 80 mountains together—and counting

Braiden McDowell sprays insect repellent into his six-year-old daughter's curly hair in an empty parking lot. The two are getting ready to climb a mountain near Kananaskis Village, Alta. She wears a helmet covered in stickers, including one with a raccoon quoting the importance of stopping for snacks—something both McDowell and his daughter Ellie Saba agree with.

This will be the 80th mountain the pair have climbed together. Saba summited her first peak at the age of three.

"Climbing mountains isn't even a hobby anymore. It's an obsession," said McDowell. "This is all we do."

The two live near Calgary and climb a mountain every Monday, regardless of whether Saba has school. That consistency has become their rhythm—a Monday ritual that has shaped both their relationship and how they move through the landscape.

"I'm pretty excited to get outside," said Saba. "I like scrambling and walking around."

Almost 25 per cent of Canada's land mass is considered mountainous, according to a 2021 University of Calgary study, and about 80 per cent of Canada's population live within or close to mountain areas. For people like McDowell and Saba, those mountains are far more than geography—they're a shared language, a weekly commitment, a form of being together.

What actually defines a mountain, though, is harder to pin down. Mountains do not have to be a certain size or height to be considered a mountain, said Eric Higgs, a professor of environmental studies at the University of Victoria. Back in the 1920s, the British Ordnance Survey classified a mountain as anything rising above 1,000 feet or 304 metres, but that definition no longer holds.

"You can classify mountains in a geological or geomorphic way, but that doesn't actually capture what mountains mean to us," said Higgs. "Certainly not if you have a deep, long, profound multigenerational relationship to place and mountains."

Mount Logan in the Yukon is the highest mountain in Canada at more than 5,900 metres. By comparison, Springton Peak is the highest point in Prince Edward Island at 140 metres high. Yet both are mountains.

Across the country, Canadians have different relationships with mountains, including what they leave on their summits. Calgary's Ephraim Roberts puts registers in bright pink ammo boxes on mountain tops. They include a log book and a pencil where people can sign their names and write thoughts about the climb. Controversially for some, he also leaves a small bottle of whisky, condoms and a sex toy.

"I think the world is much too serious and having a little bit of whimsy [and] a little bit of fun is a good thing," said Roberts. He said he has placed more than 400 of these summit registers across Western Canada.

Mountains provided places for our ancestors to hide, plus gave us views of the surrounding environment to spot prey or foes, said Oshin Vartanian, associate professor of psychology at University of Toronto. "This evolutionary tendency to find these spaces beautiful has stayed with us through time," Vartanian said.

While there can be a lot of disagreement in what people find beautiful in architecture, art, and human artifacts, generally people agree on what makes something beautiful in the natural world, said Vartanian. "People who spend a lot of time in nature, come across spaces that give us a sense of awe," he said.

For McDowell and Saba, that awe happens every Monday. The mountains aren't a destination or a bucket-list item to cross off. They're home.