Canadians Climbed Mount Everest For the First Time 40 Years Ago

And my Dad was a part of the expedition.

On October 5, 1982, Laurie Skreslet, from Calgary, AB, was the first Canadian to stand on the top of Mount Everest, the world's highest peak. Two days later, Pat Morrow, from Kimberley, BC, would be the second.

The planning for this expedition started in 1978 when the initial members of the team submitted an application to the Nepalese government for permission to climb. My Dad, John Amatt, was a part of this group and he officially became the Expedition Business Manager. He was responsible for securing many of the sponsors of the expedition (there were about 100), the most significant being Air Canada. WOODS Canada was also a significant sponsor and they outfitted the expedition with packs, sleeping bags, tents, and down parkas.

I was born in 1976, so much of my early childhood had mentions of Mount Everest in it. I remember going to Calgary with my parents during the packing phase of things. All of their supplies had to be crated and packed to be put on the cargo planes. A few of us kids would run around and play while the adults went about their serious business.

I remember seeing Everest 82 logos on many things in our home.

From climbing gear to stationery, posters to even cars, Everest 82 labels were on everything and occupied our lives for a while.

After 4 years of planning, in April of 1982, a special Air Canada cargo flight delivered 20 tons of food and supplies to Nepal, along with an advanced team of climbers and photographers.

In July 1982, the rest of the team landed in Kathmandu, ready to take on the mountain.

The trek into the mountain was during monsoon season and my Dad recalls leeches that would attach themselves to the climbers as they walked past the plants and bushes that lined the trail. He says that they would crawl down into their socks and make their way into their shoes where they would gorge on the trekker's blood for hours in the day. At some point, they would explode and the climbers would remove their shoes at the end of the day to find their feet covered in their own blood.

I was just 5 years old when my mom and I flew to Kathmandu to join the party. While I don’t remember the flight, I do remember being there. By the time we arrived, my Dad had come off the mountain for two reasons. Number one he was sick and his condition wasn’t improving at high altitude, and number two somebody needed to come down and speak to the media because one Canadian climber and 3 sherpas had been killed in two ice falls and nobody knew the details.

In fact, Canadians had been told that a Canadian climber died on the mountain, but they didn’t know who. Talk about a stressful time for families back home.

Blair Griffiths, the expedition cameraman was the Canadian that died, but before knowing that fact my mom recalls a day when we were on a walk through the neighborhood in my hometown of Canmore, Alberta. One of my classmates from school came running out of his house and yelled, “Hey Jillian, I heard that your dad died on Mount Everest.”

My mom says that without missing a beat I retorted, “No he didn’t! He loves his family too much! He wouldn’t do anything like that.”

We flew to Kathmandu soon after that incident.

This expedition was the first ever that was televised. CBC and ABC bought these rights and according to the Alberta On Record website:

Teleglobe Canada was engaged to provide a satellite configuration that would provide the first-ever live video links between Everest and Canada, and further video and photographic documentation was enabled through sponsorships from Hitachi, Leica and Kodak.

It was the very first time that a live television broadcast had been aired from Kathmandu to North America, and huge satellite dishes the size of VW beetles were attached to the top of the Kathmandu Sheraton Hotel. They turned a few rooms into a broadcasting station, and I remember hanging out in there and thinking all the tv screens, buttons and dials were so cool.

After the series of accidents, the team was under threat of falling apart. In fact, 6 climbers left the expedition, not happy with the fact that people had died, and also concerned with the direction that the expedition was going in.

Egos flared and tensions ran high, but Bill March, the expedition leader, was able to pull it back together again, which eventually succeeded in the two summit bids.

My mom and I were in Tiger Tops on a jungle safari when Laurie Skreslet summited the mountain. News traveled fast across Nepal that the summit had been reached, and my mom tells me we immediately went back to Kathmandu to join in the celebrations.

It should be noted that this Canadian expedition was one of just two that were on the mountain that year. This was well before the commercialization of Everest took hold, and small teams of legitimate climbers would only dare to scale such a beast as Everest.

Because of the high profile of this expedition, my Dad and other climbers returned to Canada to much fanfare. People wanted to hear the stories from the mountain firsthand and many climbers traveled far and wide to tell the tales. A few even continued on, making speaking of the journey a career.

Laurie Skreslet and my Dad were the two that went the furthest with it and both traveled around the world to tell the tales of the trials and tribulations that the mountain served up.

And Pat Morrow would continue on from this expedition with his mission to successfully climb the 7 highest peaks on all 7 continents which he accomplished in 1986.

I think it’s safe to say that it was a life-changing experience for most of the climbers that partook in the expedition.

In 1992, for the 10-year anniversary of the climb, Dad took the family back to Nepal to trek to Everest Base Camp.

I had my 16th birthday on the trek and was just beginning to learn about what the world had to offer. Visiting Nepal, and having the experience I did with the Sherpas and communities in the Himalayas solidified my curiosity about different cultures.

I still remember sitting with Dawa, one of the Sherpas that was not much older than me. We were at a lunch spot resting and I was listening to my walkman (portable cassette tape player) when Dawa gestured at my ear. I understood that he wanted to know what I was listening to. It was Def Leppard and I eagerly handed it over for him to hear. His eyes lit up and I could see that he was very excited by it.

I’m sure it was like nothing he had ever heard before.

These sorts of cultural exchanges went on for the duration of our trip. They learned about us and we learned about them. It is a time that I will never forget.

Before and after the trek, we again stayed at the Everest Sheraton Hotel, which was the expedition headquarters back in 1982. I was amazed at how much smaller the hotel seemed than when I was 5 years old, and even more amazed that one of the doormen remembered me.

He had been working at the hotel during the expedition and being that it had such a high profile, and there were not many of us Canadian kids there, he distinctly remembered me.

I’m sure he had to open and close the door many times for us kids as we ran in and out constantly.

Of course, we had to snap a picture with him these 10 years later.

Unfortunately, there was one person in our group that had high altitude sickness earlier in the trek. So it slowed our schedule down and we weren’t able to make it to Base Camp.

It didn’t necessarily bother me that I hadn't made it to the Base Camp, but it must have been niggling at my mind because almost 4 years later in May of 1996, at the age of 19, I organized a trek for me and 6 of my friends to return to the Himalayas to finish what I had started.

This time we were all successful in our bid to reach Base Camp, but we arrived just as Scott Fisher and Rob Hall had been declared missing, and witnessed firsthand what would be the biggest Everest disaster to ever happen on the mountain. Of course, we didn’t realize how big the disaster was until we returned back to Canada to read of it in numerous magazine headlines.

While my Dad’s genetics have not worn off on me, and I have no desire to climb or reach the top of the world’s highest peaks, his thirst for adventure and his love of travel has certainly been passed down.

Everest has played a big part in my life and whenever I hear the word, nostalgia comes rushing back in many forms and I get a slight tingle in my belly and a knowing about the mountain and the Himalayas that most will never know.

I am so proud of my Dad and all that he has accomplished in his climbing and speaking career and was so happy to hear that they were hosting a 40th Anniversary of the Mount Everest summit on October 5th, 2022 in Canmore. Of course, a few of the climbers were there, plus spouses, kids and others partook in the big event.

Though many of them don’t see each other often anymore, they all have this amazing experience to reflect back on which will always be a part of their combined history.

I wish I could have been a part of the celebration.

And here is the whole crew that came out for the event. A monumental accomplishment celebrated by many.

To celebrate the 40th Anniversary, WOODS Canada has launched a limited edition selection of clothing and outdoor wear. Some of the items are near replicas of the gear that the climbers actually used on the mountain, and each item is labeled with the famous Everest 82 logo.

To purchase the collection, head to WOODS Canada’s website here.

Most of the climber's archives of this expedition have now been donated to the Whyte Museum and photo and video archives of the expedition are held at the Banff Centre, both in Banff, Alberta. If you are in the area and want to learn all of the details of this expedition, I encourage you to check it out.

It is a part of Canadian history that we can all be proud of.

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