Whitewater to Off-road, the background of our guests is always fascinating. Join Rich and Chris Walker from Overland Training Canada for more adventure on Episode 227. Be sure to listen on your favorite podcast app.
SHOW NOTES
4:51 – very quickly, I found my passion was the outdoors – mountaineering, kayaking, flying, diving, caving and what have you
12:34– Gosh, I hurt myself a lot, nearly died a couple of times
17:37 – I’m not doing what I’m doing without their grit and determination to kick me into shape to be a good off-road driving instructor
25:14 – just jump out right here, grab your stuff, someone will come get you – I’m literally in the middle of nowhere, there’s no one in sight, I have no cell service and no idea where I am
37:36 – that’s a really hard question, I’ve never found a concise answer…
55:01 – I’ve been doing a lot with a big expedition called the Transglobal Car Expedition
Special thanks to 4low Magazine and Maxxis Tires for support and sponsorship of this podcast.
TRANSCRIPT
[00:01:40.090] – Big Rich Klein
On this episode of Conversations with Big Rich is Chris Walker. Chris went from being a canoeing and kayaking instructor in the UK to working with the Land Rover experience, then to creating a company called Overland Training Canada, which is a Canadian-based company that provides mobility training for the commercial, industrial, and recreational sector. Hello, Chris Walker. Good to have you on this. We’ve talked about it a couple of times, and here you are.
[00:02:10.800] – Chris Walker
Good afternoon, Rich. Yeah, great to talk to you, and finally, we made it happen. Thank you.
[00:02:15.600] – Big Rich Klein
Yeah. So let everybody know Chris Walker works on the Rebelle as part of the staff with Shelley and I and 124 others. But Chris is a good guy. He’s got quite the background in history, so we’re going to dive right into that right now. And so Chris.
[00:02:40.210] – Chris Walker
Sounds good.
[00:02:41.040] – Big Rich Klein
Tell me where you were born and raised.
[00:02:44.700] – Chris Walker
Well, despite my accent, it’s a little mongrel. I was born and raised in the UK. I grew up, most of my childhood being a school and educated and growing up there. And I moved to British Columbia, Canada, in 2006, along a varied journey of travel and exploration and work across the world.
[00:03:12.590] – Big Rich Klein
Okay. So what part of the UK I’m assuming England.
[00:03:18.650] – Chris Walker
Yeah, I mean, that’s where I spend a lot of my time schooling. My mom’s side of my family is from Wales, and then my dad’s side has a long history in England and Scotland. My parents live in South Wales. The vast majority of the rest of my relatives live up in Scotland, up towards Edinburgh there. I was schooled really Central England on the edge of the Cotswold, and then up towards North Wales in a small old Roman city called Chester. Then I moved on to North Wales, where I really started my career and my love and for the outdoors there.
[00:04:04.620] – Big Rich Klein
Going to school, I know Canada has… The school system is fairly close to what the United States is. I would imagine the UK is not too much different, but what studies did you have besides English reading and mathematics, that stuff? The usual stuff. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:04:31.460] – Chris Walker
I mean, normal education, although I guess it tailored it into something a little bit more specific, I was very lucky. I ended up in the middle of my schooling, and just through the nature of my parents having to move around for work, I ended up in a boarding school, which maybe some of the listeners might kill their heads or bulk of that, but honestly, it was one of the best experiences of my life. And what that did for me is it gave me lots of opportunities to to enjoy extracurricular activities. So things like the Boy Scouts, the Cub Scouts, the Cadets, the Come On Cadets there. And very quickly, I found that my passion really was the outdoors, mountaineering, kayaking, flying, diving, caving, and what have you. And the way the UK education system works is, or at the time, was as you get older towards high school, you can start to specify a little more on some of the subjects that you might interested in that would help you to gain entry into the university or universities of your choice. So I quickly realized through being a competitive swimmer, competitive rower, competitive kayaker, that I wanted to work in the outdoor education industry as a high-level coach or instructor. READ MORE
