A near-death experience changed Chip Olver’s life.
While trekking in the Himalayas in 1983, she took a big fall on a high mountain peak and ended up breaking her left ankle in two places, leaving her unable to walk.
Olver recalls how her crampons sheered off an icy slope and she tobogganed down the smooth, ice-crusted slope until she slammed into metre-high frozen wave-like formations that catapulted her into the air.
After three nights and a failed attempt at a helicopter rescue, a Sherpa guide, porters and a friend piggybacked her off the mountain. She was taken to Kathmandu before coming back to Canada for an operation 11 days later.
“I spent three days on the side of the mountain, knowing I had survived the fall, but not knowing if I would get off the mountain alive,” said Olver. “Little moments of my life flashed by and I began questioning the life I wanted to live.
“I wanted to be a better daughter, a better sister, a better person, a better friend and I wanted to be involved in my community.”
Olver had long tossed around the idea of some form of political or community life, and when a byelection was called in Banff in 1994, she knew it was her time to run for office.
“It just called to me. I knew that someday I wanted to be a councillor,” she said.
“I had volunteered in the community before, but I volunteered more and I became happier in my life. I like being involved in the community.”
That was almost 20 years ago. Olver last week was re-elected to her seventh term on council – making her the longest serving councillor since Banff became an incorporated municipality in 1991.
Securing 930 votes, she managed to beat her 2010 municipal election result of 886 votes.
Olver now joins fellow incumbents Stavros Karlos (1,316 votes), Brian Standish (1,094) and Grant Canning (1,037) at the new council table, along with newcomers Corrie DiManno (1,310) and Ted Christensen (879).
“There’s gratefulness, there’s relief, there’s excitement,” said Olver of her win.
“You really value the fact that people trust you enough to give you another chance at it.”
Since 1994, Olver has been juggling political life with family life. Her three children – Jamie, Linda and Thomas – are 22, 21 and 16 years old, respectively.
“I really, really, really like doing what I am doing,” she said. “And I have great family support.”
Heading into the new four-year term, Olver said there are many priorities, including a housing strategy, transportation master plan, recreation master plan and completion of the Land Use Bylaw review.
“This is the third election I have been saying we need to finish off the Land Use Bylaw review,” she said.
“It’s been such an incredibly long time and we’ve done a good and thorough job, but it’s brought home the fact that it’s a living document and we can’t leave it every 10 years to take the whole thing on.”
Olver said she is still committed to longer-term issues such as protecting Banff’s urban forest and work related to the Lands Adjacent to the Town of Banff (LATB) project.
“Just because something is old doesn’t mean it’s not valid,” she said.
