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Pierre Lemire Awarded 2015 Summit of Excellence

Pierre Lemire is an accomplished photographer and well-known mountain guide.

Lemire has been awarded the 2015 Summit of Excellence, which is an annual honour presented at the Banff Mountain Film and Book Festival.

Pierre Lemire.  Photo Henry Vaux Junior
Pierre Lemire. Photo Henry Vaux Junior

Lemire’s first mountain experiences were on Mount Washington’s steep slopes in New Hampshire. He was only 18 when he moved to the Rockies in 1965. He soon met an Association of Canadian Mountain Guide’s group heading up Mount Victoria and tagged along, his first big mountain.

Voices from the Summit
Voices from the Summit

Over the next few years, he worked and lived in Lake Louise and discovered a passion for taking photos. In 1971, with Hans Gmoser and Leo Grillmair as his examiners, he passed his first guides exam.

Three years later, he became a full mountain guide and started a career as a heli-ski guide. He worked in the climbing industry for decades and brought his camera everywhere he traveled.

Living in the small town of Field, B.C., Lemire is still very much a part of the mountain community. In 2000, some of his work was featured at the Whyte Museum in The Hills of Nepal exhibit.

The same year, a photo he took of the east face of Bugaboo Spire in the Bugaboos became the cover of Voices from the Summit, a book published by the National Geographic Society and The Banff Centre.

Lemire will be presented with the Summit of Excellence award on Nov. 8, the final night of the 2015 Banff Mountain Film and Book Festival. For more on the festival, visit here.

 

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